Corporate Governance

Law Teaching and Technology: Views from the Academy (More Specifically Steve Bainbridge)

By J. Robert Brown

Steve Bainbridge at UCLA has a short paper out, Reflections on Twenty Years of Law Teaching. There are a host of interesting observations, including his conclusion that "the Socratic Method does not really teach one to think like a lawyer.  At best it teaches one to think like a litigator." It's a fair comment and probably even overstates the benefit to litigators.  But having said that, at least some form of back and forth (not necessarily Socratic discussion) keeps students involved in the analysis and discussion (a struggle given their increasingly common predilection for using computers to largely take dictation).  It is preferable to straight lecture.

The most interesting insight is his view on technology in the classroom.  Luddites at Chicago have proposed that Internet access in the class room be cut off.  Some professors likewise suggested that computers be banned from the classroom.  As Bainbridge notes, the potential distraction provided by comptuers and the Internet are merely an "up-to-date version of an age-old issue."

• Back "in the day" when I was one of Levmore's [the dean at Chicago] students at Virginia, there were times when we did not pay much attention in class.  And while we did not have laptop computers, we had lots of other ways to distract and amuse ourselves.  Solving crosswords.  Playing turkey bingo.  Daydreaming.  Passing notes.  Doodling.  Writing letters.  Editing law review articles.  Reading for another class.  Hiding a comic book inside our case books.

We actually talked about the same thing here (one faculty member in particular wanted to block the Internet).  Fortunately, the effort was stillborn.

As Bainbridge notes, its more than just a battle with technology (or even behavior).  Its a refusal to find a way to integrate technology into the classroom.  In my securities/corporate law classes, power point slides are augmented by routine use of the Internet.  In securities, it's to go to the SEC web page and examine relevant SEC filings.  Sometimes it involves a trip to the NYSE web site to look over the company's definition of independent director.  Bainbridge notes that he has experimented with the use of blogs and is considering requiring students to construct wikis.

Technology is here to stay and will continue to have significant impact on the practice of law.  Law schools that are ahead of the curve in this area will provide competitive advantages to their students.  Thus, for a short time, every student at the University of Denver was learning how to use Case Map (case management software) in the first year research and writing program.  On this issue, Bainbridge is right and Chicago is wrong.

Full post as published by The Race to the Bottom on December 11, 2008 (boomark / email).