A tentative approach to improve our legal education

Since the outcome of a lawsuit depends on multiple factors such as the specific counsels, the judge, and the social background, to name a few, law school students should sharpen their ability to integrate such facts to their legal arguments, and use them to shed light on facts that can directly fit into the elements of rules. As a result, we can start to improve our legal education from the following perspectives. First, it will be easier for 1Ls to understand the function of laws by giving them less court opinions but more materials about the economic, social and cultural background of the cases. Students will be able to better understand why law is said to be a weak social force and how it interacts with other forces to shape people's behaviors. Second, the students cannot study law while isolating themselves from the society. Clinics, internships and externships should be more readily available. They enable us to observe the actual operation of the rules, appreciate the consequences produced on people's lives, and learn to sense the subtle factors considered by courts but are not articulated in the opinions. Third, we need to change the solitary study mode to one involving more teamwork. While one may easily fall into the illusion that she is supposed to focus on the law and nothing else, three or four 1Ls together most likely will deviate from discussing the case itself and talk about their feelings towards the decision based on their own life experiences. Instead of a waste of time, such deviation provides insights on how various facts that perhaps are not even mentioned in the opinion exert influence on the judge's mind.