Practical Legal Education Needed

Three of the Law School's past and present deans yesterday offered wide-spread criticism of current legal education, generally agreeing that law schools should de-emphasize legal philosophy and provide students with more practical training.

In a symposium called, "Challenges to Legal Education," Erwin Griswold, Langdell Professor of Law Emeritus, James Vorenberg '48, dean of the Law School, and Albert Sacks, Dane Professor of Law, and two other law professors suggested different recommendations for making curricula less theoretical.

"Much of the legal writing is theoretical and not practical, and it is not able to be comprehended by a person of average intelligence," said Griswold, former dean at the Law School. Such an approach ignores the mission to train professionals with practical concerns, he said. Law professors are often mired in theoretical concerns and give little practical guidance to their students, the bulk of whom will be practicing lawyers, he said.

Vorenberg discussed plans for the school that he has run for the past five years. Calling for a program that would give assistance to the poor, he said, "I would like to see a joint program between law firms and the law schools, that creates a legal aid service." The program would have an additional feature of giving hands-on experience to law students, which he also said the law school curriculum currently lacks.

Professor of Law Martha Minow also proposed sweeping changes in the curriculum, even while quoting Woodrow Wilson who said, "trying to change curricula is liking trying to move a graveyard."

Her proposals include a greater emphasis on teaching the art of negotioation. She also advocated fostering moral debate, in response to the increased role of economics in the law, which seeks to look dispassionately at the effects of the law. Her final proposal was that there should be more study of comparitive law to "show that there are other models for legal systems, other than our own."

Harry Wellington, a Yale professor who served as dean for 10 years, criticized the fact that "law professors care more about philosophical movements among the faculty of arts and sciences than they do about the legal profession."