University of Nevada, Las Vegas law school establishment: correspondence

Flora Dungan, Regent

Dear Flora;

I had the privilege of hearing you this morning at the Exchange

Club breakfast. Time is always so short at these meetings that

V7e seldom get to ask the questions or make the comments that we

would like to. I have one question which I was not able to ask

this morning.

You stated that the legislature has informed you that the law

school is to indeed be built and that it is to be put in Las

Vegas. Period. I feel that this should be up to the Board of

Regents to either approve or disapprove. There seems to be quite

a bit of confusion as to where the monies are to come from. I have

heard estimates of from $200,000 to $3,000,000 in donated funds

are to be forthcoming and this is the reason given by the law

school proponents when they inform us that the school will in

fact cost the taxpayers $0. They also quickly add that the sources

of this money must be kept secret for some secret reason. This

"secrecy" policy is precisely what the Watergate affair is all

about. Let the proponents make the sources of this money known

and let them tell the public how much money will be forthcoming

and whether these "promises" of funds are guaranteed before they

tell us that the law school will cost us nothing. There is no

need for secrecy in this matter, it is the public's right to know.

I further resent the legislature telling the Board that the money

will be spent and the program commenced. You are a thinking and

questioning person, just the kind of person that I personally like

/

to see on the board.

Another point I would like made clearer is that if the Legislature

has told you that the law school will be built but has not indicated

v/here the funding will come from, is it not the duty of the

Board to say that since the funds are not allocated by the

Legislature that the school can not be built? If all these

secret funds are going to magically appear, is it not the job of

the Legislature to make this source public? Should not the Board

insist that the Legislature make these sources public? Is it not

about time that the public is given a full disclosure on this

whole matter and would not a good forum for this disclosure be

the Board of Regent meetings?

Sincerely,

Paul B. Chaffee

1708 Euclid Avenue

Las Vegas, Nevada 89105

JACK SCHOFIELD

ASSEMBLYMAN

CLARK COUNTY DISTRICT NO. 2

2000 STOCKTON

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 8910S

TELEPHONE

OFFICE (702) 736-5268

HOME (702) 457-780O

Nevada Legislature

FIFTY-SEVENTH SESSION

COMMITTEES

CHAIRMAN

EDUCATION

VICE-CHAIRMAN

WAYS AND MEANS

CHAIRMAN

CLARK COUNTY LEGISLATIVE DELEGATION

CHAIRMAN

WAYS AND MEANS SUBCOMMITTEE ON

EDUCATION

April 24, 1973

Ms. Flora Dungan

1705 Cochran

Las Vegas, Nevada 89105

Dear Ms. Dungan:

Enclosed is a copy of a program of undergraduate law

study that appears to have a great deal of merit. This

was brought to my attention by Jack Farris, Chief of

the Audit Division, Internal Revenue Service, who has

helped establish two private law schools in the past.

Assemblyman

JS: sg

The Need for Undergraduate Law Study

by PJiilip Lacier

Legal education too long has been the exclusive

province of professional schools. The law's expanding

role i n American society demands it be reintroduced

t o the undergraduate curriculum. A revolutionary

idea? Hardly. Colonial educators realized, as we

should today, t h a t a citizenry well grounded i n law

can be a most valuable resource.

T T IS IRONIC tliat legal education in twentieth

century American universities is thought to be the

domain of the professional graduate school. The study

of Anglo-American law was introduced to the university

curriculum as an appropriate concern of the liberal arts.

tlic British trcidition cf t'-chr'C^ training

tiL itivv oificcs miu ilic Iiiiis of CTourt, Bicicksionc s

Oxford lectures in 175S esta'oiished law as a proper

course in the liberal arts curriculum. The return of law

to the colleges is demanded today by the nation's social,

political, and academic metabolism.

Referring to the impact of Blackstone's Comiiientaries

on the American colonists, Edmund Burke remarked,

"In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general

a study." The first American professors of law reiterated

Blackstone's theme; James Wilson, lecturing in

Philadelphia in 1790-91, argued that "The science

of law should, in some measure, and in some degree,

be the study of every free citizen, and of every free

man," and at Columbia, Chancellor Kent maintained

that acquaintance with law was "useful and ornamental

to gentlemen in every pursuit." Professorships in law

were established at many American universities in the

late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the

subsequent courses were addressed not to professional

training, but to general education.

The emergence of the professional graduate school

resulted, however, in the removal of law from the undereraduate

curriculum and the denicration of law study W w ( •>

as one of the liberal arts. Despite twenty years of discussion

since Sol M. Linowitz, addressing the American

Bar Association, recommended that every college add

a required course in principles of .Anglo-Saxon justice.'

law has not yet been established in the liberal arts curriculum

of American education. The most recent survey

reveals that no more than one hundred fifty "broadly

based and liberally oriented survey courses about law"

are now being offered at the twenty-six hundred colleges

and universities in the United States.- Yet. with a variety

of timely objectives, law can profitably be studied by

undergraduates as a complex of social and political arrangements

and as a resource for personal and community

problem solving.

Law as a Liberal Art

At the 1954 Harvard Conference on the '^eaching of

Law in the Liberal Arts Curriculum, Harold J. Berman,

professor of law at Harvard, summarized the many

reasons advanced for introducing law to the liberal arts

curriculum:

That an understanding of the nature of the leg.al order

and of legal reasoning is of significant cultural value in

itself;

Thnt an nnrtercfnnrling of law is essential to an understanding

of th.a pnlitical v.nUies of American society a;td

of the internatioi a! community; and that it illuminates

not only political science but aiso ottier disciplines such

as philosophy, history, economics, sociology, and anthropology;

That the diffusion of an understanding of law to wider

segments of the scholarly community will result in a

greater illumination of legal science, as scholars of other

disciplines come to give more attention to legal data;

That the study of law is an important means of developing

the student's sense of justice and his capacity

for responsible judgment;

That the study of law is an important foundation in

the training ot student- for the responsibilities of social,

economic, and political activity.^

McGcorge Bundy, then dean of the Harvard Faculty

of Arts and Sciences, was not persuaded, nevertheless,

that the values attributed to law study could be distinguished

from those which are already achieved, or

arc sought to be achieved, in undergraduate education.

To justify expansion of undergraduate legal education.

the objectives should emphttsize not the strengthening

of goals ;ichicvable with the existing curriculum,

but those which can only be accomplished by the study

of law. This requirement and the context of current

student needs and interests prompt recognition of these

!. Lincwjiz. Should Ju.\rut GV> To Collt^e? The Role oj the Hutnanittes

M F.iiuaiuon. 39 A.B.A.J. 57S (1953).

2. teller from Prof. Robert S. Summers, Cornell Law SchtX)!, to author,

November I, 1971.

3. BIRSUN, ON THE TEACHING OF LAW IN THE LIBERAL ARTS CCRRICL'LT'M

10-11 0956).

266 American Bar Association Journal

additional arguments for undergraduate legal education:

1 The practical merits of law study, meluding the

nreparation of knowledgeable clients and the introduction

of potential law school students to^ law study and

the legal profession.

2 The understanding of the relation of law and c

social order, as a means of both learning about one type

of authoritative policy making and dispelling the notion

of law as a monolithic authority.

3. The cultural value of law study as a subject requiring

normative reflection.

4. The scholarly objectives of cross-fertilization o

legal science and the liberal arts.

5. The training of legal reasoning as a method of cultivating

disciplined thinking.

6. The informing of the public sense of young citizens.

7. The clarification of the individual's role in society.

These objectives complement the traditional reasons

for including law in the liberal arts curriculum and underscore

the need for innovations in college law teaching.

Practical Merits of Law Study

Since the current generation of students has witnessed

the rapid expansion of both public and private law regulation

of everyday transactions, a proper purpose of the

college law course is to prepare citizens to behave more

knowledeeably in legal affairs. The .intent of this in-

Qtruction'^should be to foster in laymen an awareness o.

the kinds of situations in which legal problems may

arise, the occasions when an attorney should be consulted,

and the utility of the lawyer's advice.

While some law courses are designed to consider rules

and standards relevant to the businessman, doctor, consumer,

or civil rights activist, the introductory law

course in the liberal arts curriculum might serx'c a

broader purpose of client preparation by conveying insights

into how law is derived, familiarity with where it

is recorded, and some understanding of the problems of

ordering and enforcement. This objective, essential to

citizens^in a society in which the law has so pervasive an

influence, is not accomplished by any of the traditional

liberal arts disciplines.

Another practical objective that can best be achieve

by undergraduate legal education is the introduction of

potential law school students to law study and the legal

profession. Applications to American law schools have

surged since the early 1960s, reflecting the increased

attraction of the legal profession in terms of compensation

and, perhaps more important, the capacity to effect

social change. An undergraduate course in law

should not serve as a law school aptitude test, but it

may cultivate and test student interest in law study and

the profession.

The hazards are clear. There may be duplication of

effort on the college and professional school levels; the

survey nature of the college course might instill incomplete

and inaccurate conceptions of processes or doctrines

that would be difficult to remedy in law school;

the future law school student might miss the opportunity

lor enrichment in other fields by filling his college schedule

with law offerings; the quality of insiruction—

whether the professor be the law school's finest teacher

or a college instructor ill equipped to teach law and

the'course^ content, likely emphasizing public law. may

misrepresent the law school experience.

Yet potential law school students can be required to

read cases, inquire about the judicial process, and test

the social functions of law—all inlrequent e.xercises in

the liberal arts curriculum. It is naive to expect that the

undergraduate student of law will necessarily have a

clearer view of his professional interests on entering law

school or that many college students whose interests m

law school are directed to n o n p r o f e s s i o n a l ends better

served bv different graduate training, might be dissuaded

from applving to law school. But undergraduate

legal education will permit an informed judgment about

the option of law school. Moreover, the study of law

in relation to politics, economics, philosophy, and the

other liberal arts encourages an overview of the law that

is rarely achieved by law students, and then often not

until the third year.

Relation of Law to Social Order

Perusal of the bulletin boards of almost any Amencaii

college today will reveal student concern for the issues of

civil "rights, poverty, environmental protection, foreign

policy,"^tenants' rights, and consumer protection. The

technical language and institutions of these areas have

been incorporated into the undergraduate vernacular.

Yet there are few opportunities in the college curnculum

for the student—activist or observer—to consider the

relation of law and the social order. Although legal institutions

mav be the focus of other disciplines, two distinct

objectives might best be accomplished by the study

of law "itself: helping students understand one type of

authoritative policy making and dispelling the notion of

law as a monolithic authority.

Political science or history courses may equal the potential

of law study in describing the role played by

legal institutions and actors in the process of democratic

policy making. But it is not ignorance of the law so

much as misconceptions, according to Harvard law professor

Paul A. Freund. that threaten the social order:

"The layman, even the college-trained man. tends to

come to these questions [concerning the role of law in

society] viewing the law either mystically or cynically,

and in either case rather mistakenly." Specific disciplines

cannot be faulted for confusion about the legal

system, but references to law in many college textbooks

are misleading or erroneous. Even without these short-

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Philip Lader has taught undergraduate

law courses and now practices law in New York City. He was

educated at Duke. Michigan. Oxford, and Harvard univer^

sities. The complete study from which this article has been

condensed will appear in 25 Journal of Legal Education, No.

2 (1973).

March, 1973 • Volume 59 267

comings, a social science course may distort tlie law by

concentrating on its public aspects or failing to elucidate

procedural or substantive doctrines.

These misconceptions have been augmented by the

frustration of students in the political process. The lawtrained

historian Daniel J. Boorstin remarked at the

1954 Harvard conference:

In the United States, we have both the fact of a remarkably

continuous institutional development lacking

those points which would call our attention to the institutions

under which \\e live, and second we base as

an article of our national faith the fact that our present

institutions arc only an unfolding of the ideas of the

founding fathers.^

Little support for this "institutional continuity" thesis

could be mustered today from witnesses of antiwar

demonstrations and Nader investigations. Study of lecal

institutions, actors, and their work products may heichten

the frustration but would at least permit grievances

to be founded on a clearer understanding of the legal

process. " °

The concomitant of studying law as one tvpe of policy

making should be to dispel the popular image of law as

a monolithic authority. W hen law is viewed as a social

institution, a phenomenon common to ail societies, the

student may observe the ways in which law affects and

is affected by social behavior and the importance of

nonlegal influences—for example, custom, public opinion,

and economics—on public policy. Law can be

shown to be more than the rules, policemen, and legislative

programs studied in traditional civics courses. It

must be studied also as the source of authority for standards

and the process by which they are determined and

enforced.

Students Are Encouraged to Reflect

Recognizing the law as one of the civilizing forces in

Western civilization, many courses in the liberal arts

curriculum inquire into the impact of legal institutions

on the nature of man and his quest for moral order. But

a course in law can combine the institutional and behavioral

foci of the social sciences with the reflective

concerns of philosophy, religion, or literature by presenting

law both as a reflection of human purposes and

as a search for order. "What the law tries to do." according

to the law-trained poet .Archibald MacLcish.

'is to impose on the disorder of experience, the kind of '

order which enables us to live with the disorder of experience."

While other disciplines seek to create some harmony

from man's spiritual aspirations and material envii;onnietit,

it is the task of law to relate life's accidents to

this order. Law study, therefore, demands the questioning

and understanding of basic social and personal values.

T he capacity of undergraduate legal education to require

normative introspection must be distinguished

from the general cultural value Professor Berman^noted,

because, as the recent campus acceptance of meditation

and the proliteration of religious cults suggest, there is

now greater student emphasis on this objective of

the liberal arts than in 1954. Law study makes vivid, in

Learned Hand s words, "how often the deepest convictions

of one generation are the rejects of the next."

While this is already accomplished by the liberal arts

disciplines, few do so with as relevant or interesting

vicarious experience.

In law, questions of values are raised by real-life parables

about the quarrels of ordinary men; decisions are

made in a social setting; and lest students be spared the

responsibility of formulating their own conclusions, the

law records the settlements with no indication of their

wisdom or acceptance. These e.xercises tend to hone

what Professor Berman referred to as "the studc"''s

se;lc.-> of iiicit.-,^ •' 1^.., a„i,o._o con.Mku.te an innovative

approach to the self-realization that is a traditional objective

of the liberal arts.

Cross-fertilizing Law and Liberal Arts

The scholarly objectives of undergraduate legal education—

the cross-fertilization of legal science^ and the

liberal arts—could be achieved by graduate programs,

such as the Harvard liberal arts fellowships, or by the

inclusion of legal scholars and those of liberal arts in

each other's research and teaching staffs. College law

courses, on the other hand, would permit a wider diffusion

of an understanding of law to broader segments

of the academic community. In this wav, the liberal arts

may be supplemented by legal subject matter and research

materials. The social sciences mav be studied

from the law's perspective to settle disputes. And future

scholars of other disciplines will have had the opportunity

in their college experience to become familiar with the

nature and functions of law.

Law Study Teaches Rational Thinking

Legal education has no monopoly on di.sciplined

tinnking. but legal reasoning-being, as Judge Charles

t. Wyzanski. Jr.. has stated, "different from" the pure,

unadulterated, limitless quest for the truth"—requires a

mode of thought to which most undergraduates are un-

4. TRvs.,«,pr IV.:„. ^u,„ed m B,RSUS. t.uhi.o 163. n,ne 15.

268 American Bar Association Journal

accustomed. Comparative case analysis and statutory

interpretation teaches the student to develop all propositions

until he can articulate their connection with reality,

to test principles by their consequences, and, conversely,

to e.xamine consequences in light of these

principles. What is required is a habit of mind that discourages

irrational responses to comple.x problems.

Whether the college graduate is organreing materials for

a corporate sales report, preparing a high schcxrl biolocy

lecture, or participating in a national debate, this ability

is crucial. It is best cultivated by the study of legal materials.

As does the new science of decision making, the study

of law cultivates a particular kind of judgment because

of the nature and purpose of its materials. The very

complexity of legal language forces the student to consider

arguments carefully. The possible significance of

both small items, such as the date of a case, and major

though subtle points, such as the emergence of a new

doctrine in dicta, requires tlic serious student of law to

master the use of both microscope and telescope. Law

records reveal not only the decisions reached but also

the reasons advanced.

The student is trained, therefore, to e.xplore all possible

options, to hypothesize the consequences of these

alternatives, and to test personal and social values in the

light of the wisdom of their application in a particular

case of conflicting interests. This preparation for decision

making is directed not simply to vocational purposes

but also, consonant with the aims of the liberal

arts, to human problems, public and private. While this

type of reasoning cannot be developed as well in a college

course or program as in the daily routine of law

school instruction, undergraduate legal education would

provide college students some of the "rhetorical or

logical ^advantages" Judge Wyzanski ascribes to law

study: "clarity of expression, precision of definition, organization

of thought, and more generally the capacity

to deal argumentatively."

Creating an informed Citizenry

Another objective of undergraduate legal education

which, given recent developments in American society,

deserves to be singled out, is the capacity of law study

to inform the public sense of citizens. With the enfranchisement

of youth and its increased involvement in

public affairs, there is a need to develop in vounsz

citizens the intellectual capacity to cope with the world's

problems.

The substantive area of politics is inherently legalistic,

and this is particularly true when the polit'icar i.ssues

consist of domestic and international defiance of American

institutions. The undergraduate study of law, in addition

to satisfying in part young citizens' cravins for

relevance, will provide them with the kind of knowlcdse

needed to challenge effectively and to uphold responsibly

those principles of freedom and justice which have

been thought to be the American hcritace.

uiiufrtjrduudie taw oiuuy

The variety of ways in which an intellectual grasp of

public alfairs can benelit the citizen suggests another

objective that may be accomplished as well, if not better,

by college law courses than by the traditional curriculum:

the claritication of the individual's role in society.

Recent waves of student activism have shown the need

for an academic discipline that can critically assess the

virtues of objectiv ity while simultaneously combatinu the

.sense of drift that may accompany that very detachment.

Law study—dealing with the significance of actions

by public figures and unknown litigants, national controversies

and personal conflicts—demonstrates the in-

Hucnce of men on American history. Yet an understanding

of the legal process also discourages a preoccupation

with decision making on all issues. To the undergraduate,

every moment may seem pregnant with eternity, and

his response to the problems of Bangladesh and the population

explosion may be genuinely emphathctic. But

law study underscores the effectiveness of addressins

•self-reliant learning, precise skills, and responsible judgment

to specific issues.

"Never Learned to Think Before Law School"

The traditional reasons for teaching law in the. colleee

curriculum may be supplemented, therefore, bv a ho"st

of objectives, appropriate to the liberal arts, which can

best be accomplished by undergraduate legal education.

Yet a modification of Dean Bundy's objection may be

invoked to ask why these ends could not be accomplished

by existing law-related courses. To justify newlaw

courses or programs, one might rely on the commonplace

remark from graduates of prominent colleges

that they "never really learned to think before law

school." The blame is not simply the colleges'. Maturity

is but one factor that may account for the growth of

cognitive faculties, and it is neither intended nor desired

to re-create the law school for undergraduates.

The imparting of a basic understanding of law to undergraduates

through the traditional libe^ral arts is virtually

impossible because the infusion of legal materials

and insights, without distortion, into existing courses is

a practical solution only in the instances in which the

college instructor has had legal training or has devoted

substantial study to the relation of law to his discipline.

Even those who claim that law can be studied within

existing curricula must admit that a more systematic approach

could be devised than the fortuitous sampling of

law-related liberal arts courses that are now availabb.

Finally, the college study of law might be advocated

merely as an alternative to the existing means of accomplishing

the objectives of the liberal arts. While it is true

that college law courses could not achieve the objectives

realized by some undergraduate programs of study, there

can be little objection to Professor Freuiid's argument

that all "that is hoped for is that some steps on the road

to wisdom can be taken, however falteringlv, in this way

as m a good many other ways—but that this way should

not be overlooked."

March, 1973 • Volume 59 269

Law—Undergraduate Style—Arrives at Yale

by David Ray Papke

The common, garden variety law course, once

found only in postgraduate schools, is suddenty

springing new offshoots, as colleges begin

to nurture and develop law courses for

undergraduates. At Yale, law-linked sociology,

philosophy, and political science courses are

but a few of the thriving new crossbreeds.

Every citizen should know what the law is, how it

came into existence, what relation its form bears to its

substance, and how it gives to society its fibre and

strength and poise of frame.

VVoodrow Wilson, Legal Education of Undergraduates

(1894)

I ;N iv64 A GROvJP of forty lawyers, judges, and law

-^professors gathered for a diamo.nd jubilee law conference

at the Catholic University of America. After

four days of discussion they issued a report sharply

criticizing American universities for ignoring the subject

of law in their undergraduate curricula. The report

challenged American educators to bring law out of the

academic closet.

In 1972 universities began to answer the challenge.

The University of Minnesota, the State University of

New York at Buffalo, Louisiana State University, and

Southern University have ail endorsed substantial undergraduate

law programs. And even Yale has hopped on

the bandwagon.

Yale currently offers twenty-five undergraduate law

courses, in the political science department, in the history

and philosophy departments, and in the college

seminar program. The selection ranges from courses with

contemporary, domestic focuses, such as "Police in a

Democratic Society," taught by former New Haven

Police Chief James Ahern. to courses on anthropological

and foreign law, such as "The Role of Law in East

Africa," taught by R. B. Stevens.

Many Yale students are taking two or even three

law courses. But if the college limited each student to

only one choice, thirteen hundred individual students

or one of every three undergraduates—could enroll in

a law course.

Not surprisingly, the Yale law course boom parallels

crowing undergraduate interest in the legal profession.

As many as sixteen hundred Yale undergraduates are

considering law school. And almost one third of this

year's senror class will take the law school admission

test.

Yale students who are certain about their postcollege

plans in law view the undergraduate courses as a way

to get a head start in law school. And those who are

undecided see them as convenient tests of law school s

potential appeal.

"With the undergraduate law courses, I can wade into

the law school—legal profession water," junior Larry

Bobbins stated. "Otherwise, I'd have to dive in all the

way, without knowing what to expect."

This willingness to use the undergraduate law course

as a barometer of future interest exists even though

most of the courses differ significantly from those offered

by the Yale Law School. .A check "of undergraduate

courses shows, for example, that few rely on the case

method and even fewer attempt a Socratic dialogue.

What's more, none of the undergraduate courses emphasizes

the procedural techniques that even the Yale

Law School, with its notorious concern for social policy,

sometimes stresses. Most undergraduate courses have

a lofty cultural or political science orientation and are

perhaps best described as "law studies."

Richard Casper, an assistant professor who last year

taught "Politics and the American Legal System" and

"Civil Liberties and Civil Rights," both political science

courses, is an advocate of the law studies approach.

"Law school tends to look at cases as closed issues,"

Professor Casper stated, "while I like to see why a case

gets to court and what happens afterwards."

Professor Casper, who received his Ph.D. in political

science from Yale four years ago and who is teaching

at Stanford this year, believes the law school approach

drains a case of its most exciting elements. He considers

his course materials to be studies in democratic theory.

One teacher who rejects the law studies approach is

Yale law professor Boris Bittker. He is an expert on

American tax law, and he relies heavily not only on the

case method but also on the general law school teaching

approach. "With a small undergraduate seminar it works

quite well." he explained, "and 1 teach on roughly the

same level as I do in law school."

Charles Black, another Yale law professor who

teaches undergraduates as well as law students, is

270 American Bar Association Journal

^ . anrf)!d linnd in tlu- area. Me has been teaching a Yale

undergraduate law course since 19.^6. For the last few

years Professor Black has taught "Law in Our Society."

It is open only to juniors and seniors, ;tnd it is not

recommended for students planning on going to law

school. According to the description in the Yale catalogue,

the course concerns ". . . the function of law in

implementing solutions to human problems, in giving

body to theories of justice and to ethical judgments, and

in providing a frame of order and authority within which

clashes of value and rival claims may be resolved and

compromised."

Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Snow ,,.

Last year Yale offered twenty-si.x law and law-related

undergraduate courses. The most popular was Ale.xander

M. BickcPs DcYanc lecture scries. At the course's

initial meeting during a January snowstorm, more than

eight hundred undergraduates packed the law school

auditorium. Many were attracted by Professor BickcPs

many contributions to the ^'cw Republic, by his defense

of the New York Times in hist year's Pentagon Papers

Case, and by his mention as a possible Supreme Court

nominee.

Professor Bickel lectured one day each week on subjects

concerning "Politics, Policy and Law." In one of

his seventy-fivc-minute lectures he e.xplaincd—to the

dismay of many students—why he defended tlie New

York Times's publication of the Pentagon Papers, but

why he could not accept the acts of "Lianiel Ellsbers.

In conjuncticn with ths lectures, section

with small groups of students for discussion. .Ml of the

section leaders were second- or third-year iaw students,

and in many cases it was a new e.xperience for both the

Students and the teachers.

Steve Markowitz, a Yale freshman, felt, "The law

student section men were more aggressive and organized

-than the regular grad student section leaders. Tlicy liked

to push the students and force them to pursue their

positions."

One husky law student who always carried an intimidating

brown brief case to his section meetings

balked at the suggestion he was overdemanding. He

preferred to describe himself as "thorough."

The innovative college seminar program is the biggest

haven for undergraduate law studies at Yale. Through

this program each of Yale's twelve residential colleges

offers a series of small, e.xporimental seminars. These

seminars are regular Yale courses, but they have the

advantage of small cmollmcnt and personal studentteacher

contact.

Last year there were fourteen college seminars on

legal topics, and they were so oversubscribed that

seminar leaders often limited enrollment to graduating

seniors and members of the host college. In one case,

a seminar was so popular and had so many auditors

that a secret meeting place had to be chosen.

Third-year law students led several of the law studies

David Ray Papke attended Harvard

University (B.A. 1969) and

is a third-year student at Yale

Law School.

college seminars. New York corporate lawyers, law

professors, and former government ofhcials conducted

others. And in one particularly interesting seminar in

Saybrook College, the teacher was David Durk, a sergeant

with the New York Police Department.

The seminar subject matter was a curious and appealing

law studies line-up. The list included "Loaical

and Linguistic Aspects of Legal Thought," taught by

Leon Lipson, a law professor and expert in international

law; "Women and the Law," taught by two female

graduates of the Yale Law School: and "Phiio'^onhical

Problems in the Law," taught by a Yale law student

who had a Ph.D. in philosophy.

Most undergraduates seem particularly interested in

criminal law, and in keeping with this interest, five of

last year s fourteen law seminars concerned either

criminal justice or police practices. In the past, constitutional

law and civil rights were the most popular

undergraduate legal subjects, but with the quieting of

college campuses a change in student interest is taking

place.

Boom Began Three Years Ago

Although Professor Black and others have been

teaching law courses for years, the real boom did not

begin until three years ago. Since then, the growth in the

program has been so rapid that Yale's current offerings

often overlap; particularly in the autonomous college

seminar program.

One way to remove the overlap would be a planned

law major or law department, but Yale faculty members

express little enthusiasm for the proposal. Each professor

conducts his course as a singular, unrelated otfering.

And this has led some students to complain that

the courses arc actuallv too exciting.

The individual sensuous law course." sophom-ore

John Craig said, "is a poor indicator of what law school

and practicing law are about." For some students law

March, 1973 • Volume 59 271

' school technicalities will be a disappointment after a

hearty undergraduate diet of dramatic criminal trials

and sweeping Warren Court decisions.

While Yale remains content with an impressive list

of independent courses, other universities are establishing

systematic undergraduate programs. The University

of .Minnesota, for c.xample, has proposed that its law

and law-related courses be papkaged together as a law

major, and the State University of New York at BulTalo

has announced plans to offer thirty-five undergraduate

law courses, in rotation, by 1975.

Southern University and Louisiana State University

have begun a program which combines the humanities

. and the law. The program, headed by Prof. James Bolner

of L.S.U., asks students to evaluate the impact of law

on public and private life.

Experiment in Undergraduate Law Study

Hampshire College, an experimental school without

majors or departments in .'\mherst, Massachusetts, has

one of the most ambitious plans. With the aid of the

Henry Luce Foundation, Hampshire has begun a fiveyear

experiment in undergraduate legal education, and

it has appointed Prof. Lester Mazor of the University

of Utah as the first of its undergraduate law professors.

Yale educators argue that law's role in defining and

legitimizing values makes it an important part of the

liberal arts curriculum. And they characterize undergraduate

legal study as a challenging way to combine

historical research with contemporary problem solving.

Yale's undergraduate law teachers unanimously reject

the notion that law study is in some way antiintellectual.

Some suggest that legal knowledge is necessary

for success in our bureaucratic, institutionalized

society.

At the same time there is little enthusiasm at Yale

for a return to the prelaw programs that were popular

at American universities in the 1930s. Under the prelaw

set-up, a student receives his B.A. and law degree

in only six years as opposed to the standard seven.

Many educators, Professor Bittker included, would

like to shorten th.e seven-year commitment required for

a law degree, but few endorse the idea of requiring a

student to decide on a legal career in his sophomore

year. Also unpopular is the necessity of spending the

entire six-year hitch at one university.

Yale professors maintain that their undergraduate

law courses are not designed only for students planning

on law school. They agree that the courses arc most

valuable for the student who docs not become a lawyer.

Besides the question of a law major, the boom in

undergraduate law studies at Yale has brought several

other controversial ideas to the fore. It has been suggested

that undergraduate law courses be used as' a'

substitute for the much-criticized law school admission

test.

Law school admission officials argue that a comprehensive

undergraduate law course would be a better

indicator of legal aptitude than an unpredictable, sixhour

Saturday test taken in a crowded, sweaty, and

pressure-packed room. A good number of students agree.

Another idea kindled by the undergraduate law boom

is that of converting law schools or parts of law schools

into "graduate schools in law." Student supporters of this

idea agree uith Prof. Charles Reich, author of The

Greening of America, that law schools overemphasize

the training of lawyers. They argue that law schools

should also produce future undergraduate law teachers

through a program granting a Ph.D. in law. "I'd like

to teach constitutional law to undergraduates," junior

Dwight Barron said, "but law school would train me

to be a lawyer instead of a teacher."

At Yale these controversial proposals have barely

reached the discussion stage, but the law course boom

continues. New and different courses abound, and

students and teachers alike agree that legal studies

should no longer be restricted to the law school.

Summer Law School in Paris

A i^^TERN.ATION.AL group of students and faculty

this year will in.nngnratc rho first siirprner la."' school

in Paris dcN'otcd to the study cf intcrnaticna! and comparative

law. The six-week, English-language program

will be sponsored by the University of San Diego ^Law

School and the Institut Cathohquc de Paris and will meet

requirements to provide course credit at law schools in

the United States. An American law professor with

European experience will be principal instructor in each

course, while European teachers and practitioners will

teach portions of the courses and conduct seminars.

The American faculty will be Joseph J. Darby, professor

of law at San Diego; Carl H. Fulda, Hugh Lamar

Stone Professor of Law at the University of Te.xas; Herbert

1. Lazerow, profe.ssor of law and director of the

Institute on International and Comparative Law of the

University of San Diego; and Rudolf B. Schlcsinger,

William Nelson Cromwell Professor at Cornell Law

School. The French co-ordinator is Pierre Azard of the

Institut Catholique de Paris.

Classes are scheduled in the mornings from July 2

to August 10 and will be held at the Institut Catholique

de Paris, which is located on the Left Bank near the

Luxembourg Gardens. Rooms are available at the Cite'

Universitaire, a student housing complex convenient to

the institute.

Further information may be obtained from Professor

Lazerow, Institute on International and Comparative

Law, University of San Diego, Alcala Park, San Diego,

California 92110.

272 American Bar Association Journal