The Law School Cuts Loose

A new and interesting experiment in departmental cooperation was begun last fall. Aggressive Dean Landis of the Law School believes that the College and the Law School have been pulling in opposite directions, and that the concentration of a future Law student in History, Government or Economics makes his pre-Law training too specialized. His brain child, the Seven Year Law Program, is designed to pull together the loose strings of Undergraduate and Law School life to make a complete and working whole.

The main emphasis of the Program is on an increased and postponed study of the Social Sciences. The growth of industrial society and government intervention has enormously increased the scope of both private and public Law, and a good lawyer must of necessity be a social scientist. With this end in view the work which is now done by an undergraduate in his field of concentration will be largely shifted to his last two years of Law School, when Dean Landis feels sure he will be better equipped to handle the great and growing problems of economics and political science. His previous Law training will act first as a discipline, secondly as a guidebook to what is important in the forest of a liberal education.

In the Dean's own words, "acquaintance with and appreciation of the many facets of life and thought are as essential to the making of a great lawyer as pure professional equipment." Therefore the Seven Year Plan is rather a mixed pie both as regards studies and their distribution. Social Science is first seasoned with a goodly mixture of English Literature, Greek or Latin and Laboratory Science. When he has completed these and decided on his field of concentration the prospective Justice packs his bags and is off to Law School as a Junior. He misses his Senior Year, perhaps his most important one for social and extra-curricular activities. In return he gets one of the most valuable experiences in Law School: the chance to argue, hash and re-hash cases with other Law students. He is urged to make all the friends he can and to argue all he can in these first two years (during which he completely skips his College work) for the last two years will be busy ones. In the sixth and seventh years he must pick up his College work where he left off, take his Divisional or General Exams, do tutorial, write his thesis, and finish his remaining Law work. This is a brief-case full of work to say the least, and his last year will be a hair-raising wait for news of the two degrees which hang in the balance.

The Program is in charge of a committee headed by Dean Landis, with Dean Chauncey on the College end. It is a gentlemen's agreement that the two Seniors, five Juniors and nineteen Sophomores who are in the Program at present may drop out at any time and enter the Law School in the usual manner.

The Seven Year Plan is an entirely new experiment in legal education in this country, and deserves the attention of all Law-minded Freshmen who are considering a field of concentration. The twenty-six in the Landis Plan are the first along a road which may lead to an interlocking of all colleges and their graduate schools. Lawyers, Law Schools and Colleges of the country are watching the Seven Year Plan with interest.