The Language of Law School This page intentionally left blank

Symbols of Government
; Robinson,
Law and the Lawyers
; Frank, “Why Not a Clinical Lawyer-School?”; Frank, “A Plea for
Lawyer Schools” and “A Disturbing Look at the Law Schools”; Pound, “The Scope and
Purpose of Sociological Jurisprudence.”
87. Under the aegis of “critical” scholarship, I include critical race theory, critical legal
studies, feminist legal theory, and some extensions of poststructuralist and queer theory
to legal arenas. See, e.g., Crenshaw, “Foreword”; Hantzis, “Kingsfield and Kennedy”; D.
Kennedy,
Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy
; Menkel-Meadow, “Feminist
Legal Theory”; Ramachandran, “Re-Reading Difference”; Rhode, “Missing Questions”;
Unger,
Law in Modern Society
.
88. See Friedland, “How We Teach,” 28; Johnson, 
Schooled Lawyers
, 179; Menkel-
Meadow, “What’s Missing,” 600; Stevens,
 Law School
, 156–158; but see Shaffer and
Redmount,
Lawyers, Law Students, and People
, 168. As Menkel-Meadow points out, law
teachers today use Socratic method teaching for quite different substantive ends than
originally envisioned by Langdell, “some pointing to the political underpinnings of the
rules, others to the efficiencies of the rules, others to the competing arguments that can
be made ‘on either side’ of the rule, anticipating its change in other factual circum-
stances.” Menkel-Meadow, “What’s Missing,” 600. This observation is supported by the
findings of our study, which track Socratic-type structures through quite diverse topics
and even discourse formats.
89. Johnson, 
Schooled Lawyers
, xvii.
90. Zemans and Rosenblum, 
Making of a Public Profession
, 204–206. This observa-
tion finds support in a number of studies documenting a move away from idealism and
moral concerns during law school. See, e.g., Erlanger et al., “Law Student Idealism”; Sto-
ver,
Making It and Breaking It.
 Janoff found that in one law school, female law students
begin to suppress a relational orientation after the first year, moving more to impersonal
and abstract rights approaches. Janoff, “The Influence of Legal Education.”
91. D. Kennedy, 
Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy
, 17–20; see also
Shaffer, “Moral Implications,” 190.
92. J. B. White, “Doctrine in a Vacuum,” 35. In his recent book, 
From Expectation to
Experience
, 1–7, 14–15, J. B. White maintains this fundamental perspective but also paints
a somewhat more complex view of the situation: no class ever lives up to our highest ex-
pectations, and in reality law school teaching does not map neatly onto a stereotype of
“doctrine in a vacuum,” although the image does capture some important “forces” at work
in legal education.
93. This is a theme echoed throughout much of the literature criticizing Socratic
method teaching. See, e.g., Bryden, “What Do Law Students Learn?”; Landman, “Anent
the Case Method”; Llewellyn, “The Current Crisis in Legal Education”; Patterson, “The
Case Method.”
94. See Chester and Alumbaugh, “Functionalizing First-Year Legal Education”;
Dallimore, “The Socratic Method”; Frank, “Why Not a Clinical Lawyer-School?”;
Vukowich, “The Lack of Practical Training in Law Schools.”
236
Notes to Pages 26–27

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95. See Cutler, “Inadequate Law School Training”; David, “The Clinical Lawyer-
School”; Devitt, “Why Don’t Law Schools Teach Law Students How to Try Lawsuits?”
96. See, e.g., Baker, “Transcending the Legacies of Literacy”; Burton, “Cultivating
Ethical”; Calleros, “Training a Diverse Student Body”; Cunningham, “Lawyer as Transla-
tor”; Stanchi, “Resistance Is Futile.” In recent years, there have been interesting attempts
to bridge divisions among traditional law teaching, clinical approaches, and social science
as part of a movement toward a “new legal realism.” See Conley, “How Bad Is It”; Trubek,
“Crossing Boundaries.”
97. Stone, “Legal Education on the Couch.”
98. Id., 412–428. On law student distress and alienation, see,.e.g., Carrington and
Conley, “The Alienation of Law Students”; Benjamin et al., “The Role of Legal Education”;
Glenn, “Some Thoughts.” J. M. Mitchell, taking a different approach, drew on cognitive
and developmental theories of expert and novice thinking to develop a list of suggested
improvements on the traditional teaching methodology. J. Mitchell, “Current Theories on
Expert and Novice Thinking.” For one updated resource on alternative teaching methods
in law, see Torres and Lundwall, “Moving beyond Langdell II.” As noted earlier, the cur-
rent literature is replete with suggested innovations and novel applications of psychology
or sociology to legal education, particularly in the areas of clinical teaching and legal writ-
ing. Unfortunately, a status gap between these fields and that of other law professors means
that the latter are unlikely to value or read (and thus learn from) their colleagues’ often
better informed understandings of pedagogical innovations.
99. See, e.g., Boyle, “Employing Active-Learning Techniques”; Jacobson, “A Primer
on Learning Styles”; Richmond, “Teaching Law to Passive Learners”; Randall, “The Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator”; Ripps, “A Curriculum Course.”
100. See Daicoff, “Lawyer Know Thyself,” for a comprehensive review of the litera-
ture dealing with the lawyer and law student personality and other attributes. Daicoff draws
on empirical research to document an overall shift during law school away from interest
in people, emotions, interpersonal matters, and altruism, and a concomitant shift toward
emphasis on logic, rationality, rights, rules, authoritarianism, achievement, competitive-
ness, and aggression. In this original article, Daicoff suggests that some of these aspects of
law school training might actually fit well with the overall professional profile found in
successful lawyers, and thus might serve a useful purpose despite appearances to the con-
trary. In her recent book on the same issue, Daicoff adds a new, more hopeful perspec-
tive, arguing that although some of the less attractive aspects of legal education might serve
professional ends, it is important to counterbalance these with training that takes account
of skills and traits often neglected or disfavored in legal education—as a way to mitigate
the negative effects of lawyers’ prototypical approach on public confidence in the profes-
sion, on professional ethics, and on lawyer satisfaction. Daicoff,