Re:  Keith Maxwell
 
I'm resisting you making me go through "legal reasoning".  I rather
talk about hotels  :)
 
But seriously, I believe it is more important to teach students to
think via substantive legal topics.  Less coverage, more insight.
Too many instructors (in all disciplines) are just racing through
material.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Date sent:      Fri, 31 Oct 1997 08:40:51 -0500
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                "Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk"
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From:           Kent Schenkel <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:        Re: Hotels? Does this really hit us where we live?
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At 04:55 PM 10/30/97 -0800, Keith Maxwell wrote:
 
>My questions are these. (1) Do others stress legal reasoning?
 
I'm not sure that I stress legal reasoning, except that I like to get my
students to question the "right" or "wrong" answer.  It seems to me that
this is the most valuable thing to be taken from a legal environment class.
My technique is to try to get them (in selected  instances) to argue for the
efficacy of an opinion and result that is different from the one reached in
the case abstract.
 
 (2) Should it
>be stressed at the expense of law topics?
 
If you mean rules of law, I think the answer is yes, to some extent.  I tell
them the first day of class--you could memorize all the laws and they would
be useless to you if you didn't know how to apply them to the facts that
arise.  To order your business and personal behavior in compliance with the
law, you must have some feel for "how" it is applied, not just memorize
"what" it is.
 
Here's an analogy.  Suppose we taught house painting.  Would we  teach it by
simply giving our students a bucket of every quality and hue of paint
available, along with all the brushes, etc?  Obviously we would have to
teach them how to put the paint (rules) on the house (facts). If you know
how to do this, you can always get the paint and do the job.
 
(I know this is an elementary point to a group like this, but the question
was pretty open-ended.)
 
 (3) Do your students resist your
>teaching of legal reasoning?
 
Most students resist everything except the cue that class is over.  But
those who don't take something valuable with them
 
 (4) Is it better to teach legal reasoning
>subtly, say, by example, or as merely incidental to the substantive stuff?
 
Subtle?  I'm alwayes trying to find the pedagogical equivalent of a
sledgehammer.
 
My humble two cents as an assistant profeesor,
 
 
Kent Schenkel
University of North Carolina at Wilmington
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