Journal of Legal Education (Association of American Law Schools)

Katz, Wilber G

Human Nature and Training for Law Practice

Ribble, F.D.G.

The Annual Meeting, 1948

Currie, Brainerd

ACTIVITIES OF TlE ASSOCIATION
THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER
To the Member Schools:
In 1950 the Association of American Law Schools will have completed
the first fifty years of its life. It is not too early to begin plans for an ap-
propriate celebration at the 1950 annual meeting, and it is suggested that the
Cincinnati meeting should be called upon to consider preliminary arrange-
ments.
Our observance of this anniversary will have served one useful purpose
if it turns our attention again to the history of the Association-to a consid-
eration of its contributions to the cause of legal education in America, and
thus to a renewed appreciation of its capacities for service in the future.
I believe that law teachers, especially the younger ones among us, will find
it a rewarding experience to become acquainted with this history, and I com-
mend to them, as a point of departure, President Kirkwood's review of the
Association's first thirty-five years.'
In its early years the Association met at the time and place of the annual
meeting of the American Bar Association, but beginning in 1914 a separate
meeting has been held each year during the Christmas week. All of those
meetings have been held in Chicago with the exception of the 1929 and the
1935 meetings, which were held in New Orleans.
Many people erroneously assume that the Association is an accrediting
agency. However, I am sure no jurisdiction requires graduation from an
Association school as a qualification for admission to the bar examination.
The American Bar Association's list of approved schools is accepted as the
official source of accrediting information. It is, of course, true that the
list of approved schools and the membership of the Association are now
practically identical. There are now only seven American law schools ap-
proved by the American Bar Association which are not members of the As-
sociation, and two of those have applied for membership. No conflict has
ever developed between the two organizations, and during the past ten years
in particular they have worked in complete harmony and on a cooperative
basis.
All of us recognize that minimum standards for membership must be
established and maintained; but the principal purpose and function of the
Association has been and must continue to be that stated in its Articles-
"the improvement of the legal profession through legal education." This
necessarily involves standards and assumes objectives which are debatable
and somewhat illusory. But primarily the Association's function is itself
educational in nature. Knowledge of what is being said, done, and proposed
in the name of legal education is the first essential to "improvement."
1 HA oo 22 (1934).
306 JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION [VOL. 1
I think we sometimes underestimate the quality of the lawyers who have
had their training in Association schools. In particular, we may think that
those graduates in the lower scholastic range of the class might well have
been eliminated prior to graduation. However, it is literally true that any-
one who has survived a program of college and professional training involv-
ing six or seven years belongs to the intellectual aristocracy of the country.
(Consider the limited number of people-physicians, preachers, and doctors
of philosophy-who have a similar background.) A lawyer with the mini-
mum five years of training ranks high in the amount of his training and in
the achievement that has been required of him.' The over-all average of the
top students and the bottom students covers rather a wide gap, but the dif-
ference between the members of a graduating class, if only the third-year
record is considered, is not too striking.
The fact is that we deal with a very superior group. Law-school students
are capable of much more than we require of them. To my mind the chal-
lenge to the Association has to do almost entirely with the substantial im-
provement of our product.
BERNARD C. GAVT.
Indiana University.
THE ANNUAL MEETING, 1948
T he meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, to be held
December 28, 29 and 30, gives promise of being a most interesting one.
The place will be the Netherland Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati, which provides
facilities both spacious and attractive. In choosing a location other than
a Chicago hotel, the Executive Committee was influenced by the difficulty
of getting, for this year, desirable accommodatiofis in Chicago at the time
which has proved most acceptable. It is planned to return to the Edge-
water Beach Hotel in Chicago for the 1949 meeting.
The Round Tables are scheduled as follows: Tuesday afternoon (Decem-
ber 28), Administrative Problems, Business Associations, Legislation, and
Jurisprudence; Tuesday evening, Crimes,'Labor Law, Property, and Torts;
Wednesday afternoon, Public Law, Remedies, and 'Conflict of Laws. The
general session on curriculum and methods is set for Wednesday morning.
The several "Round Tables will be of great interest to particular groups.
A widespread general interest will be found in the session on curriculum and
methods. The plans for this session were made by joint action of the Com-
mittee on Curriculum and the Committee on Teaching and Examination
Methods. The subject chosen by these Committees is "The Impact of Pub-
lic Law on Post-war Curricula and Teaching Methods."
The Committees have adopted a novel idea for the presentation of this
subject. Professor Cavers wrote as follows about the choice of the subject
.and about the method of presentation:
The growth in importance of public law appears to be the principal
factor making for change in American legal education. Three years
from the end of World War II, it seems evident that not only have the
legislative and administrative innovations-of the 1930's become, in sub-
stance, a permanent part of our governmental structure but also that the
problems of the post-war period are likely to induce even further in-
tervention by government, local, state and national, in the economic
-and social life of the American people. Moreover, the new role that
the nation is playing in world affairs is greatly enhancing the impor-
tance of the laws governing the world community and its organization.
These developments are affecting legal education in at least six ways:
(1) Law schools are finding it necessary to offer more instruction in
-public law. (2) Enrolments in elective public law courses have ma-
terially increased. (3) Either the time available for private law courses
or the number of students electing them is being curtailed. (4) Pub-
lic law elements are becoming increasingly important in private law
fields, further blurring a distinction that has always been of dubious
validity. (5) Traditional teaching methods are proving not to be
-wholly satisfactory for the development of some of the public law fields.
(6) The pressure on time for the coverage of private law subjects is
-creating problems of teaching method in the private law fields.
Various aspects of the foregoing developments have been the subject
-of discussion at Association meetings for a number of years, and the
views of many law teachers of long experience are already on record
concerning them. Instead of inviting the renewed expression of these
307
JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION
views, the Committees are planning to tap another body of opinion:
the views of law teachers who have begun the teaching of law since
the start of World War II. Not only has this group had little opportun-
ity to take an active part in Association meetings, but its members en-
tered law teaching at a time when attention was already being focussed
on the problem with which the program is concerned. Many, more-
over, have come to law teaching from war-time experiences calculated
to give them fresh insight into the problems of public law.
To make sure that this group will be heard from, the Committees
have worked out an unusual plan for the conduct of the meeting. A
panel of eight law teachers has been chosen well in advance of the meet-
ing, four by each Committee, from teachers of public and private law
who have entered law teaching since the start of World War II. They
will engage in a round-table inter-change of views on the platform. Dis-
cussion will then be invited from the floor, but only teachers meeting
the same qualifications will be eligible to participate. In the unlikely
and unhoped-for event that they exhaust their views before the end of
the meeting, their seniors in point of service will be given a chance to
release any pent-up ideas and emotions.
Both in planning the program and in preparing reports to be made at the
meeting, the Committees have performed well. The reports will appear in
the printed program, promised by the printer for distribution by the first of
December. The work of the Committees is aided materially by meetings of
their membership. Because of the wide geographical distribution of mem-
bership, the only real chance of getting together is at the annual meeting
preceding the year of service. The luncheon period on Wednesday (Decem-
ber 29) is designated in the program as furnishing a convenient opportunity
for satisfying this very real need.
Wednesday evening will be particularly suitable for dinner meetings of
alumni or fraternity groups. Following the dinner period there will be the
annual smoker. Dean Rowley, with the help of members of the Cincinnati
Bar, is planning the entertainment for that evening.
F .D. G. RiBBL0,
Secretary-Treasurer.
University of Virginia.
(VOL. 1
CONCERNING THE JOURNAL
The history of discussions looking toward the publication of an official
journal by the Association of American Law Schools extends back almost
to the origin of the Association itself. In 1904, just four years after the
Association was formed, the Executive Committee recommended "the estab-
lishment of a journal, to be devoted to the advancement of Legal Education,
to be known as the American Law School Quarterly." 1 The project in its
present form, however, stems immediately from a series of recent develop-
ments. In 1946 the Executive Committee, under President Ferson, appoint-
ed a committee consisting of Ralph W. Aigler (Chairman), Charles T. Mc-
Cormick, Clarence M. Updegraff, Lawrence W. DeMuth, Russell N. Sulli-
van, and Bernard C. Gavit to consider proposals for the publication of a jour-
nal.2 The committee canvassed the membership and recommended that
the subject be discussed fully on the floor at the annual meeting.3 Accord-
ingly, at its 1946 meeting the Association, after considering the question,
4
adopted a resolution offered by Professor Updegraff for the committee, de-
claring itself in favor of initiating the publication of a periodical "to be de-
voted to the needs, purposes and technics of legal education." The resolu-
tion authorized the Executive Committee to consider and act in respect to all
details necessary to the early beginning of the proposed publication.5
Pursuant to this resolution, the Executive Committee announced at the
1947 meeting the completion of plans for publication of the JOURNAL OP
LEGAL EDUCATION. A resolution 6 adopted by the Executive Committee es-
tablished the present editorial organization and approved plans whereby the
JOURNAL was to be printed and distributed by the West Publishing Compa-
ny and the Foundation Press, Inc., and to be edited for the Association by
the Faculty of Law at Duke University.
The JOURNAL is a quarterly. The first issue (Autumn, 1948) appeared
in August. The regular publication schedule is as follows:
Number 1 Autumn September 1
Number 2 Winter December 1
Number 3 Spring March 1
Number 4 Summer June 1
As a rule, manuscripts must be in the hands of the editors three months be-
fore the date of publication, although a limited number of exceptions can be
made, especially for "Comments" responsive to material published in a cur-
rent issue.
The editors will welcome not only manuscripts submitted for publication
but any suggestions looking toward the improvement of the JOURNAL or the
expansion of its usefulnesss. Teachers in member schools particularly, we
127 A.B.A.REP. 556 (1904). See the address of President Kirkwood, HANDBoox 22,
29 (1934), reviewing the subsequent progress of the proposal.
2 HANDBOOK 90, 198 (I946).
3 Id. at 198, 203.
4 The debate is recorded in id. at 38-43.
r Id. at 40.
6 Printed in full in the HANnoox 117-118 (1947).
309
JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION
hope, will bear in mind President Seavey's admonition that the JOUnNAL's
success "must depend upon the willingness of law schools and law school
faculties to back the enterprise." 7
The JouRNAL is distributed to about 2,500 law teachers, 800 bar examiners,
and nearly 200 law libraries-a total circulation of approximately 3,500.8
It is apparent, therefore, that it offers an unusually effective medium for
the communication of ideas on legal education.
The attention of potential contributors is particularly invited to the de-
partments called "Comments" and "Law School Developments," the pur-
poses of which are briefly explained on pages 251 and 285 of this issue. The
distinction between "articles" and "comments" is, it must be confessed,
a rather' fluid one. It is a differenc6 in function rather than in form or in
dignity. The intention is to provide a vehicle for relatively short and in-
formal papers, nd thus to stimulate the interchange of ideas. Similarly,
the "Law School Developments" section is designed as a clearinghouse for
information concerning experiments in curriculum, teaching method, admin-
istration, and the like. It is the hope of the Editorial Board that these de-
partments will be fully utilized and that they will accordingly grow in use-
fulness to the profession.
It has already been our experience that contributors to the JOURNAL fre-
quently desire reprints of their papers for classroom use or for other distri-
bution. The conditions under which the JOURNAL is manufactured make it
impracticable to prepare reprints in the way that some law reviews find pos-
sible, but reproduction by planographing can be arranged at reasonable
cost.9 The editors will gladly make the necessary arrangements on behalf
of contributors desiring reprints.
BRAINERD CURRIE,
Editor-in-Chief.
Duke University.
7 HANDBOO 41 (1946).
8 At present there is no provision for expanding the circulation to Include persons
outside these groups.
9 The following table is illustrative of current prices:
Pages Quantity
100 200 500
2 $ 7.75 $ 7.90 $11.50
4 12.25 13.75 17.75
8 19.50 22.35 29.75
12 26.50 29.35 37.00
16 32.50 36.00 45.00
20 44.50 48.50 59.25
24 48.75 55.75 69.00
oq 52.75 58.25 73.50
32 57.75 64.75 82.00
[VOL. I


English

Concerning the Journal

Emerson, Thomas I

Lawyers, Law Schools, and the Public Service. By Esther Lucile Brown

Solomon, Harold W

JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION
If we do not get final answers to all these questions from the first
National Law Student Conference on Legal Education we can hardly be
surprised. That these questions or some of them were carefully and
thoughtfully discussed by law students is a healthy development. Legal
education will be well served by a continuance of these conferences.
INTRODUCTION
HAROLD W. SoLoMioN*
3 his Conference, the culmination of six months of planning, was per-
haps the most ambitious enterprise ever undertaken by law students
in the United States. For two days in the summer of 1947, 125 law
students, representing forty-two law schools throughout the country,
met in the building of the New York County Lawyers' Association in
New York City to discuss and evaluate present-day legal education.
The Conference was conceived and executed wholly as a student en-
terprise. As a result of discussions conducted by Professor Elliott E.
Cheatham in his Seminar in Legal Education at Columbia Law School
in the fall of 1946, the editors of the Columbia Law Review invited
their colleagues at Harvard, Pennsylvania, and Yale to meet in New
York to discuss the possibilities of such a student conference. The re-
sult of the meeting was agreement of the four law reviews to initiate
committees of non-law-review students at their respective schools, and
within a month the Conference was under way.
In February, representatives of the four local committees met in New
York to work out the outlines of the Conference. The representatives
constituted themselves the conference committee and established the
Columbia group as the resident committee in charge of executing their
plans. Because of the time required for preparation, the Conference
was set for July 11 and 12, a two-day meeting being considered suffi-
cient in view of the pressure of summer work under accelerated law
school programs.
The resident committee, by the end of March, had sent a prospectus,.
an agenda, a letter to the dean, and a letter signed by the deans of the
four "host" schools to every law school in the country-170 of them.
Response was slow. Most deans were interested but cautious. In mid-
April another series of letters was sent out-letters to deans, to presi-
dents of senior law classes, to law reviews-designed to stir up interest.
The result was gratifying. By early May eighty-five schools had re-
Conference Chairman, representing Columbia Law School.
[VOL. I
NATIONAL LAw STUDENT CONFERENCE
plied, thirty-seven accepting, and by June 9, when the conference com-
mittee met to complete final arrangements, the final roster of forty-two
schools was almost complete.
Two questions greatly troubled the committee: the scope of the
agenda, and the extent of non-student participation. Some of the con-
ference committee felt that students were not qualified to discuss the
objectives of legal education nor to evaluate the content of legal train-
ing, and should restrict themselves to criticism of teaching techniques,
matters which were most familiar to them. Other members replied that
students were probably better qualified to speak of general objectives
than to make any effective criticism of teaching techniques. Both sides
conceded that the disagreement was primarily a matter of emphasis,
but the split continued through several committee meetings until the
adoption of a c6mpromise agenda proposed by Columbia.
This agenda divided ten subjects into two panel groups. The first
panel group incorporated panels in which the delegates would conduct
an examination into the academic and technical problems of legal edu-
cation. This group was designed to satisfy the members of the con-
ference committee who desired the more limited student examination.
The second group included panels in which discussion would be directed
toward an examination of the need for legal service and the relation of
that need to legal education. These panels were desigiied to afford the
broader investigation which many members of the conference com-
mittee felt was desirable.
For each panel group a somewhat detailed "approach" was indicated
by the committee for the papers to be presented, the investigation, and
the work in the panels themselves. This course was taken in an effort
to prevent overlapping and to insure that degree of uniformity in prep-
aration and analysis necessary to achieve a coherent and well-rounded
result. The agenda was a practical compromise, but it was one which
the "host" schools were convinced would afford representatives of every
point of view an opportunity to do a fruitful job.
The second major difference of opinion in the conference committee
developed with consideration of non-student participation. Some of the
committee felt that full responsibility should be centered in students and
that permitting non-student participation would endanger spontaneous
discussion and, perhaps, result in non-student domination of the panels.
Those who favored a limited degree of non-student participation main-
tained it would lend color and dignity as well as facilitate authoritative
discussion. The final compromise authorized the panel chairmen to exer-
cise their discretion in the matter. In point of fact, those members of
the profession who attended the Conference exercised admirable self-
1 TouRNAL oF ZEGAI ED.No.1-6
19481
JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION
restraint. The discussion in the panels was conducted almost entirely
without direct comment from non-students.
The committee sought to avoid the characteristic vices of conferences
-the reading of long papers, the lack of prior preparation and organiz-
ation of the discussion. To this end the committee, by agreement with
participating schools, directed the preparation of leading papers for each
panel. These papers were mimeographed and circulated among the par-
ticipating schools two or three weeks prior to the Conference for local
discussion by the delegates before they departed for New York. At the
Conference itself the papers were summarized at the opening of each
panel, thus leaving the remainder of the time for discussion initiated
by the papers. Moreover, the relatively uniform technique introduced
by the "approach" previously mentioned facilitated efficient use of the
limited time for panel discussion.
Success of panel discussion depended in large part on the wisdom
and ability of the panel chairmen in the give-and-take of argument. The
chairmen needed a sensitive but firm hand to control groups of forty to
sixty delegates of diverse interests and inclinations. The conference
committee, anticipating such difficulties, selected the chairmen from the
"host" schools, not because they believed they would be any more ca-
pable than other delegates, but because they could hand-pick and in-
struct the chairmen in advance of the Conference and prepare them for
such problems. Prior to the Conference the chairmen met with the com-
mittee for discussion, studied the papers relating to their panels, and
prepared suggested outlines of discussion. Each panel had a stenotypist,
so that a complete transcript of the proceeding was preserved; that record
is the basis of the report.
Financial support for the Conference came initially from the deans
of the four "host" schools, and later a grant of two thousand dollars
from the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation of New York made it possible
to plan for the recording of the proceedings and the preparation of the
report for publication. Each school paid a registration fee and took care,
in most instances, of the expenses of the delegates.
The Conference program was as follows: Friday morning Mr. Lloyd
K. Garrison addressed the delegates in plenary session, following a wel-
come by Mr. Terence J. McManus, Secretary of the New York County
Lawyers' Association, and an introduction by the Conference chairman.
The panel discussions were held Friday afternoon and evening and Sat-
urday morning and afternoon, two and three panels running concurrent-
ly. The concluding dinner of the Conference was held Saturday evening,
July 12, at the Columbia University Faculty Club. Judge Jerome Frank
was guest of honor. Professor Harry Jones of Columbia and Mr. John
I JoURNAL OF LEGAL ED.NO.1
[VOL. I
NATIONAL LAw STUDENT CONFERENCE
C. Beatty, Jr., of the resident committee presented faculty and student
analyses of the discussions respectively.
At the conclusion of the evening's program, in response to insistent
inquiry by the delegates, the conference committee called a meeting of
delegations interested in a continuation of student activity along the lines
of the Conference. The interested delegations constituted themselves
as an interim committee and named the University of Wisconsin Law
School to act as executive secretary for the committee. The interim
committee also designated the twelve schools which had prepared leading
papers as an executive committee.
This development was gratifying to the conference committee, which
had been reluctant to propose such a move on its own behalf for fear of
organizing for the sake of organization and because of uncertainty as
to the real source of strength of the Conference. Surely the impact of
veteran students with their special experience and problems contributed
to the success of the Conference. The committee hoped, that with this
start the interim committee would make possible constructive student
contribution to legal education in the future.
For the committee which arranged it, the Conference was a great deal
of work-and a very practical and satisfying experience. Everyone who
participated in the Conference hoped and believed that he could make
and was making some contribution to the law schools of the country.
At the heart of this belief is the proposition that students are qualified
to criticize, that it is the function of students to criticize. The delegates
were quite aware that they were not, in most cases, able to plumb a
problem to its depths; but criticism need not be the last word in intellec-
tual achievement to be constructive. And the Conference and this report
are only part of a far greater effort on the part of the profession as a
whole to adjust its interests to the needs of society.
The questions the Conference considered were tough ones. They
will have to be worked out primarily on the local scene. The conclu-
sions resulting from a national exchange of experience will have to be
translated into local terms. In this effort law students deserve the whole-
hearted support of the profession.
The conference committee wishes to acknowledge the assistance of
many men, too numerous to name here. The obligation to the deans
of all participating law schools is great, especially to Dean Young B.
Smith of Columbia, Dean Erwin N. Griswold of Harvard, Dean Earl
G. Harrison of Pennsylvania, and Dean Wesley A. Sturges of Yale,
and the members of their faculties.
1948]
JOURNAL OF LEGAL EDUCATION
I should like to thank, on my own behalf, the members of the confer-
ence committee, Walter Glass and John A. King, Jr., of Harvard;
Charles, Shapiro of Pennsylvania; Alex Brooks and Henry Leader of
Yale. I owe even more to the members of the resident committee who
contributed so much of their time and energy: John C. Beatty, Jr., Paul
A. Phillips, Carl H. Watson, Jr., Walter A. Schreiber, and David Res-
sler-and many others.
CONFERENCE AGENDA
Friday, July 11, 1947
10:30 A.M. Opening Session. Lloyd K. Garrison, Esq., Guest
Speaker
2:00 P.M. Panel Meetings
1. The Availability of Legal Education
2. Program Planning
3. Placement of Law 'School Graduates
7:00 P.M. Panel Meetings
4. Instruction in Practical Craft Techniques
5. Teaching Methods Employed in the Law
School
Saturday, July 12, 1947
9:00 A.M. Panel Meetings
6. The Lawyer in Large Urban- Centers and
Metropolitan Areas
7. The Lawyer in Rural Communities and
Smaller Urban Centers
8. The Lawyer in Public Life
1:30 P.M. Panel Meetings
9. The Lawyer in the International Field
10. The Lawyer in the Field of Labor
7:00 P.M. Concluding Dinner. Mr. John C. Beatty, Professor
Harry W. Jones, and the Hon. Jerome N. Frank,
Speakers.
[VOL. 1


Introduction

Fuchs, Ralph F

Legal Education and the Public Interest

Fuller, Lon L

What the Law Schools Can Contribute to the Making of Lawyers

Brosman, Paul

Survey of Latin-American Legal Education

Oppenheim, Leonard

Manuel of Legal Bibliography. By M. Ray Doubles and Frances Farmer; Legal Bibliography and the Use of Law Books. By Arthur S. Beardsley and Oscar C. Orman

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