Landis Wants More Emphasis on Public Law, Favors Restricted Admissions

Generalizing on the new Law School curriculum, which will go into effect in the fall of next year, the new Dean of the School, James M. Landis, stated that "we are striving to increase the emphasis on public law and its significance in the light of political developments."

Interviewed in his office in Langdell Hall the former SEC chairman and that he was glad to return to Harvard after an absence of four years. Once started on legal subjects, it was difficult to sidetrack the Dean to matters of his private life.

"Hobbies?" he said, inhaling a long puff from his cigarette, "well, I like bridge and golf. I'm a fairly good bridge player and a very bad golf player." He spoke of a summer cruise on the coast of Maine. "There were five lawyers on board," he smiled, "but still we managed to navigate without getting on any reefs."

Likes Stiff Admissions

The Dean expressed himself as anxious to see the final law school registration figures of this year to see the effect of the new "increased selection" admissions policy, of which he spoke strongly in favor. "The policy is based upon the finding that there is a class correlation between a man's work in college and his work in law school," he asserted. He claimed that those excluded would have had at least a 60 per cent chance of failing, and he hoped that the effect of the policy would be to reduce the number of the failures in the first year.

Speaking of the emphasis on corporate law under the new plan, the Dean said that he considered that our civilization might today be termed a "corporate" one, "We are seeking to study this phase of law not only from the standpoint of professional practice but also from the point of view of weighing the plan of the corporation in our legal and economic life."

Upperclassmen Have More Choice

The increased specialization of law is responsible for the part of the new program which permits greater flexibility in the second and third years, the Dean said. As for the changes in courses, he said that this was done with a view toward injecting into these courses business, economic, and sociological data rather than resting them upon mere theory. Using Criminal Law as an example, he stated that the administration of criminal justice was to be emphasized as much as the substantive law itself.

Dean Landis announced that Harvard could not allow itself to sit back on its heels in the matter of graduate school study. "Although we offer the widest range of graduate work of any law school, we must make an effort to build it up still further." He claimed that the importance of graduate law work is not in getting degrees but in making contributions to legal knowledge.

The Dean would not go far in the way of political comments and declined to discuss the subject of Senator Black's appointment. As for the appointment of William O. Douglas as SEC head, Dean Landis said that it was "a fine choice."