In 1871, Christopher Columbus Langdell, Dean at Harvard Law School, published the first textbook of cases, introducing a pedagogy that continues in law schools around the world to this day. More than 150 years later, we continue teasing out principles from the case method of teaching as a rite of passage. For Langdell and the subsequent legions of law professors, it was caselaw Über Alles. For generations, they have believed that students can best understand the evolution of the law by reading cases rather than by studying isolated doctrine out of context. It surely is an effective way to learn the law if you are going to go clerk for a judge or be a judge.
But softer skills like cultural competencies, drafting, fact-finding, and problem identification—those that are practical for the classroom and the workplace—are relegated to the sidelines. It has only been a few decades since legal skills—deemed as not academically serious enough to earn some law professors tenure or equal pay with colleagues who teach so-called doctrinal courses—have even been integrated into the legal curriculum. Given that most civil cases settle, and most criminal cases get plea bargained, it seems a mismatch that very few law students study mediation and negotiation, key skills they will need in their future careers.
