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Ian Gallacher

2011

Legal Education

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Thinking Like Non-Lawyers: Why Empathy Is A Core Lawyering Skill And Why Legal Education Should Change To Reflect Its Importance, Ian Gallacher Jan 2011

Thinking Like Non-Lawyers: Why Empathy Is A Core Lawyering Skill And Why Legal Education Should Change To Reflect Its Importance, Ian Gallacher

Ian Gallacher

This article is an exploration of some of the issues raised by the recent Carnegie Report on legal education, and contains a recommendation that law schools change the way they teach especially first year law students in order to make them more empathetically aware of the circumstances by which the court opinions they study arose and the effects those opinions will have on others. This recommendation is made not just because it will make students better people, but also because it will make them better lawyers; the article analyses in depth the dangers inherent in an overemphasis on the “logical” …