The Law Review Should Become the Law School
![handle is hein.journals/valr31 and id is 943 raw text is: 1945] LAW REVIEW SHOULD BECOME LAW SCHOOL
THE LAW REVIEW SHOULD BECOME THE LAW
SCHOOL*
T HE method .of legal education represented by reading law in
a law office had a good deal to commend it. It was a com-
bination of instruction on an individual basis and of actual prac-
tice which applied quite modern ideas about attention to the in-
dividual and learning by doing. Its weakness was that the student
was denied the discipline of a. logically ordered development of
legal subjects and the stimulus and rounded knowledge which
come from a varied curriculum and the facilities of a large library.
The conventional law school class method, however, swings
too far to the other extreme. In order to impart the discipline
and breadth missing in the pioneer method, it is almost wholly
preoccupied with exposing the student to orderly development
of subjects and to a breadth of courses assumed to give most
complete coverage of the whole law. There is comparatively little
opportunity for individual attention and expression; and almost
no chance for the student to apply his learning in any practical way.
This weakness in the class method has led many schools to
introduce various palliatives in the form of moot court work,
legal aid, seminars, term papers, problem courses, and so on.
These are of quite limited effect, however, and even in the schools
which have resorted to them most extensively it is doubtful
whether the large majority of students finish their schooling
with any more than the briefest application of one or two of such
palliatives. For example, moot court work may be so organized
as, in the first year, to give virtually every student a couple of
cases but then, in the second year, to degenerate into competi-
tions which leave only a selected handful the beneficiaries of any
considerable moot court work.
There is another method of legal education which involves
*The idea which follows has pestered me ever since I was graduated from
law school twelve years ago. I present it with some apologies. It is written
without benefit of research; indeed it was first written on a locker box in a
military training camp.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/valr31&div=62&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Law Review Should Become the Law School
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