I agree completely- Application of rule to real life is very useful for developing critical thinking skills. I was talking with a colleague the other day about how teaching business law has helped us to better understand concepts taught in law school which were taught in a more nuanced manner. The beauty of BLAW is the trenches.
________________________________
From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk on behalf of Mark Conrad
Sent: Wed 10/31/2007 9:25 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Should Law Schools Adopt the B-School Case Method?
I agree. I like to use a combination of lecture and hypothetical case studies that involve not only legal issues, but business strategies. For example, is the use of a trademark of a sports team for tee-shirts used by members of a fan club composed of die-hart fans web site worth instituting an infringement claim? What is the upside of issuing a cease and desist letter and possibly bringing anger and bad publicity versus letting the use continue? I want to show students that deciding to utilize legal remedies involves a great amount of decision-making. In other words, seeing the forest from the trees.
Mark Conrad
Associate Professor, Legal and Ethical Studies
Schools of Business
Fordham University
212/636-7975
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-----Original Message-----
From: Richard L. Coffinberger <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 8:11 am
Subject: Should Law Schools Adopt the B-School Case Method?
An interesting piece from today's Wall Street Journal; here an excerpt from
Barton's essay:
The law school case method DOES teach students to read legal cases and discern a
legal rule. It also hopefully teaches students how to apply legal rules in
alternate factual situations. Nevertheless, wouldn?t it be possible to teach
that skill in a case method that more closely approximates business school?
Couldn?t we give students a set of facts coupled with a portfolio of related law
and a necessary legal task and then grade them on their actual work?
That would still teach our students to glean a legal rule from cases and apply
it, but it would also do a better job of preparing students to be lawyers.
Moreover, we could reach a broad range of skills from document drafting to
negotiation to pre-trial litigation. In fact, the list of skills that could be
covered in tandem with the substantive material is virtually endless, bounded
only by the limitations of the classroom setting, and the professor?s
willingness to create and grade the new case files.
Lastly, the core claimed strength of the law school case method is that it
teaches students to ?think like a lawyer.? The business school case method,
however, teaches students both how to learn and how to make actual, hard
decisions. Harvard Business School ?emphasizes learning over teaching,? i.e. the
students learn from preparing, discussing, and acting out real life situations.
Further, business schools force students to get in the habit of actually making
decisions and actually performing difficult managerial tasks.
Business students thus learn not only the familiar law school lessons of gray
areas and indeterminacy, but the additional (more valuable lesson) that
regardless of imperfect information actions must be taken.
Barton even says business-school grading is also much more rational than law
school grading because MBA students are graded on the strength of their actual
work, not a single exam at the end of the semester.
Do you agree or disagree and why? A very useful debate in my opinion.
Rick
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