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1 Law Tchr. 1 (1993-1994)

handle is hein.journals/lawteaer1 and id is 1 raw text is: t A' , TI-E LAW GONZAGA UNIVERSITY Institute for Law School Teaching Fall 1993 Boring By Robert E. Rains et us speak the truth. Law school is too often, er, you our students' perspective, anything that occurred before know, kind of, well, boring. Was it any different roughly last week has the reality and significance of, say, the when you were in law school? War of Jenkins' Ear. And because they have been raised in Oh yes, and also irrelevant. This, of course, is not exactly the ahistorical era of the sound-bite, students cannot readily surprising inasmuch as we - law profs, that is - are, by understand the framework of law - much less justice and large, refugees from the practice of law specifically, and from traditional law school fare. the real world in general. The major distinction among us is I have no answers, only a few suggestions. We must simply the remoteness in time of our flight to the asylum. intersperse traditional legal education methods with media Every now and then I break bread with former students that are user-friendly for students. But the TV show, film, enthralled by the practice of law. I always ask two etc., must always be a supplement to, not a substitute for, questions. How was law school? Their eyes glaze over as traditional law school programming. they struggle to find an honest answer that won't be too Every year, my most successful class transpires when I insulting. Did you learn anything that has actually been show the PBS video, Eyes on the Prize, America's Civil useful in your work as a lawyer? Rights Years, Episode 2. They ponder that one a while. I Fighting Back (1957-62), to can almost see the mental search Because they have been raised in the my Education Law Seminar of those long-closed files. Then ahistorical era of the sound-bite, students students. They are assigned to the light dawns. Gosh, no, they cannot readily understand the framework read Brown v. Board of invariably conclude. lw m c lesj tieEducation and its 1 960s Now before you turn the page of -te -from progeny prior to class. But (or worse) in anger, let me traditional law school fare. they just don't get it. Then reassure you of that which you they see the National Guard are already thinking. These with bayonets drawn at Little hackneyed condemnations don'ttapply to you (orme) personally, Rock's Central High and lawyer Thurgood Marshall and Old only to our colleagues collectively and to our grandiose, if ill- Miss ablaze and public schools chained shut by government defined, mutual endeavor, decree. The reaction tends toward actual disbelief. It cannot In the words of a now out-of-favor revolutionary, what is be true; it can't have happened. Then I bring out my secret to be done? The problem is to bring reality into a largely weapon: a black colleague who grew up in Alabama in that unreal exercise. This is, of course, not exactly an original era, who calmly relates the conditions under which she brainstorm. The trick is how to do it. Langdell tried to fought for what every one of my students has always taken concoct a science out of cases. (Methinks the result was for granted, the right to attend high school. Her one-hour closer to alchemy.) Others have come up with moot courts visit to my class, by the way, would dispel anyone's doubts and moot court teams, live clinics and that perfect about the critical need for multiculturalism in legal education. oxymoron: simulation clinics. Continued on page 2 All of these methods may to borrow from medical terminology - provide valid aid to students if administered in homeopathic doses. Overdone, they will invariably tIside induce iatrogenic disorders in the patients. Now, despite what you may think when you read final Doctors in the classroom .............3 exams, law students are pretty darn smart. By the second An inventory for teaching analysis ......5 week of school they know us for what we are. Dare I say it? Graded assignments............................ 7 Fossils! But, as any paleontologist will tell you, there is still Institute grants..................10 much to be learned from fossils. The analogy is apt. From

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