Reason 23

Reason 23.  Teachers harangue you publically.

Socrates, if you'd believe law professors, was a real prick.

The Socratic method, which is very popular in law school classrooms, is a method of questioning by which truths are sought through the exposure of contradictions.  In other words, the professor asks you heaps of questions, you answer confidently, the professor asks more questions, you tangle up in stammering knots as your conviction crumbles under the contradictory weight of your own words, and then the professor calls on someone else.  The professor then questions them about your tangle of knots – thus ultimately entangling them as well – before moving on to the next person, etc.  By the end of class, you’re all one big, twisted, frantic, confused heap.

From the other side of the lectern, professors describe the method as follows:  students walk in the door feeling confident that they understand the subject; students stumble out the door a couple hours later feeling muddled and confused; students somehow use this befuddled muddlement to reach legal theory enlightenment. 

What professors don’t realize is that enlightenment doesn’t ultimately come from long, nightly ponderings of class discussions (because, really, what law student has time for that, with all the other reading to do?).  No.  Enlightenment comes from $40 supplementary books put out by commercial publishers who know that even Socrates recoils from the shadows cast by hundred-page reading assignments.  To get through law school, you will purchase many expensive supplements, either in outline or friendly discussion form, which walk you down the rosy path of knowledge.  (In this metaphor, the Socratic method would be the thorns.  Or the crazy-eyed man trying to pull you into a nearby bog.  Whichever you prefer.)

Furthermore, little of the content emphasized in class will be on your final – and thus is frankly irrelevant to your success as a student.  Most of what you need to know you will learn from external supplements you buy off of Amazon in the dead of night.  I know, right now you’re scowling at this book and thinking that this is not possible.  You’re thinking that noble law professors are trustworthy people who would not waste your time on unimportant details, and that a class which tests material utterly differently from the way it’s presented would be unjust.  I, and probably every law school student in the country, agree with you that this is illogical, nonsensical, and generally awful.  Nonetheless, it is true.  Most of the details upon which professors dwell endlessly and cold-call repeatedly will not be on your final exam (or, for that matter, on the bar exam).  The number of days Mr. Hadley had to wait for his crank shaft?  Doesn’t matter.  Which U.S. states International Shoe Company did business in?  Won’t ever come up.  What Miranda ‘fessed to?  Nope.  

In fact, the touted Socratic method is often counterproductive.  For many students, the terror of being cold-called is enough to destroy most instructional value (beyond that of public speaking practice).  And much depends, too, on the teacher’s skill, tact, and purpose in using the method.  Some teachers work to elicit greater depth of understanding; others just whack you over the head with grating questions.  Either way, the technique doesn’t really give Socrates (or law school) a great name.

(To learn how people will treat you at cocktail parties if you try to make use of your legal trivia, feel free to visit the  "Don't Go to Law School: 50 Reasons" ebook.)