...employers should not be responsible for basic legal training, and clients should not suffer the mistakes of novices who have not been comprehensively prepared and supervised...
With the introduction of the Langdellian case method, students were jolted out of the passive silence of the lecture. Case method professors challenge students to discover and interpret legal rules themselves in controlled, rigorous dialogue about judicial opinions they have read in advance. This method builds students’ judgment about the interpretation and evolution of rules, and it goes some way toward building their judgment about the interpretation of facts, but it does little to build judgment about the less matter-of-fact work of investigating and developing of facts, or investigating and developing of goals, or strategically managing professional interactions. In short, without modification or supplementation, this Langdellian method neglects the more relational dimensions of legal practice.
Some believe that relational judgment and skill are the un-teachable results of natural talent or repeated practice. This belief may account in part for the fact that relational skills are neglected in the core curriculum of legal training and left to be acquired in clinical programs that are available to only a fraction of law students, and in summer and post-graduate practice settings. Most will agree, however, that the development of these important skills should begin in structured settings and under close expert guidance. Employers should not be responsible for basic legal training, and clients should not suffer the mistakes of novices who have not been comprehensively prepared and supervised. Clinical and lawyering faculties and a growing number of case method teachers have stepped into the breach by designing methods to support the development of law students’ relational skills until they are “client ready” and prepared to supplement rather than tax an employer’s resources. Authors of course texts increasingly employ a problem method that places students in role as legal problem-solvers and therefore expand the range of strategic or relational analysis that can be done in a classroom.