Re: Law School Considered Harmful

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: bill <bill () iocaine com>
Date: June 11, 2007 6:45:02 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Law School Considered Harmful

Dave,

Attending law school tends to turn out more than its fair share of  
annoying, overly precise 'fachidioten'.  I lived with a lawyer in a  
previous life.  One beautiful summer evening, we found ourselves down  
at Half Moon Bay, drinking sundowners as the sun set.  Two whales  
could be seen in silhouette as the cascade of color slowly melted  
into the Pacific horizon.

"That's incredibly beautiful," said I.
"What do you mean," snapped the lawyer, an IP litigatrix.
"All of this, it's amazing."
"What are you talking about?"
"Err...the sunset.  And the whales. And where we are sitting watching  
all of this.  It's beautiful, don't you think?"
She paused for several seconds, analyzing the scene.
"Yes."

I traded her in for a human girlfriend shortly thereafter.

-Bill

On Jun 11, 2007, at 12:37 PM, David Farber wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Daniel Weitzner <djweitzner () csail mit edu>
> Date: June 11, 2007 4:27:27 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] Law School Considered Harmful
>
> This is an oddly ahistorical view of an important question.
>
> That law school is a stressful, distorted environment is no big  
> surprise. This phenomenon was one of the motivations for a major  
> effort at institutional reform by progressive law professors called  
> the Critical Legal Studies movement. The CLS view of traditional  
> law school education was that the adversarial and intellectually  
> narrow nature of legal academe was not only personally distorting  
> but also impedes efforts to reform the legal system itself. (The  
> classic text is from Harvard Law Professor D. Kennedy, Legal  
> Education as Training for Hierarchy, in D. Kairys, ed. The Politics  
> of Law (1982, 2nd ed. 1990, 3d ed. 1998)) It's pretty odd that this  
> entire article fails to mention any of this background.
>
> CLS set out to revolutionize legal education but didn't quite  
> succeed except in a few law schools that did really broaden their  
> intellectual foundations and worked hard to eliminate adversarial,  
> hierarchical educational style. Full disclosure: I graduated from  
> Buffalo Law School, a major center of Critical Legal Studies  
> research and activism, and consider myself pretty happy. My own  
> view of this is that society actually wants lawyers who are mean,  
> nasty and narrow in order to have a venue in which to work out  
> those disputes that people are too lazy or shortsighted to sort out  
> humanely.
>
> Danny
>
> On Jun 11, 2007, at 3:07 PM, David Farber wrote:
>
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: W Craig Trader <craig () trader name>
> > Date: June 11, 2007 11:28:27 AM EDT
> > To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> > Subject: Law School Considered Harmful
> >
> > For IP, if you wish ...
> >
> > Study determines that Law School produces ... lawyers.
> >
> > http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/6/883
> >
> > Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law  
> > Students: A Longitudinal Test of Self-Determination Theory
> >
> > Kennon M. Sheldon, University of Missouri-Columbia
> > Lawrence S. Krieger, Florida State University
> >
> > ABSTRACT
> >
> > Longitudinal studies suggest that law school has a corrosive  
> > effect on the well-being, values, and motivation of students,  
> > ostensibly because of its problematic institutional culture. In a  
> > 3-year study of two different law schools, the authors applied  
> > self-determination theory's (SDT) dynamic process model of  
> > thriving to explain such findings. Students at both schools  
> > declined in psychological need satisfaction and well-being over  
> > the 3 years. However, student reports of greater perceived  
> > autonomy support by faculty predicted less radical declines in  
> > need satisfaction, which in turn predicted better well-being in  
> > the 3rd year and also a higher grade point average, better bar  
> > exam results, and more self-determined motivation for the first  
> > job after graduation. Institution-level analyses showed that  
> > although students at both schools suffered, one school was  
> > perceived as more controlling than the other, predicting greater  
> > difficulties for its students. Implications for SDT and for legal  
> > education are discussed.
> >
> > From the introduction:
> >
> > "The popular notion that law school is an exceptionally stressful  
> > experience for many students has been substantiated by  
> > longitudinal studies ...  Indeed, the emotional distress of law  
> > students appears to significantly exceed that of medical students  
> > and at times to approach that of psychiatric populations ...   
> > These findings have substantial human and social significance,  
> > given that the level of adjustment of graduating law students is  
> > likely to carry over into professional practice and may set the  
> > stage for the unparalleled frequency of psychological distress ...  
> > and other problems seen broadly among lawyers today ...
> >
> > "Legal commentators have suggested several basic features of  
> > contemporary legal education that may contribute to these  
> > problems.  These features include overvaluing theoretical  
> > scholarship and undervaluing the teaching function ..., employing  
> > generally unsound teaching and testing methods ..., and  
> > emphasizing abstract theory rather than providing practical  
> > training ...
> > "Observers further suggest that such priorities and processes  
> > train students to ignore their own values and moral sense,  
> > undermine students' sense of identity and self-confidence, and  
> > create cynicism...  These commentaries, taken together, suggest  
> > that the normative faculty and institutional practices may thwart  
> > the needs and preferences of typical law students."
> >
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