ON A LEGAL EDUCATION

DISCLAIMER TO MY FELLOW CLASSMATES

This Wiki entry is an essay for a cause not for a grade.

As you should all have realized by now, this course has not been a typical law school course. It was actually quite enjoyable. You probably checked your gmail chats and Facebook page less in this class than in most of your others. Sticking with the atypical theme, I present you with an atypical law school essay. I hope reading this is also truly enjoyable. This wiki, this somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade. This space, or freedom, to think gives us an opportunity to fix problems. I want to fix a problem that we all see and many of us speak about but none of us have ever done anything to solve it. This Wiki has brought at least the thirty-eight of us together in a creative, rather than competitive, atmosphere. I want law school to have the same atmosphere.

AN AMBITIOUS ENDEAVOR

I do not know if we have enough power to achieve my goal and turn my idea into something substantive but I would like to brainstorm a new legal education system. Ask yourself how many times you overheard someone within the walls of our law school talking about hating a class, or hating an assignment, or hating their entire their law school experience and we go to one of the top law schools in the world. We enjoy learning enjoy and enjoy the law. So what is it that some of us hate about the experience? After three years here, I believe that it is the failed education system running rampant through our nation's law schools.

For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field, we are asked to spit back information in hopes of the professor giving us a good grade. Those grades are quite limiting too and when we get passed grades, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se. I have problems with competition without progress. That happens to be the basis of our legal education. But this course was different. It asked me to think. It created this wiki for me to express my thoughts. Somehow, with all that freedom to think, I was able to learn the law.

This course has made me realize that true progress does not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor does it come from a check signed by a law firm. Those checks bring you little freedom and a lot of restraints. Both grades and paychecks are limitations on our intellectual capabilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown, competing for a grade is worthless. I do not want a grade to gain a competitive advantage over you in the job market. Why limit ourselves to a grade and a paycheck when we have capable enough minds to use our thoughts to create a more useful legal education.

I understand that our law school is caught in a larger education system in which they are forced to compete. In that system, they have to get us high paying jobs in order to keep up with meaningless statistics and rankings. We are not caught in that system. We could create our own legal education system by taking this system's mistakes, learning from them, thinking about them, and creating something better. We can knock this system down and start anew or we can build on this system and show progress. We have an opportunity to think and create for the benefit of others.

Law school should be a tool that could be used to better American society. Interested law students should learn the skills needed not just to understand the current law but to build on the current law in a forward-thinking manner. At one point in time, law schools achieved this purpose - teachers actually taught students to think and to question what they read, rather than asking them to read and repeat. At some point law schools began to fail to achieve this purpose. We can bring back this purpose.

A college recently opened in Providence that gives students credit when they have proven that they deserve credit for actually thinking, doing, and progressing. Students at College Unbound have created useful businesses in Providence and improved their communities by taking what they learned, thinking about it, and applying it to their reality. Some do not get credit but that does not mean that they have failed. I propose a law school that does the same. I do not want a grade to show that I could understand the work that somebody else already did because that is inefficient. I want a grade to show that I have built upon that work by doing something with my own mind. I want a grade to relate to my thoughts, not my recall memory. I want to give and get credit where credit is deserved.

MY PROPOSAL

Step outside of the current law school mold and you will be grateful for the free air that you breathe. You will realize that there is an open space to think, on your own or collectively. You will realize that you have the ability to create, on your own or collectively. So I ask you to knock down the walls of grades that we have each lived in for over two decades. I ask you to at least put the competition for high-paying jobs on hold. I ask you to just take a few moments and THINK. Think about how we can change things enough so that students are not walking through the halls hating, balding, and aging because of a grade and a due date.

If we fail with this idea, maybe you will be able to write about this on your restricted 1 page resume (if it fits and if the career counselor says that law firms will like it). If we fail, and you want it enough, I am sure you will find a high-paying job. If we succeed, we can delete the resume file from our computers and attach our names to something that actually matters. Instead of giving money to build a staircase in the JG lobby give an flexible intellectual platform for the next generation of law students to not only learn from but to build upon as well.

We are all intelligent. We were admitted into this school. Let us use the education we received here to actually change this system or at least to try and remove some of the bullshit that we are forced to put up with for a few years. Let's make use of our great minds and fix a real problem.

A CONCLUSION AND A BEGINNING

Instead of receiving an education, law school tried to I was squeeze me into a mold without caring about my dimensions. This type of mold is only good if you are the "molder" and you want to maintain control over the "moldee." Let us use this wiki to break out of these molds and do something about our failing education system.

Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." The Internet gives us the ability to collaborate so that we can do something about the world's problems. Let us use it freely and properly. Let us share our minds and let us create.

-- AlanDavidson - 08 Dec 2011