fire-side poetry –
I turn to warm the left side
of my brain
winter solstice–
moving the scale
to a lighter place
credits: “winter solstice” – The Heron’s Nest
“fire-side poetry – Raw NerVZ Haiku Volume VII No. 3
by dagosan
rattled
by the parking space stalker
— season’s greetings!
[Dec. 19, 2004]
last stamp licked–
pushing the holiday
envelope
[12-22-03,
rev’d Dec. 19, 2004]
This week, Evan’s Legal Underground has been discussing ways to improve law school education so that graduates are better prepared to immediately practice law, and will (it is assumed) therefore have options other than law firms for their first jobs.
According to Harvard Law Today Dean Elena Kagan has “launched a curricular review to re-examine
how law is taught — for the first time since HLS Dean Christopher Langdell introduced the current
curriculum in the 1870s.” (by Beth Potier, at 7, Dec. 2004; story not available online) The article states:
“It’s time to say, ‘Is this really what students should be taking? Are they learning the set
of competencies that they need to master in order to go out and be great lawyers in today’s
world? How has the world changed in the last 100 and some years? she says. Kagan is
confident that the multiyear review will turn up an intensified focus on international and
comparative law, something relevant to all practicing lawyers today.
Just as Langdell’s 19th-century curriculum became the model for most modern law study in
America, so will the eyes of the nation’s legal scholars be on Harvard as it again rethinks
how it trains lawyers.
“If we do our jobs well in this area, we’ll be creating a law school curriculum not just for
Harvard but for legal education in general,” Kagan says. “It’s the great fun of this job,
but it’s also the great responsibility of it.”
Beyond the insitutional hubris in her remarks, it seems that Dean Kagan is talking about finding new subject
areas rather than finding ways to make law school a practical source of training (Note: there are good
arguments that legal education, especially at elite schools, should be about honing legal reasoning and
communicating skills, and general principles, rather than the nuts-and-bolts of everday practice.) I’m
skeptical that a curricular review dominated by law school administrators and professors will come up
with proposals that might significantly reduce the demand for law schools and law professors. Any
impetus for reducing the number of classroom semesters and switching to a series of apprentice-like clerking
and clinic options will probably have to come from the Bar itself.
I wanted to suggest that thoughtful ideas for improving the training of new lawyers be directed to
Dean Kagan’s office or the appropriate committee or project head. However, the online HLS Directory
lists, but gives no contact information for the Dean’s Office, merely linking back to the same Dean’s
Welcome page that sends you to the Directory for Contact Information. I could find no other HLS
entity online related to the curriculum review. When/if I get contact information, I shall let you know.
“The American Civil Liberties Union is using sophisticated technology to collect a wide
variety of information about its members and donors in a fund-raising effort that has
ignited a bitter debate over its leaders’ commitment to privacy rights.”
The lawyers and management at ACLU — like lawyers and management in most law firms — apparently throw
away core values and duties, when the task is acquiring money. Cf. Fees & the Lawyer-Fiduciary.
When it comes to protecting our freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, thank goodness for British and American courts. See today’s NYT editorial — A Message, from Britain to Washington. Are you listening, Mr. President?