Community and Movement

Since beginning this project I never cease to be amazed at the breadth and diversity of the movement to humanize legal education and other related movements.  I think many of you would be very interested in “Cutting Edge Law” a blog/on-line magazine with the following mission:

Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

Toto Reveals the Man Behind the Curtain

We have a lot to figure out.  Yesterday, a student dropped by my office and told me that she had come across this blog.  She then shared with me briefly how she and some of her peers had felt very uncomfortable and suddenly afraid to speak in their first-year classes because the comments and concerns that they had about the material were so different than what they were supposed to be thinking and talking about.

Preview: What Faculty Members Can Do to Humanize Legal Education and Improve Law Student Performance

This blog is currently at the stage of identifying and defining the problem of why law students and lawyers do not thrive with respect to several indicia.  But before this all becomes too morose, I want to cut to the chase and preview some of the very exciting and encouraging research that has been done on potential solutions to this problem.

From the Comments: A “Free to Be You and Me” Law School?

I am re-posting a comment on the Proust entry to the main body of the blog because it raises a very important issue, and may spark quite a bit of conversation.  shg’s comment really goes to the heart of the concern about the movement to humanize legal education, and is an important issue for proponents of the movement to respond to, in my view.

Proust’s Nightmare (Mertz’s Proposition 3)

“In my most desperate moments, I have never conceived of anything more horrible than a law office.”

Marcel Proust, quoted by Alain de Botton in How Proust Can Change Your Life at 12.

Forests, Trees, and Thoughts on the Case Method (Mertz’s Proposition 2)

Previously, we learned about the overarching premise of Mertz’s 7 Propositions: that premise being that law school teaches students a way of knowing (an epistemology) by teaching students a common language that structures their view of the world, the people in it, and human conflict. On another level, legal language (what we read and how we learn to speak) structures the pursuit of the “right” answer, that is, the truth.

Law School Musical

The following link was provided to me by a student.  The video falls in the same category as “A Coloring Book for Lawyers,” which I mentioned in my previous post, in that the video presents a satirical and also despondent take on the life of a law student.  Depending on your perspective, it is quite well put together.

TRUE STORY: Law school students don’t know about the movement to humanize legal education.

Last week I was training a group of Student Leaders: high-performing, upper-level law students selected to help 1Ls navigate their first year of law school.  I mentioned the movement to humanize legal education and asked how many were aware of it or had even heard about it.  No hands went up.

And I thought to myself, “This movement is supposed to be for them.  How can they benefit from it if they aren’t even aware that it exists?”