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Mike Leach, football coaching, and law school

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

Geoff already commented on Mike Leach's new article in Texas Tech Law Review, talking about how law school prepared him to be a football coach. Geoff noted that Leach reports as an actual in-class event a version of a scene from The Paper Chase ("Go call your mother . . ."), so I wonder about that part of the paper. I also wonder about Leach's description of the Socratic-method-on-steroids class (civ pro, teaching Pennoyer); I went to law school for 3 years and have taught for 9 and have never actually seen anything remotely approaching what he described, either as a student or in observing my colleagues.

Paul Caron offers his comments, along with a link to Leach's paper. Caron highlights Leach's direct comparisons between coaching and law school, including his suggestion of a certain rugged individualism to law school and the "certain amount of treachery and adaptation it takes to be successful" in both.

I would echo Leach's wind-up to any students: A law degree is a degree in problem-solving, so go find problems that you are passionate about and help solve them. To me, that is the goal for lawyers.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on January 26, 2010 (boomark / email).