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Vulnerable Populations And Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader, Chapter 6 - Vulnerability In Contracting: Teaching First-Year Law Students About Inequality And Its Consequences, Deborah Post, Deborah Zalesne Nov 2013

Vulnerable Populations And Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader, Chapter 6 - Vulnerability In Contracting: Teaching First-Year Law Students About Inequality And Its Consequences, Deborah Post, Deborah Zalesne

Deborah W. Post

Traditional legal pedagogy fails to demonstrate the relationship of contract to the subordination of vulnerable populations. As a result, students rarely see the complex web of interrelationships where economic activity takes place or the legal regime that maintains it. Students are not taught how to interrogate the discourse or dismantle the systems and structures that oppress subordinated communities. This Essay describes a technique that we have developed to help students learn the meaning of law and its cultural, social, and structural significance. The traditional framing of the study of contract doctrine as one that is objective, neutral, and fair avoids …


Thinking Like Thinkers: Is The Art And Discipline Of An "Attitude Of Suspended Conclusion" Lost On Lawyers?, Donald J. Kochan Aug 2011

Thinking Like Thinkers: Is The Art And Discipline Of An "Attitude Of Suspended Conclusion" Lost On Lawyers?, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

In his 1910 book, How We Think, John Dewey proclaimed that “the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquainting the attitude of suspended conclusion. . .” This Article explores that insight and describes its meaning and significance in the enterprise of thinking generally and its importance in law school education specifically. It posits that the law would be best served if lawyers think like thinkers and adopt an attitude of suspended conclusion in their problem solving affairs. Only when conclusion is suspended is there space for the exploration of the subject at hand. The …