Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Oh yeah, I am supposed to be learning stuff here

Sometimes, I forget that the real purpose of law school is to learn to be a lawyer. It seems like a lot of what we do all day outside of classes can have little to do with academics. You go to hear various presentations, worry about finding a job, try to socialize with other students, etc, and through most of it, there isn't a lot of talk about lawyering. Or legal theory.

I chatted today with two students who would like to try and change things so that teaching and learning are more the focus of discourse at the law school. I honestly hadn't thought about "learning and teaching" in so long, that I had to just sit and listen to them for a while. My school claims to have a more "practical" approach to legal education. That's terrific. Unfortunately, only about 10% of the professors seem to teach us anything practical. The rest of the time, it's just a bunch of theories. I find some of them really interesting, but no one talks about THE LAW outside of class.

Before I started law school, my ridiculous idealism led me to believe that we would be having discussions about THE LAW in coffee shops all the time while wearing plaid skirts with tall brown boots, and possibly berets.

I don't even own a beret. Maybe that's why all those sophisticated legal discussions never occur.

Note to self: purchase beret, plaid skirt and smart looking brown boots. Tortoiseshell glasses too!

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