Academic

Hole vs. Donut: A response to Darren Bush

By University of Houston Law Center

Darren, the Stracher piece is a mild call for a corrective to a skewed educational system. Yes, there are occasions for intellectual debate in the law. But they are rare, compared to other things.

They are possible in larger doses for people in the Justice Department or academia because they are in a rarified atmosphere; they don’t have clients and can afford “wasted meetings” that other lawyers could not. Yes, law school should prepare people for those relatively rare moments of intellectual debate, because they are important. But you have focused on the hole in Stracher’s piece rather than the doughnut. Most of the law is not intellectual debate. Instead, it is about fact development, transactional planning, and such matters—which require a lot of intellect, but are not developed very well by law school. They determine whether lawyers serve their clients well or poorly. You know this to be true. That is the point, and it’s one that is important enough to take seriously. And that’s why Peter Hoffman sent this article around.

Further, the concept that “articling” can supply what is missing was, indeed, daze of youth!

Full post as published by University of Houston Law Center Faculty Blog on February 08, 2007 (boomark / email).