Analytical Paper Required: All enrolled students complete a research paper of at least 20-25 pages, with faculty and peer review of a substantially complete draft. This paper can be used to satisfy the analytical paper requirement for J.D. students.

Prerequisites: None

Exam Type: No Exam

This seminar is designed for students who are genuinely interested in what has happened to them at law school and who would like to examine carefully the nature of their legal education. It is also a practical introduction to the many different careers available in legal education. We will commence with the English and Continental origins of legal scholarship and teaching, examine the development of formal legal education in America from the founding of the Litchfield and Harvard Law Schools to the rise of Legal Realism, and conclude with the pressing controversies facing Americas law schools today. Among the topics covered will be the relationship between formal legal education and the practicing bar, the changing composition of the faculty and the student body, the early pedagogical controversies, the different methods and ends of modern legal instruction, and the role played by law schools in fundamental disputes about jurisprudence, political ideology, economics, and social reform.