In response to Barb, I also haven't taken a clinic yet, but i've talked to a number of 3Ls who say that it is an invaluable experience and NO ONE should leave here without taking as many clinics as they can. Having not taken a clinic, i can't but wonder why the classroom isn't more like the clinics. As interesting as these threads are, there are some questions we shouldn't assume we can answer until we've been through the whole process. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. But, if i'm to guess, i'll assume that it's like public speaking classes i took in undergrad. Maybe we have to learn it on paper and in theory before we start practicing it. It might be useful to not let 1Ls take clinics. But, like i said, i don't know.

In response to andrew, http://xkcd.com/263/ Nuff said

Math and Philosophy have nothing in common. They're two extremes on the spectrum from the closest we can get to universal truths to the closest we can get to total subjectivity. Ask yourself why the Socratic Method was designed by a Philosopher?

I'm not saying that there's nothing wrong with the teaching here. I think the teachers need to seriously reexamine what they want to do and how they want to do it. However, i don't want the law shoved down my throat like math. Go too far in that direction and you get the opposite of what Eben aims for: Free thinking attorneys with their own conception of what legal problems need solution and the creativity to find those solutions. Figuring out a way to make law school teaching effective is not so simple as applying what we know in other areas. Here we have different objectives and we'll need complex and different solutions. That's all i was trying to say. Law is harder to teach than math, and it's in our interest that they not be taught exactly the same.

-- OluwafemiMorohunfola - 24 Apr 2008