in law school i learned to question the meaning of the word "learn."

[brian lauter]

What did you learn in law school? 

It’s a good question.  The nitpicky among us might immediately seize on what the meaning of word “learn” is.  For instance, at some point I learned to how to accurately apply the Rule Against Perpetuities with mind-blowing speed.  Now all I can remember is that the number 21 is involved.  I suppose you could say I learned the Rule Against Perpetuities in law school, but, given my current state of Rule Against Perpetuities knowledge, I think that interpretation might defeat the purpose of the question.

At any rate, ignoring all semantics, Gideon over at A Public Defender blog asked himself the same question and came up with a list of ten things he didn’t learn in law school.

Gideon’s list focuses largely on the realities of legal practice that most law students don’t learn in law school regardless of what you think “learn” means.

According to Gideon, law school didn’t teach you how to pick a jury, it didn't teach you that you won’t remember much more than the names of seminal cases, or that your clients will hate you and think they’re smarter than you, or that you will be ridiculed if you use the term “black letter law.”

The item is pretty entertaining and, having written before about age-old pedagogical debate between theoretical and experiential learning, I am not too surprised by the abundance of practical issues included. 

I do have to defend law school a little here, because I have come across a couple of these issues Gideon lists in law school.  For instance, a Pretrial Skills professor did give us some tips on how to deal with clients who basically hate you. I also remember hearing in Moot Court about how often your well-reasoned precedential arguments will be ignored by judges.  Finally, I believe jury selection is covered in Trial Practice at Davis, although I haven’t taken the course yet.

There wasn’t a whole lot of emphasis placed on developing these skills, but I suppose you could say I “learned” how to do these things in law school.  It would really depend on how you define the word “learn.”

Comments

I mean this in the kindest possible way, but I would say one of the things you learned while in law school (though maybe not from law school) is how to write. Your posts have always been good, but they have improved a great deal over the last four months or so . . .

Again, that's a compliment!

[Brian]

Thanks for the encouragement. I appreciate it!