In general, I have to come down on Scott's side here. I haven't followed Spence's blog much because the couple times I've looked at it (when all the crimblawgs went ga-ga and started pointing us to it) it's been strange. And not strange in an interesting, I'm going to write poetry now and comment every so often on the law way, but in a self-promoting, cult-creepy way.
As to what Spence says about law school, I can't say that I hold a much higher regard for law school than he does. In fact, here are the two basic phrases I use to describe law school:
1. One year of education crammed into three years.However, I recognize that most people in law school are not headed out to be trial lawyers. Still, I don't think that law school prepares people for other realms of practice either. In fact, I long ago came to the conclusion that the primary thing that law school teaches students is how to be a law professor.
2. Three years of legalized hazing.
The Socratic method is a farce. Teaching via statutes or black letter treatises of common laws and then using case law to demonstrate and argue would make sense. However, having a student read a case, or worse part of a case, so that he can figure out and get quizzed on what compose the actual elements of larceny is just plain asinine.
What else needs to be done to fix law school? That's a series of long posts I don't have the time to undertake right now. Hopefully, the changes which W&L is engaging in will be a beacon to other schools. We'll see.
