The Language of Law School This page intentionally left blank

Modified Socratic Exchanges: Lessons on Authority
in Discourse Form and Content
In three of the classrooms of the study, professors spent a considerable percentage
of time in the focused dialogue typical of Socratic exchanges (Classes #1, #4, and
#5). I would not characterize any of these professors as “strict” Socratic teachers;
they spent only between 45% and 60% of the time in this kind of dialogue, and
they supplemented the dialogic exchanges with lectures that overtly clarified doc-
trine, an approach not associated with the classic stereotype of Socratic teaching.
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Indeed, in two of these three classes, the professors spend 49% and 47% of the time
in monologue or lecture, far more than would be found in the archetypical Socratic
classroom. In the third classroom (Class #1), which had the highest amount of
focused dialogic exchanges (60%), only 17% of the time was spent in lecture. This
might lead us to conclude that the professor was conforming closely to a strict
Socratic model; however, this class had a much higher amount of nonfocused dia-
logue (i.e., short exchanges with multiple students) than was found in the other
two modified Socratic classes (24% as compared with 5% and 6%, respectively).
This higher percentage of nonfocused, more free-ranging dialogic exchange be-
tween professor and multiple students is actually more typical of the short-exchange
classes, where it occupied from 13% to 46% of class time. However, because there
was a substantial amount of focused dialogue in Class #1, I categorize it as a “modi-
fied Socratic” classroom.
The bulk of the textual examples used in previous chapters came from either
the modified Socratic or the short-exchange classrooms, so that we have already
encountered numerous examples of the ways that a shared message about legal texts
is imparted across these differently structured classes. Recall that in Transcript 4.5,
a modified Socratic form of dialogue was used to focus students’ attention on the
details (and accompanying background research) needed for a competent state-
ment of facts (“What kind of a mortgage was it?”). In Transcript 4.7 we found the
professor conveying the peculiar epistemological status of legal facts through use
of modified Socratic exchange (characterized by combined questioning and very
brief interspersed lecture-style commentary). Transcript 3.3 demonstrated the use
of modified Socratic method to teach the application of law to facts in different
cases (at the same time as it demonstrated the integral role of analogizing fact pat-
terns to the development of legal doctrine). Transcript 3.1 provided a wonderful
example of the use of dialogue to clarify doctrine. And in Transcript 4.17, we heard
a modified Socratic teacher interrupt a student to correct an inapt blurring of ge-
neric boundaries in an attempted recitation of facts.
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Unlike the lecturer, then, professors in modified Socratic classrooms gener-
ally seek to convey their points to a large extent through extended interactions with
individual students. During these exchanges, professors push students to move

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Similarity
further into case analysis. The dialogue here arguably attempts to mirror a thought
process, an idea captured in the popular description of law school education as
“learning to think like a lawyer.” In Socratic classrooms, this process of thinking
like lawyer is taught through dialogic speech in which students are by example
encouraged to ask themselves a series of questions about the case and to consider
the arguments on both sides in answering those questions. (In Chapter 6 we will
consider other ramifications of this dialogic form.)
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 Typically, the most canonical
Socratic teachers avoid giving direct answers or summaries, leaving it to the dia-
logic process and the student’s diligence in following it through to do the teach-
ing. This pure form is not common in the transcripts from this study; it is more
often the case that professors step back and provide answers, if not immediately,
then at the end of a particular case or doctrinal discussion—or as class is conclud-
ing. However, we can find some whispers of the canons of strict Socratic teaching
at points in the modified Socratic classes.