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[VOL. 23
JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION
CURRICULUM REPORT PREPARED BY SCHOOL
OF LAW UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
BASED ON A STUDY UNDERTAKEN PURSUANT TO A GRANT
FROM THE FORD FOUNDATION
*
SECTION I
BASIC STRUCTURAL CHANGES
Essential to a clear understanding of the curriculum proposed herein
is an overview of the changes made in the total curricular structure
embracing all three years of legal education. Traditionally, law courses,
like many undergraduate courses, have been presented in a curricular
structure reminiscent of an egg crate--courses begin at semester's start
and continue with the same number of hours every week during each
week in the semester.
Each and every semester in law schoo1100ks, then, exactly the same in
structural outline. Only the course names change.
The curricular structure envisioned by this proposal cannot, however,
be squeezed into the same diagrammatic representation.
It is here that we depart most strikingly from other first year curricula and only a three-dimensional representation is adequate to graphically illustrate the workings of the new structure. Imagine, if you will,
that you have been building a brick patio in your backyard and have
followed an architect's plan. Each brick has identifying coordinatesA, 1; A, 2; etc.-and you have been careful to put each of them into
the proper locations. Over the weekend, you leave town and discover,
upon your return on Monday, that a meddlesome hand has placed brick
A, 2 on top of B, 2; brick A, 3 on top of C, 3; A, 4 on D, 4 and A, 5 on
E, 5. In addition, the bricks which were moved have been discolored
so your patio, viewed from above, looks like Figure l.
A major difficulty with legal education has been the continual attempt
to force subject-matter presentation into a so-many-per-week-for-somany-weeks pattern without regard to the functional needs of the student. To provide the flexibility necessary to bring legal education into
line with functional subject matter needs and student educational needs,
the proposed curriculum allocates a number of "fioating" hours for each
week in the semester, with these hours being free for addition to the substantive courses whenever the subject matter of a given course so requires.
'" The faculty members participating in this study were Professors Robert Louis
Felix, John Krahmer, Ralph C. l\IcCullough (coordinator of the project) and Webster
Myers, Jr.
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1
2
----~----
4
---------~
529
5
-----------
A
·B
C
D
E
Figure 1
CA41bll
The floating hours would not, however, be taught in a standard largeclass/casebook context but would be handled as small group work in
problem-solving using subject-matter of the major course (or courses)
that drew on the floating hours at any particular time.
In the fourth semester, the over-all look of the curriculum structure
reverts to a more traditional egg-crate pattern, but the semester itself is
divided into two equal sessions. What is called by undergraduate
schools as "midterm" or "midsemester" is, for the new curriculum, a complete semester-like end for those courses which began at the start of the
fourth semester. Final examinations would take place and grades would
be distributed. In the second session of the fourth semester students
would elect from a whole new set of offerings and begin a new group
of courses.
This bifurcation of the fourth semester allows students to gain
exposure to a substantial number of different subjects in a short period
of time. It is obvious that courses must be carefully selected for presentation in such a limited period of time (24 to 30 total class hours). A
designation of several possible courses is set out, infra.
The fifth and sixth semesters, structurally, are complete reversions to
the egg-crate pattern. Although very substantial changes in subjectmatter and teaching methods are proposed for these two semesters, the
traditional structure is adequate to contain the changes and no further
discussion is necessary here.
One other item, not specifically structural, but closely-related, is that a
very few courses do not end at the usual point (i. e., semester's end).
23 Journal of Legal Ed. No. 4_
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23
Instead, they finish early in the semester and stop there or run on into the
second semester. The Introduction to Law Series discussed on page infra, is the best example of this situation.
SECTION II
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FIRST
YEAR OF LAW STUDY
TOPIC
A-OUR
VIEW OF THE PROBLEM
We have no basic disagreement-in an across-the-board sense-with
the casebook/socratic teaching method most commonly employed today in
first-year instruction. This method has, we believe, proven itself an effective teaching device for instilling basic analytical and case-reading
skills while simultaneously conveying at least a modicum of law-information. Furthermore, we find no particular virtue in re-doing the entire
first year, either through new labeling or through complete content
change primarily because we do not see such broadside first-year facelifting as the best vehicle for attacking the relatively discrete difficulty
that we see as the major problem of first-year legal education.
The difficulty with the first-year, as we see it, is a still-persisting overemphasis on case law analytical skills resulting in a de facto exclusion of
many other important matters that could be taught in the first year.
Little, if any, official curriculum time is allotted for such things as a
systematic look at the American (or any other) legal structure, or a
chance to examine philosophical approaches to the role of law in society,
or those time-consuming but always useful, creative flights of lawyer-like
imagination, or even a chance to really apply the newly-learned skills
which law school tries to impart. All too often, the first-year student is
placed in a position similar to that of one who is trying to learn the rules
of a very complicated game but is never allowed to try playing that game
or even a small portion of it.
Responding, perhaps in part, to the felt necessities of the situation,
many schools offer variations on a general theme of low (or no) credit
legal writing courses, moot court arguments, and legal method courses.
This response is not enough.
The need in the first-year seems to us to be the achieving of a balance
which preserves the values of traditional skills-and-information-imparting courses while simultaneously providing opportunities for the presentation of the broader studies which give direction and meaning to technical
proficiency. In addition, we believe that this balance can only be successful if it is struck-not in an antagonistic, water-tight, compartmentalized
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fashion-but in a complementary manner in which each part sharpens
the knowledge gained from the other part, thereby increasing the contribution of each. portion to the total educational value of the first year.
TOPIC
B-A
PROPOSED SOLUTION
One possible way to achieve a balance like that referred to in the preceding topic is through a first-year curriculum that looks like this:
TABLE 1
FIRST YEAR OF LAW STUDY
Course
No. of Classes
No. of Credits
90
75
75
75
101
6
5
5
5
7
60
4
Contracts
Property
Criminal Process
Torts
Intro. to Law Series
Small Group Work
(Float)
32
Contracts
(3 3)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
/I'
[Common law
contracts
moving toward sales]
Property
(2 3)
'1'
[Real
Property]
Torts
(3 2)
l'
[Intent;i.onal
torts and
basic negligence in
. First Sem;]
Criminal
Process
(2,3)
t
[Early
stages]
'1'
[Legal
Bibliography]
[L1al
Me~od]
t
Examination
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Small
Introduction Group
to Law Series (Float)
(4 3)
(2)
t
[AS
[Legal
System]
If
If'
[Primarily
sales]
\1/
\1
\
tj\
[Real
Property]
\~
If'
[Neg. &
insurance in
2nd
Semester
1
t
nee'ded]
~
\11
.1'
[Late
Stages}
II
l'
t
\
\11
[Law & [As
Society] needed]
[A4162l
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A brief description, with emphasis on innovations for each course named
in Table 1 and noted in Chart 1 is set out immediately below so the precise
way in which this curriculum achieves the desired balance can be more
readily understood.
TABLE 2
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
(1)
CONTRACTS
90 CLASSES
6 CREDITS
Traditionally this course has dealt with the basic relational inter~
ests existing (or non-existing) between parties operating in a con~
sensual context. Problems of consideration, offer and acceptance,
and interpretation are staple matters for a Contracts course. The
historical development of the law relating to these problems is also
commonly included. Realistically viewed, most contractual dealings
occur in the marketplace and a strong argument can be made that a
modern contracts course should be presented entirely through that
20th century Law of Merchants, the Uniform Commercial Code.
However, Contracts seems to have proven itself a good course for the
development of case-law analytical skills and we do not favor, at
this time, a statutory metamorphosis that might sacrifice the ability
of Contracts to inculcate case-law skills; further, Contracts still has
some value for "real property" transactions not covered by the Code.
Instead, we believe that the Contracts course in this curriculum
should continue standard case-law presentation of the contractual
problems in the early weeks and move into the Commercial Code
statutory treatment at a later stage. To provide adequate time for
this presentation, the course will carry 6 <:redits, 3 each semester. It
will be noted that Chart 1 shows that the second semester of this
course will deal with t.he resolution of contract disputes under the
Commercial Code, but no particular time has been specified in the
first semester for effecting the case-to-statute transition. We do
strongly recommend that the shift take place sometime durillg the
first semester (not at the end) and anticipate that some point during
weeks 11-13 will prove convenient. However, the precise timing is
left open-ended because of variations among the teaching materials
that might be selected for this course.
(2)
PROPERTY
7S CLASSES
S CREDITS
In recent years, there has evolved a fundamental rearrangement
of the entire property area, and a threefold division is emerging:
(1) land as the subject of commercial transfer, (2) gratuitous trans-
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fers of interests in property, (3) land use and community planning
in a modern socio-economic complex. The end product of this
evolutionary development is a property curriculum with a basic property offering in the first-year (the first of these divisions) and subsequent courses on gratuitous transfers (the second division) and
advanced commercial activity and planning (the third division).
The change through evolution does not affect the value of the basic
property offering as a course well-fitted for the traditional casemethod development of analytical skills and the basic course should
continue to be taught in this way.
In the first semester of the first year, the property course should
be used to introduce students to the institution of property and to tne
way in which Anglo-American law recognizes and protects interests in land. In the second semester of the first year, the course
should cover the two basic types of commercial land transfer and
development, leases and conveyances, preferably from a functional
viewpoint, with some attention given to land-use controls (public
and private). It is likely that small group floating hours will be
more intensively used by the property course in this semester than
in tqe first semester. The floating hours, in a property context, can
be ideally used for in-depth problem work on particular areas of
difficulty and for such practical skills applications as recording, title
searching, and document drafting.
(3)
CRIMINAL PROCESS
75 CLASSES
5 CREDITS
Unlike some of the other courses in the first year, the Criminal Process offering will not be treated as a vehicle for the development of traditional legal analysis skills. Because of the present
dynamic character of the entire criminal area, it appears to be better,
in balance, not t.e simply provide one more analytical experience, but
to exploit this dynamism of presenting the criminal law "package"
in a multi-discipline context, thus allowing the student to obtain the
benefits of early exposure to the interdisciplinary handling of major
problems.
The recommended way of presenting this course is to begin the
year with the earliest stages of police investigation and move through
each stage of the criminal process in chronological order. SmafI
Group floating hours should be used to permit some actual exposure
(live or taped) to the criminal process and to allow the supervised
presentation of documents relating to the process. Discussion of the
elements of crime can be introduced at appropriate stages of the
criminal process, most likely at the indictment stage or j?ry in-
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struction stage. We believe that this method of presentation will
provide the students with an understanding of the criminal process
at work and be of more value to them than a narrow analytical approach.
(4)
TORTS
75 CLASSES
5 CREDITS
Torts has commonly been used to teach analytical techniques in the
use of cases presenting problems of interference with personal and
property interests, generally in non-consensual transactions. These
problems have also been presented in a modem socio-economic complex. Developments in the law have moved more and more away
from negligence as the pervasive basis of liability. Thus, strict
product liability, workmen's compensation and insurance are
emerging as the major solutions to important tort problems.
Our proposal is to retain Torts as an integrated course, using intentional torts and the historical development of negHgence for introductory training in the case method, and giving large play to strict
product liability and insurance to synthesize the bases of liability in
product and autoplobile cases. Workmen's compensation has been
given less scope than it may deserve in the early part of the curriculum and has been left for consideration as a later elective course.
(5) INTRODUCTION TO
LAW SERIES
101 CLASSES
7 CREDITS
Although made up of three distinct parts, the overall plan of the
Introduction to Law Series is first to train the student in the basic
skills necessary to use the most common forms of Anglo-American
law-case law and legislation, then to expose the student to the
American system of law with particular emphasis on the interlocking
parts of the system-judicial review, the legislative process, public
law and problems of federalism, and, finally, to provide an opportunity for the student to examine in depth some long-term interaction of law with a major social problem. The three portions
of the larger course have been entitled respectively, Legal Method,
Legal System and Law and Society and can be best described by
treating each one separately.
(A) LEGAL METHOD
28 CLASSES
2 CREDITS
This course will be generally congruent with the legal method
courses presently offered at many law schools. Primary emphasis
will be on the analysis and synthesis of cases and on the interpretation of simple legislation. Because the skills taught in this course
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535
are so basic and so important, we recommend that it be offered four
times per week for the first seven weeks thereby giving students early
and complete exposure to the case and statute stock-in-trade skills of
the legal profession. Some law schools, notably Columbia University law school, have utilized a similar approach to the timing of the
legal method course successfully.
An examination for the legal method portion of the Introduction
to Law Series should be held sometime in the eighth week of the
first semester. This examination should be graded and returned
within a week or ten days, thus providing the triple benefits of (1)
a test of the students' analytical skills (2) early information as to
the nature of law exams and (3) feedback information for each student so he can better assess the correctness or incorrectness of his
study habits. Small group floating hours might be utilized in the
ninth or tenth week for critiques of examination answers.
(B) LEGAL SYSTEM
28 CLASSES
2 CREDITS
This portion of the Introduction to Law Series will meet four
times each week for the last seven weeks of the first semester. Each
student, having studied case law and legislation as forms of law,
should next be exposed to the institutional processes in which those
forms operate. We expect this course to provide adequate (although, obviously, not in-depth) exposure to the basic ideas of
judicial review, constitutional decision making, separation of powers
and the federal system. Materials for the teaching of this course
will most likely be developed by the rearrangement of already-existing introductory constitutional law materials and legislation materials.
(C) LAW AND SOCIETY
4S CLASSES
3 CREDITS
The title of this course may be somewhat misleading because, although our primary intent is to conclude the Introduction to Law
Series with a course that looks beyond narrow analytical skills and
presents an opportunity for the student to philosophize a bit about
the meaning and nature of law, we do not intend to indicate that
only major social problems can provide the necessary raw material
for this course. For example, the Law, Ethics and Language offering at the University of Southern California might be an excellent
choice to put in this part of the Introduction to Law Series.
A possible course which we have in mind for this portion of the
series is one dealing with labor law history, exploring the industrial
revolution in England and in the United States, tracing the rise of
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workers' discontent and the use of law as a force to suppress that
discontent, examining the changing political environment which
ultimately saw legislative processes effecting social change through
statutory means, and concluding, perhaps, with labor problems as
they appear in the last third of the 20th century.
Another possible choice for the Law and Society course is a study
of the Civil Rights Movement, with an examination of the respective
roles of courts, legislatures and administrative bodies. Materials
are already available for an offering of this type.
Regardless of the particular content choice made for this portion
of the Introduction to Law Series, the important point, if this
proposed curriculum is to achieve a proper balance, is that any
subject chosen should be broad enough in scope that more than
analytical skill can be developed in the student. Only in this way
can it be insured that legal education has at least provided an early
opportunity for the student to begin developing, not only the craftsman's skill, but a broader base of professional responsibility and a
sense of the lawyer's duties toward society as a whole.
(6) SMALL GROUP WORK
(FLOAT)
60 CLASSES
4 CREDITS
Here we propose a 2 hour per week program of small group sessions during the first two semesters. It is expected that multi-facted
small group work in these "trough" or "corridor" sessions will effectively complement the other necessarily large classes. We think
that the large class is not only an economic necessity, but, in proper
hands, an effective teaching matrix. If this is so, the general use
of small classes simply because they contain fewer students is a
luxury. Our proposal is to vary not only the number of students,
but the style of instruction, materials, student participation, evaluation of student performance and subject matter.
Although we advocate the use of the case method of instruction
in most of the first year courses, we think that departing from it in
the small group sessions is a necessary relief from it. In the first
year the sessions will provide an opportunity to work with structured
and unstructured problems before they reach appellate litigation. In
addition to this comparative basis for the better understanding of
case materials, the sessions can be spent on practical matters such as
actual title searches, observations of trial litigation in progress, and
the preparation of legal documents. More generally, the sessions
provide time for apt illustrative and in-depth consideration of some
of the pervasive problems of the other courses. For example, time
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S. CAROLINA CURRICULUM REPORT
might be spent on the automobile insurance.industry to provide background understanding for such matters when they arise in the Torts
course.
SECTION III
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE SECOND
YEAR OF LAW STUDY
TOPIC A-SPECIAL NEEDS OF TIlE SECOND YEAR.
We believe that by the time students reach the second year of their
legal education some of the glitter has worn off the case method but a
real need still exists for further sharpening the analytical skills developed
in the first year. At the same time those students who enter the second
year of law school also need a great deal of further exposure to major
areas of the law. And yet, these now second year students are not the
legal neophytes they once were-some skills exist, some information is in
their heads and some ideas of professionalism are starting to grow.
The special need of the second year is to provide a curriculum that recognizes the knowledge and abilities already gained, but also presents a
sufficient challenge of new worlds to conquer so that the phenomena of
"second-year slump" is minimized.
An important assumption underlying the proposal for the second year
is that students need not be classroom-exposed to every facet of a field of
law when they elect to take a course in that field. Law school cannot
possibly teach the stud~nt "all the law" and with the growth of electives
in most schools, the student can be quite selective anyway as to the fields
which he studies. We have reduced the number of hours that will be
devoted to certain areas of law permitting the law school to provide
exposure to about as many fields in the second year as the student would
have received in the second and third years combined under the traditionallaw school approach. The third year is thus freed for work of a truly
advanced nature.
PART 1
FIRST SEMESTER-SECOND YEAR
We propose the following curriculum for the first semester of the
second year in the belief that it will, first, provide every student with
adequate exposure to certain advanced-beyond-the-first-year but still'
basic areas he is likely to encounter in practice; second, continue the ef~
fective learning process re professional responsibility begun in the first
year; and third, make every classroom session a meaningful experience
instead of something akin to a perpetual case-book rerun.
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JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION
[VOL. 23
TABLE 1
NO. OF
CLASSES
COURSE
Business Associations
Gratuitous Transfers
Civil Procedure
Lawyers in Society
Personal Taxation (Income)
Law and Poverty
Small Group Work (Float)
1-2
u
~
)
.
)
"t'
):~ k _
cGCCJN
t4~>""'
0
'"
~~
(o<~
. ..'"
to
~;;~E
..
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... '"
.
'"
'"" "
~g l'l
... <
'""
"a
0
~~~
.
)
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aca.c
....
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trlU::=: ......
.",
f<
30
30
30
3
3
3
2
2
2
....
.-t='~ ......
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p:
45
45
45
NO. OF
CREDITS
....
I
AU
"~
...>""'"....
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"'U~
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0
k 0 f:
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.:a
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oIJJ.I'-"eJi
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~tl~:l~
~ Po.s:Q ....
A description of each of the courses listed in Table 1 and Chart 1 is
set out immediately below.
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S. CAROLINA CURRICULUM REPORT
TABLE 2
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
(1) BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONS
45 CLASSES
3 CREDITS
The purpose of this offering is to provide the student with a basic
education in the legal areas most commonly associated with business ventures. The course will represent a combined package of
those fields more traditionally treated as separate courses under the
heads of Agency and Partnership, and Corporations, with some time
devoted to consideration of basic tax problems which influence these
organizational building-blocks. To maximize the comprehensiveness of this course, outside readings (perhaps from yet-to-bedeveloped "source books") will probably have to be relied on.
Programmed teaching materials might als'o be a way to efficiently
pass-on pure information. Float time can be used for problemsolving or drafting to gain additional depth of coverage in areas of
special importance.
(2) GRATUITOUS TRANSFERS
45 CLASSES
3 CREDITS
This course, like Business Associations, will pull together several
functionally related subjects commonly offered as separate, disjointed parts of the law curriculum. The most obvious candidates
for inclusion in the Gratuitous Transfers course are Trusts, Wills
and the remainder of Future Interests (no pun intended) not covered in the first-year property course. (See Sec. II, Topic B supra.)
Of the three named areas included in Gratuitous Transfers, Trusts
and Future Interests provide the best content 'for development of
advanced analytical skills, while Wills seems to be perfectly suited
for the information-acquired-by-outside-reading approach. Here,
as with Business Associations, the fourth semester s~lould include
a natural follow-up offering, this time, Estate and Gift Tax.
(3) CIVIL PROCEDURE
45 CLASSES
3 CREDITS
This offering will be somewhat advanced in nature but still sufficiently broad to cover the major problems in the field. Pervasive
procedural problems-the demurrer, the law/fact distinction as a
means of allocating functions between judge and jury, and the
procedure/substance dichotomy, to name a few-ean be treated in
several subject matter contexts as they arise in the first year with-
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JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION
[VOL. 23
out the need for a full discussion of a system of procedural rules.
This prior handling of matters commonly treated in procedure
courses helps limit the number of hours needed in a third semester
course. In addition, the first year exposure to the Legal System
will be of substantial aid in allowing the second year course to move
quickly into advanced procedural problems. Presenting this course
early in the second year will also make it an even more valuable
prerequisite for subsequent courses in Evidence, Trial Practice and
Trial Advocacy.
(4) LAvVYERS IN SOCIETY
30 CLASSES
2 CREDITS
This course should cover many of the ethical dilemmas and
problems of professional responsibility facing the practicing attorney. Offering such a course at this time seems to fit very well
after a first year that gives a real overview of a legal structure via
the Introduction to Law Series. Law and Society will begin an
examination of the lawyer's role in the context of a single legal
area and Lawyers in Society will extend this examination to a
multiplicity of areas. Some of the recent ALIIABA materials or
the Mathews Professional Responsibility problem book (supplemented, perhaps, by locally mimeographed source books to prevent
library runs) would be ideal teaching materials for this course.
In addition to this course, we recommend that special problems of
professional responsibility be taken up in thQse courses where they
naturally arise.
(5) PERSONAL TAXATION
(Income)
30 CLASSES
2 CREDITS
Because some partnership and corporate tax problems will be
simultaneously taken up in this semester by the Business Associations course, this offering in personal income taxation is a limited
one. For students who wish to do substantial work in this area,
several later taxation courses are planned for subsequent semesters.
(6) LAW AND POVERTY
30 HOURS
2 CREDITS
Because very few areas exist which do not present special-and
complex-problems for the poor, it is obvious that this course cannot
hope to "cover" every possible problem. Our reasoning in regard
to this brief offering in the poverty law field is, first, that every
course in this proposed curriculum that involves problems of the poor
should devote some time to a discussion of those problems (for
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"s. CAROLINA CURRICULUM REPORT
541
example, those aspects of landlord-tenant law touching on problems
of the poor should be discussed in the first-year Property course;
problems of unconscionable sales should be covered in the basic
Contracts course, etc.), and second, that some sp.ecial aspect of law
and poverty not treated elsewhere should be presented in this third
semester course to provide a stark contrast between the legal
problems that result from having money (Business Associations,
Gratuitous Transfers, Personal Income Taxation) and the legal
problems that result from not having money.
Ideally, we would recommend that this course in Law and Poverty
be taught in small groups of 20-25 students. Economic necessity,
may, however, preclude the implementation of this arrangement.
(7)
SM~LL GROUP
WORK (Float)
15 HOURS
1-2 CREDITS
Small group work, begun in the first year (See Sec. II, Topic B,
supra), is necessary as well in the third semester to offset what
would otherwise be an unrelieved program of large classes in
required courses. Here a one to two-hour "trough" or "corridor" is
proposed. As it is expected that the third semester will generally
move from a" case by case method to a combination of informational
and survey synthesis methods of course presentation, the small sessions can be devoted more comprehensively to drafting exercises
which simulate the broad range of the lawyer's activity in the large
courses. Thus the problems treated will cut across course areas more
than in the first year and more planning and counseling problems
can be used as a prelude to the later offerings in business and estate
planning.
PART 2:
SECOND SEMESTER-SECOND YEAR
For many years, legal educators have been aware that, from the beginning of the fourth semester of law school to the end of the third year, a
great many students lose their enthusiasm for law study. The casereading and analytical skills of the prior semesters are generally welllearned by this time and students could reasonably look forward to
advanced courses that put their skills to meaningful tests. However, all
too often, the standard fare in the 4th, 5th and 6th semesters continues to
be (by this time) plodding casebook courses relieved only by seminars in
the last year. It is the obligation of legal education in the last three
semesters of law study to give due credit to students for the skills they
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have already learned and present them with courses that are sophisticated
in content, form and instructional method.
In the fourth semester, we have elected to fulfill the obligation discussed in the preceding paragraph by providing an opportunity for intensive
study in a variety of course areas to complete the necessary informational
foundation for a third year composed almost entirely of problem-solving
exercises, seminars and clinics. We propose that the fourth semester be
made up of two nine-week instructional sessions with each session
to be treated, funct~onally, as a full semester. Courses offered in each
of the intensive sessions would be taught three times each week, resulting
in a total of 27 instructional hours (about the same as a semester long 2
hour course). There are several advantages in presenting courses in an
intensive nine-week session, not the least of which is the psychological
one, from a learning theory point of view, of having more exposure
hours per week with a resulting increase in preparation between classes
and a lessening of the natural tendency to procrastinate when courses
meet only twice each week.
The normal student load would be four courses in each of the intensive
sessions and one seminar that would run during both sessions. If a student so desired, he could elect a clinic which, like the seminar, would run
during both intensive sessions and be in lieu of one intensive course in
each session. [A discussion of the overall clinic program is contained in
Section IV, Topic A, infra.] Student evaluation for courses and clinics
could be by examination techniques, research papers or other methods.
Seminars would probably use research papers.
In the prior semesters, some time was set aside for courses which lent
themselves to the implicit inclusion of data gleaned from other disciplines
-Criminal Process, for example, or Law and Society, or Law and
Poverty. By the fourth semester, this looking at problems through
interdisciplinary spectacles should become explicit and the list of courses
and seminars for this semester should include some offerings of a skillsbroadening or knowledge-broadening nature, for example, a seminar in
sociological method or a course in economic theory. In addition to
courses of this type, there should be some offerings of a perspective or
cultural nature, such as Jurisprudence, Legal History or Comparative
Law.
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An illustrative list of courses (and/or seminars) that might be offered
in this intensive semester program is set out below:
TABLE 1
ILLUSTRATIVE LIST OF INTENSIVE
SEMESTER OFFERINGS 1
(Possible Seminars are off-set to the left)
Administrative Law
Admiralty
Bankruptcy
Bills and Notes
Civil and Political RightsDiscrimination
Civil and Political RightsFirst Amendment
Comparative Law
Constitutional Law I 2
Constitutional Law II 2
Corporate Tax and Accounting
Criminal Theory
Domestic Relations
Economic Theory
Equity
Estate Tax
Evidence 3
Federal Jurisdiction
Government Contracts
Insurance
Jurisprudence
Labor Law
Legal History
Legal Process
Local Government
Methods of Sociology
Psychiatry for Lawyers
Regulated Industries
Anti-trust
Remedies
Securities Regulation
Secured Transactions (A Study
of Secured Transactions under
the Uniform Commercial
Code)
Unfair Competition
Workmen's Compensation
1 Credit allocation for this semester should be handled by assigning three units
for each intensive course and four units for each seminal' and clinic offering. The
minimum required load should be twenty-six units. To adjust this semester to conform to the other five semesters, the units should be given lh value for administrative credit purposes.
2 Constitutional Law is offered in this semester, at first glance, a late stage in law
school training, because much of the basic constitutional law subject matter will
have been taken up in earlier courses where it is functionally relevant but under
another name (e. O. Legal System, Law and Society) and this course will be of an
advanced nature.
3 This course and perhaps a few others would lend themselves to course treatment
in a first session offering to be followed by extensive problem work and demonstration teaching in a second session offering.
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A typical student program in the fourth semester, then, might look
like this:
CHART 1
1
2
3
4
Bills
ana
Notes
I
Labor
Layl
(3)
(3)
Evidence
Remedies
(3)
Seminar
(4)
(3)
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
Insurance
Bankrup~cy
(3)
Secured
Trans.
Workmen's SemCompo
inar
(3)
·(3)
(~)
.(con.~
4
5
6
7
8
9
Total Units
= 28;
Credit - 28 x 1/2 = 14 hour credits
[A4164l
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SECTION IV
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE THIRD YEAR
TOPIC A-THE GENERAL PROBLEM AND A PROPOSED SOLUTION
So much has already been written and said about the problems of the
third year-in the Journal of Legal Education, in law reviews, and at
gatherings of law teachers-that a classic Aristotelian syllogism will
suffice for a statement of the general problem:
Students are bored and apathetic in the third year of law school.
X is in the third year of law school.
The problem is so pervasive that many people have given serious
thought to the question of whether it is even necessary to have a third
year. We, too, have seriously considered the possibility of a two year
program, but several considerations, perhaps only local in nature, have
led us to believe that this law school can best accomplish its principal
responsibility of training capable lawyers for practice in South Carolina
by retaining the third year. Many of the areas of law presented in the
first four semesters of law study can be most effectively tied together in
the third year with intensive and challenging problem-solving exercises.
It is not sufficient to say that the student will receive on-the-job training
in many sophisticated aspects of legal work after he graduates from law
school because much of the law practice in South Carolina is made up of
sole practitioners or small firms engaged in general practice without a
sufficient flow of cases in many areas to provide adequate training
exposure in those areas. For example, much of the advice to closelyheld corporations, persons with complex estate problems and indigents
comes from these small firms and sole practitioners. A study conducted
at the South Carolina Law School in the spring of 1969 suggested that
modern techniques to protect investors in closely-held corporations were
rarely used by lawyers in South Carolina. Unless law school can
adequately present training in and understanding of such problems likely
to be encountered in the actual practice of law, adequate representation
will take place only in the most common mill-run cases and matters of
any complexity will either be handled in a second-best fashion or handled
not at all.
To overcome the boredom and apathy of the third year and simultaneously to improve the legal training which future bar members receive
while they are in law school, we propose that the last year be composed of
problem-solving that cuts across traditional course lines, clinical experience, and interdisciplinary study in various fields. Our goal is to create
23 Journal of Legal Ed. No. 4-5
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a final year of study during which the student assumes the role of a
lawyer, but within a controlled working environment that enables him to
obtain the benefits of actual or simulated experience on the one hand and
helpful supervision and counsel on the other. The closest existing
analogy to the situation we envision is the relationship that might exist
between senior members of a large law firm and junior, apprentice
lawyers who have recently joined the firm, with the juniors able to obtain
advice, be subject to criticism, but also having a real share of responsibility in the handling of the.firm's case load.
By accepting this goal, the faculty also must accept the obligations
which flow along with it. Stylized and standardized courses can no
longer be offered in the third year. An increased sophistication of teaching methods must be encouraged and experimentation with both methods
and materials must be supported. These obligations will represent a
major investment of time, talent and money on the part of the law school
but we firmly believe the commitment will result in tremendous dividends,
not only for the law school, but for every law-consumer of the skills of
our graduates.
To achieve a third year curriculum of the type we propose, certain
basic parameters must be established, at least as theoretical ideals.
First: Most, if not all, offerings should have a limitation on enrollment so every student will have an opportunity to participate in
discussion and the instructor will be able to exercise reasonably close
guidance and supervision. Seminars could be maintained at present
levels, 10-15 students; clinics at about 15 students; courses at 2530 students. Economic considerations will determine the extent to
which this ideal situation can actually exist.
Second: In addition to in-depth learning experiences, the third
year must provide a continuation of that societal and cultural thread
begun in the earlier semesters and, more specifically, present courses
which allow comparison between legal systems or between law and
other disciplines. Such courses develop a greater understanding of
the historical, philosophical and social forces which have contributed
and continue to contribute to the shaping.of the Common Law.
Each student should be required to elect two of these courses in the
third year, unless he voluntarily elected such a perspective course in
the fourth semester which would be counted as a partial fulfillment
of the third year requirement.
Third: The clinic programs should be used in part to provide an
opportunity for the student to engage in the kind of activity that he
will experience in the practice of law. This includes client inter-
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viewing, fact investigation and preparation, and some opportunity to
engage in advocacy and the drafting of legal documents. However,
the more important use of the clinic program is to have the student
involved in the legal process and through this involvement learn
about the legal process and its operation in the fullest sense. For
example, the Family Clinic would have class contact where the
Family Court process or the Juvenile Court process would be
examined in detail and the student would be also involved in the
actual process as a probation officer for a juvenile delinquent, or as
a prosecutor for the court, or as defense counsel for a juvenile.
Thus, the student is provided with a thorough understanding of the
process by active involvement with ac~ual legal and administrative
problems, thereby giving him the opportunity to act as a lawyer and
to sharpen and use the skills which he has already learned. [From
Faculty Statement on Clinics at the University of South Carolina
Law School]
[C]linics should be offered to third year
law students and each student should be required to have at least
one semester of clinical experience. It should be noted that required
clinical participation is at odds with the attitudes expressed in the
UCLA and NYU faculty statements as reported in Council on Legal
Education for Professional Responsibility, Inc., Clinical Legal
Education in the Law School Curriculum pp. 19,48. It is our belief
that existing circumstances at this school require even an experimental program to operate on a mandatory basis so the true effectiveness of clinical experience can be realistically assessed for students who would not normally elect clinic studies. The reason for
this belief is that, if operated on a voluntary basis, only those students with a naturally high motivation will elect clinics to begin with
and a large part of the true value of clinic programs are the possibilities they hold of opening new vistas fer students who cannot be
reached by the traditional law school methods. Only if clinic programs are mandatory can their full potential be realized or even
adequately measured.
Required participation can be accomplished if the clinics are increased from two to four. Four
clinics offered each semester will provide eight offerings for the
third year.
Fourth: With the possible exception of Conflict of Laws, the
third year should be entirely free of courses which use the traditional
case analysis methodology and final examinations as a means of
evaluation. We have elected to retain Conflicts in the third year because of its difficulty and because it provides a synthesis. of earlier
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learning at practical and jurisprudential levels. All other third year
courses should utilize c~ses as tools for the solution of problems
rather than as the actual vehicle of the problem method for a curriculum of this type, reference should be made to the 1966 Report
of the A.A.L.S. Committee on Teaching Methods, A.A.L.S. Proceedings, Part One at 198.
On the following pages, we have set out a catalog-style listing of
courses which would be suitable third-year offerings. Broadly speaking, the list can be divided into four major categories: (1) Perspective courses, (2) Clinics, (3) Seminars, (4) Law Practice Courses.
The list is not all-inclusive and several courses could easily be placed in
more than one category, but it does illustrate one curriculum model that
gives the student an opportunity to begin assuming the role of a lawyer
within a controlled environment.
TABLE 1
A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF POSSIBLE
THIRD YEAR OFFERINGS
We have not attempted to make this list an exhaustive catalog of those
courses which would be suitable third year offerings in this proposed
curriculum; instead, we have tried to gather and briefly describe some
courses which lend themselves to advanced teaching techniques and small
section presentation. The assignment of courses to certain categories
is, no doubt, as arguable as the category labels themselves, but on
both counts, we have relied on the H. Dumptian principle of word usage
-else what would the word authoritarian mean?
CATEGORY I-PERSPECTIVE COURSES
Jurisprudence
Legal History
Comparative Law
International Law
Roman Law
Law and Behavioral Sciences
American Legal History
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CATEGORY 2-CLINICS
Public Assistance Law (Welfare
Presentation Clinic)
Internal Law of Academic Institutions
(Legal Aid to Students)
Criminal Defense and Prosecution
(Prosecution and Defense of
Indigents in the Magistrate's
Court)
Family Law Clinic
Corrections Clinic
CATEGORY 3-SEMINARS
Seminars, a common learning experience now, need no real explanation.
It should be noted, however, that the subjects listed below have been
rather arbitrarily selected as seminar offerings even though many would
make excellent large-class courses.
Labor Law History
Medico-Legal Problems
Psychiatry and the Law
Products Liability
Legal Problems of Environmental
Control
Consumer Credit Seminar
Law in the Urban Matrix
Law in Communication
Community Land Use
Commencing New Businesses
Investments
International Trade and
Economic Development
Fiduciary Administration
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CATEGORY 4-LAW PRACTICE COURSES
In addition to teaching substantive law, these courses can be utilized
to teach "practical" skills needed by contemporary attorneys.
Collective Bargaining and
Negotiation
Problems of Proof in Personal
Injury Cases
Land Use and Development
Land Transactions
Practice Court
Estate Planning I
Estate Planning II
Tax Planning I
Tax Planning II
Business Planning I
Business Planning II
Law Practice and Office
Management
Conflict of Laws
SECTION V
LOOSE-END TYING: HEREIN OF THEORY, TEACHING
METHODS, ETC.
TOPIC A-LEARNING THEORY AND THIS CURRICULUM
As with other aspects of our study of legal education, what has impressed us about learning theory is not that there is a lack of perceptive
ideas about the subject, but that until recently the application of them has
been so halting and unsystematic. Complacent satisfaction with the
LangdeIIian system has resulted in inattention to the strengths as well as
the weakness of legal education and has tended to obscure the theories
about learning already functioning within the system. Thus exaggerated
credit has been given to the esteemed socratic case method for the accomplishments of legal education.
Until recently legal education varied from school to school as names
and places vary. Legal education was conceived to be a product-some
versions better than others, but still a product, and essentially the same
product. In the first year, analysis was stressed in a series of courses
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conventionally admitted to be the building blocks for further study. The
case method was the appropriate vehicle and the socratic dialogue the
appropriate style. Basic concepts out of the way, the second year provided the broad market place foundation courses which synthesized those
concepts and gave them-if only in the fancy of teacher and student-a
kind of complex vitality. In the third year, with students "home-free,"
we offered some choice of courses, gave more attention to the students'
practical needs, and allowed some escape from the time-period examination-generally in the form of a research paper prepared for a seminar.
Additional education was found in curriculum-related and extra-curricular events such as moot-court competitions and law review.
In making a study of the law school curriculum we began by taking a
look at what we have been doing-right and wrong. We uncovered
a number of virtues that curbed our revolutionary zeal and a number of
faults that required correction. It would be irresponsible to assert that
the uses of law and the function of legal education have not changed in
the last few decades; yet, we found in the current curriculum the ready
basis for updating our efforts. A survey of writing in the field of legal
education revealed that good ideas have been abroad but that we have
often been slow to act upon them. One can read Volume 1 of the
Journal of Legal Education with much profit and a comparison of that
first volume with the latest is not a fool's errand. Further, we found
that developments in legal education have been working toward solutions-or at least more useful contributions-to the needs of law and
society. But the changes have too often been ad hoc and seemingly unreflective-productive, but not always critically arrived at and therefore
lacking occasionally in conscious direction. We knew of course, that
lawyers draft pleadings and wills, that they do more than just litigate
their clients' cases, and that they are becoming increasingly aware of and
concerned about the evolving functions of the lawyer in our society.
The traditional division between the teacher/theoretician and the "practical" practitioner is after all a shibboleth. The good teacher and
the good practitioner are both appreciative of theory and practicalityor, as Professor Rutter of Cincinnati says, the jurisprudence of the
lawyer's operations. l We have had a legal research and writing program
in the first year, which has gotten better and better, but it has not been
effectively enough related to other aspects of the curriculum. Apart
from moot appellate exercises in which participation is optional, little
else in the curriculum led the student into simulated or real experience in
the whole range of lawyers' operations, until he got to trial moot court
in the third year. The popularity of this course has been thought to
1
Rutter, Jurisprudence of Lawyers' Operations, 13 J.Legal Ed. 301 (1961).
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derive from the idea that trying a case is what a lawyer really does. This
interpretation seems a bit narrow, and with its preoccupation on litigation
for its own sake, a bit unfashionable at the moment. The true worth, it
rather seems, lies (1) in that it provides the student with one integrated
assumption of the lawyer's role and (2) in the supervision and interpretation of his discharge of the role. At South Carolina, the trials are taped
on television and critiqued in play by play fashion. This Sunday
morning quarter-backing is itself a learning experience and it reinforces
good habits already learned in the course of the trial.
Thus two obvious developments in the curriculum offer themselves:
(1) the greater development in the understanding and assumption of the
lawyer's role, and (2) the more appropriate interpretation of student
performances. Both are consistent with learning theory. We know, of
course that legal education is not a product, but a process. The inductive
process by which law grows is akin to the process of learning. The law
student must participate in legal education; it is not a spectator sport.
The socratic method is well attuned to this truth, but the question and
answer technique is not the sole way to achieve participation in the learning process. Indeed, as Dr. Watson has argued, it may produce negative
effects where humanity is lacking and turn the student off. 2 Given the
skills other than dialectical disputation that the student must acquire, the
hard line question and answer approach is, once basic analytical technique
has been inculcated, wasteful. We have therefore sought a mix of skills,
styles of instruction, and objects of study. We hope to weave the assumption of role and the interpretation of student performances into the
mix. By mix, we have in mind varieties of learning experience-for
variety to maintain interest, for comparison to strengthen learning and
for comprehensiveness in appreciation of the lawyer's function in society.
As Dean Manning of the Stanford Law School has recently stated, .
The old law school was a place of large classes, slow cadence, limited
subject matter, verbal analytics, symmetrical theology, classroom
enclosure, repetitive pedagogy and compulsory curriculum. The
modern law school is, within the limits of its resources, a place of
smaller classes, multidisciplinary and diversified subjects, differentiated pedagogy, factual context, in-depth study, research in
field and library, operational training, professional community
activity and curricular optionality. 3
Teaching law to the law student requires a bringing together of
reason, information and experience. All three must be interwoven in
2 Watson, The Quest for Professional Competence: Psychological Aspects of Legal
Eilucation, 37 U.Cin.L.Re\'. 93 (1968).
3 Manning, Financial Anemia in Legal Eilucation: Every"boily's Business, 55 A.B.
A.J. 1125 (1969).
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the process of legal education. The law school is the focus of only tne
first three years of the lawyer's legal education. Since it is the beginning
of legal education it presents a bringing together of these three factors
in combinations different from those to be observed in the lawyer's later
life. The practitioner of ten or twenty years has obviously far more
experience with client and community problems than the law student.
His response to those problems is therefore expected to be more successful. Whether in a general or special sense, the practitioner of many years
has amassed a store of legal information which beggars the mind of even
the best crammed law school examination candidate. The difference
is perhaps not so striking as regards reason, but it is there. Here we
speak of reason in the manner of Coke, not of reason in an elemental or
purely natural sense, but of reason as a cultivated awareness of what
is relevant. The interaction of these three factors becomes apparent when
reason is considered in this light.
In individuals capable of growth, there must be an ability to acquire,
retain and use these three factors: the sense of relevance, legal doctrine,
and experience in real or simulated forms. The law school has a distinctive and constructive part to play in this process. We can only rely on
their having such general development as is the result of previous education and being of a certain age. It is important to remember that we are
engaged in the first instance in cultivating the student's capacity or
potential to be aware of what is relevant, to assimilate principles and
rules of law, and to deal with simulated and then actual experience. We
should seize upon the fact that law school is not only first in time but
unique in providing a scheme of structure assistance in the education of
the law student. Accordingly, we should make use not only of the inescapable fact that the legal minds of our students are at first almost
tabulae rasae, but also the fact that they will probably never again have
the organized assistance we ought to provide.
It follows that the student's capacity to reason is the first element that
must be dealt with. This for two reasons: First, although reason has
been spoken of as a cultivated sense of relevance, an ability to think about
things in ways that are socially important or necessary, the basis of that
reason is the cognitive or intellectual ability to perceive ideas. A transition between basic cognitive ability and the sophisticated awareness of
relevance must be attempted early. The second reason is that the lawyer's
logic or reason is the intellectual force which structures his response to
legal lore and experience. Much energy and motion would be wasted by
ignoring the cultivation of analytical ability or subordinating it to a
precipitous deluge of "black letter law" or a bewildering immersion into
sink-or-swim experience. Finally, the capacity for growth of the basic
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analytical ability as such (as distinct from its later form as a cultivated
component of the legal temperament) is most likely present in the freshman law student from the start. Such increase as may occur in after
years is, it seems, less a product of continuing special pedagogy than a
gradual fruition of cultivation undertaken in the first year.
In working out a theory of how law students learn we have tried to
keep in mind that what students learn cannot long be separated from
how they learn. As well, we have tried to keep in mind who the law student is and why he comes to law school. We have too long been satisfied
with the claim that the student comes to law school because he wants to
be a lawyer. This is very nearly a tautology, given that graduation
fr0m la:w school certifies one for the Bar examination and then admission
to the Bar. We sometimes find it hard to accept that not everyone wants
to be a lawyer. Once the student has shown the wit to elect the true
profession we treat this election as motivated entirely by the desire to do
what lawyers do. (At the same time the Bar bewails the fact that the
law schools teach the law student only part of what lawyers do.) But
lawyers are not simply the sum of the operations they perform. They
are, like most other people, intelligent and inquisitive, and what motivates
them to do the things that lawyers do is more than pleasure or satisfaction
in the mechanics of those operations. Lawyers' operations are more
often means than ends. They are thus self-expressions directed toward
ends deemed worthwhile. Accordingly, in the early stages at least, more
important than doing what a lawyer does, a reason for coming to law
school is being what a lawyer is, and perhaps most important, being what
a lawyer seems to be.
This concern with status and role selection and identification compounds the charge levied against legal education (in partly inaccurate
terms) that it is not practical enough. Admittedly the concentration upon
appellate litigation has worked to the neglect of trial litigation and, more
important for the point here, counselling, negotiation, and drafting.
As has been suggested, that charge is directed to the incomplete
preparation of the law student for performing lawyer's operations. The
charge now levied against legal education is that of not being mindful
of the fact that "sounding like a lawyer" involves "feeling like a lawyer."
Thus we compound an incomplete model of lawyer's operations and inattention to the lawyer's role and function in society. As Dr. Watson
argues, "one of the critical events which should occur during legal education is the incorporation into identity of a model for professional
behavior." 4
4
Watson, supra note 2 at 103.
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We propose a curriculum which, in the context of this school, seeks to
be attentive to the foregoing. If, as some social scientists would have us
believe, many lawyers' operations are not intellectually dissimilar to those
performed in related disciplines, the model of professional behavior as
regulator of those operations should be of pervasive concern to legal
education as its unique component. The Law School should provide the
learning environment for the blending of professional competence and
professional responsibility. A complementary sequence of technical and
speculative proficiency and appreciation and assumption of role is indicated. The learning sequence adopted is that of foundation, reinforcement and proliferation, and enrichment. The role assumption sequence is
necessarily from external observation of law and the world of lawyers
to an internal assumption of professional identity and transition into the
practice of law.
TOPIC B-NOTES ON TEACHING METHODS AND MATERIALS
As the title of this topic indicates, a thorough-going discussion on
methods and materials is not contained herein-by modest estimate that
job alone would double or triple this report. Instead ~e have chosen only
to make some asides, to point a few developmental directions, that seem
to be inherent assumptions underlying this curriculum proposal. Much
of what we say may be old hat to many law teachers, but it is probably
worth restating just to help get our own ideas in order and to get our
thought-cards out on the table for public exposure and critical scrutiny.
First, the case-system should still be an important part of the teaching
methods employed in the first year of law school. In this, we are close
to agreement with Llewellyn's remark re forcing students to grapple and
grasp the art "of synthesizing cases into first a small-scale and then a
large-scale structure of doctrine. The student should indeed be up
against this--once, twice, three times, perhaps, fpr a slower student, four,
five. But five times is enough, even for a slow student, and all five
times together have no need to occupy as much as a single year of curricular space:' 1
In this curriculum we visualize the first-year case-courses, to be, as one
would expect, Property, Torts, (to a lesser degree) Contracts, and the
first two parts of the Introduction to Law Series. Even in these courses,
the float should be used for studies ranging beyond the case-confines.
This amount of retention of the case-method should be enough to
maintain its legal reasoning skills teaching value and still leave time for
the use of other methods to teach other things (viz., counselling, draft1
K. N. Llewellyn, Jurisprudence, 382 (1962).
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ing, issue-shaping, and the pros and cons of underlying policies in the
selection of alternative "solutions").
Second, in other first year courses (not always including the float) and
in the second year, the primary instructional technique should be the
problem-method, with class-time being given over to the discussion of
actual legal dilemmas and outside assigned work used for students to
obtain information that aids in solving the problems posed-intensive
work in class, extensive work outside.
It is in the second year that some of our ideas about the problem
method are most obvious. We recommend substantial hour reductions
in many courses which now octopus-reach across many a curriculum.
These proposals fight upstream on two counts: (1) they run counter to
the great American myth that to learn anything you must take a course
in it and (2) they frontally attack the related proposition that given
amounts of material must be "covered" in class.
Experience is still scanty, good problem-method teachers are still rare,
but we think that joinder on the class-coverage issues will probably be
avoided in many instances because, if present afficianados are to be
believed, the problem-method "covers" material faster and better tItan
either the case or lecture systems. This alone should help insure the
success of the second year as we propose it. In those instances where
hours have been cut to the bare bone, the problem-method should still be
used and "coverage" difficulties solved, if they exist, not by resurrection
of octipi, but by experimentation to find ways of adequately providing
for independent, outside learning (perhaps programmed-learning,
examinations over outside reading or other techniques).
Only a very few of the second-year courses we propose have fully
adequate materials available. Possible sol~tions for this situation flow
from many sources.
First, the growing trend in publishing-house output increasing the
problem-method materials available; second, a centralized clearing-house
listing of available "underground press" teaching materials developed by
individual law teachers for the supplementation or the supplantation of
published materials (this is similar to the Bobbs-Merrill plan of 1968);
third, the encouragement of teaching materials research and development
by the law schools themselves, probably through some form of incentive
or subsistence financing to interested faculty members; fourth, increased
development of easily supplemented materials, e. g.} loose-leaf casebooks
like the recent Matthew Bender series or paperback source-book/problembook combinations.
Third, in the third year, we anticipate a shift in problem-method
emphasis from the rather short, relatively discrete problems of the
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CAROLINA CURRICULUM REPORT
557
second-year and portions of the first-year to sustained individual research on fairly lengthy problems, either real or sip1Ulated. Clinical
programs, for example, provide real problems that require long-term
effort and skills-application to reach acceptable resolutions. A good trial
practice course provides simulated problems that require the same kind
of individual effort. Some newly-developed games (code words:
"heuristic teaching devices") hold great possibilities for the cr·eation of
continuing artificial environments which demand thoughtful, skillful, and
researched participation. Again, major materials hurdles must be overcome, but many of the same means applied to the second-year retooling
should be able to produce success. The primary requirement for the
implementation of this curriculum re teaching methods is bold imagination. The full panoply of teaching techniques from the several educational disciplines should be explored to find those best suited to "fit" the
various courses listed in or pluggable-into, the foregoing curriculum plan.
Such techniques might include computers, audio-visual aids (inc. audiotape, video tape, film, language (Query, "law?") laboratories), and educational games. Advanced technology can ill-afford to be forgotten as a
possible source of curriculum improvement. This school has already embarked on a program of methods and materials improvement and the results have thus far been gratifying. We, therefore, urge a program of
experimentation to meet the growing challenges to legal education.
A point not yet adequately mentioned is that successful implementation
of the "float" plan will require close consultation and coordination among
the teachers involved with the various individual courses. We would
recommend that the float supervisor and individual teachers be aware
of this need for extensive communication and be ready to work jointly
for the implementation of the float program. This will probably require
committees of first Semester Teachers, second Semester Teachers, and,
finally third Semester Teachers. This fairly formalistic organization
will help reinforce the idea that the float is a supplementary course
rather than a proprietary one. In schools fortunate enough to have
graduate programs, graduate students are the obvious choice. In other
schools, like ours, top-ranking third-year students will be the choice (with
law-review time-commitments carefully examined to prevent overburdening responsibilities).
TOPIC
D-A
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Most of the basic ideas contained in this report have had wide currency among legal educators for many years. Because these thoughts
are readily available from a wide variety of sources, we have chosen
not to unnecessarily duplicate efforts by reproducing a complete
bibliography here, but refer the reader instead to the already existing
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JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION
[VOL. 23
Bibliography of Materials on Legal Education prepared by Doris Y.
Alspaugh and publishedtPy the New York University School of Law in
1965. A 1967 Supplement prepared by Doris Y. Alspaugh and Joseph
E. Hensley completes the bibliography through June 30,1967. After that
date reliance can be placed on the Index to Legal Periodicals and reported
Association of American Law Schools papers and proceedings. Another
bibliography, concentrating on teaching methods and learning theory, is
contained in the "Readings" section of the 1969 North Carolina Teaching
Clinic Curricular Outlines.
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