Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Legal Writing: Did Harvard Get It Right?, Laurel Currie Oates

Mercer Law Review

For most law students, there is a moment when, in frustration or exhaustion, they throw up their hands and scream, "There must be a better way." While many of the cases in the casebooks are interesting, learning the law one case at a time seems, at best, inefficient, and at worst, just plain stupid. Wouldn't it be much easier, and better, if law schools used the same pedagogy that is used in many other disciplines: reading assignments, lectures, and exams that test whether students have learned the information set out in those textbooks and lectures?

When students question law school …