Not Socrates, but Protagoras: The Sophistic Basis of Legal Education 29 Buffalo Law Review 1980

29 Buff. L. Rev. 399 (1980)
Not Socrates, but Protagoras: The Sophistic Basis of Legal Education

handle is hein.journals/buflr29 and id is 411 raw text is: NOT SOCRATES, BUT PROTAGORAS: THE SOPHISTIC BASIS
OF LEGAL EDUCATION*
WILLIAM C. HEFFERNAN**
This essay takes seriously law professors' claim that they teach
according to Socratic method. The claim may not always be put
forward in all seriousness; in fact, it may sometimes be intended
more as a conceit than as an accurate description of the techniques
of legal education. But if reference to Socratic method does involve
a conceit, then it is surely the conceit of legal education1 and, as
such, deserves careful consideration no matter how fancifully it
may be proposed. If, on the other hand, reference to Socratic
* Copyright 0 1981 William C. Heffernan
** Assistant Professor of Law, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of
New York. B.A. 1968, Columbia University, M.A. 1974, Ph.D. 1976, Harvard University;
J.D. 1978, University of Chicago. I would like to thank Rogers Brubaker, Rolly Phillips,
Barbara Porton, James White and William Young for comments made on earlier drafts of
this essay.
1. For a sampling of references to Socratic method, see J. REDLCH, THE COMMON LAW
AND THE CASE METHOD IN AMERICAN UNIvERsrTY LAW SCHOOLs: A REPORT TO THE CARNEGIE
FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANcEMENT OF TEACHING 12, 25, 29, 30, 51, 69 (1914) [hereinafter
cited as REDLICH]; Fuller, On Teaching Law, 3 STAN. L. Rxv. 35, 40 (1950); Gilmore, The
Assignee of Contract Rights and His Precarious Security, 74 YALE L. J. 217 (1964); Keeton,
Warren Abner Seavey-Teacher, 79 HA~v. L. REv. 1333, 1335 (1966); Kelso, Teaching
Teachers: A Reminiscence of the 1971 AALS Law Teachers Clinic and a Tribute to Harry
W. Jones, 24 J. OF LEGAL EDUC. 606, 607 (1972); Kennedy, How the Law School Fails: A
Polemic, 1 YALE REv. OF LAw ANm Soc. ACT. 71, 73 (1970); Ladd, Edmund M. Morgan, 79
HARV. L. REV. 1546, 1548 (1966); Meltsner & Schrag, Report from a CLEPR Colony, 76
COLUM. L. REv. 581, 582n (1976); Patterson, The Case Method in American Legal Educa-
tion: Its Origins, 4 J. OF LEGAL EDuc. 1, 17 (1951); Patton, The Student, the Situation and
Performance During the First Year of Law School, 21 J. OF LEGAL EDUC. 10, 38 (1968);
Prosser, Warren Seavey, 79 HAnv. L. REv. 1338, 1339 (1966); Richardson, Does Anyone
Care for More Hemlock?, 25 J. OF LEGAL EDUC. 427, 434-41 (1973); Savoy, Towards a New
Politics of Legal Education, 79 YALE L.J. 444, 457 (1970); Scott, Samuel Williston, 76 HARv.
L. REv. 1330, 1331-32 (1963); Stone, Legal Education on the Couch, 85 HARv. L. REv. 392,
406-07 (1971); Taylor, Law School Stress and the 'Deformation Professionelle' 27 J. OF
LEGAL EDuc. 251, 254 (1975); Watson, The Quest for Professional Competence: Psychologi-
cal Aspects of Legal Education, 37 U. CIN. L. REv. 93, 119-37; Comment, Anxiety and the
First Semester of Law School, 1968 Wis. L. REv. 1201, 1203. The invocation of Socrates'
name was varied somewhat by Dean Casper, who remarked of Harry Kalven that he was a
law teacher who did not teach by 'the Socratic method,' but who was a Socrates. Dedica-
tion to Harry Kalven, 43 U. Cm. L. REv. (1975).

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