Logic and Experience : The Origin of Modern American Legal Education

The 19th century saw dramatic changes in the legal education system in the United States. Before the Civil War, lawyers learned their trade primarily through apprenticeship and self-directed study. By the end of the 19th century, the modern legal education system which was developed primarily by Dean Christopher Langdell at Harvard was in place: a bachelor's degree was required for admission to the new model law school, and a law degree was promoted as the best preparation for admission to the bar. William P. LaPiana provides an in-depth study of the intellectual history of the transformation of American legal education during this period. In the process, he offers a revisionist portrait of Langdell, the Dean of Harvard Law School from 1870 to 1900, and the earliest proponent for the modern method of legal education, as well as portraying for the first time the opposition to the changes at Harvard. The nineteenth century saw dramatic changes in the legal education system in the United States. Before the Civil War, lawyers learned their trade primarily through apprenticeship and self-directed study. By the end of the nineteenth century the modern legal education system, developed primarily by Dean Christopher Langdell at Harvard University, was in place: a bachelor's degree was required for admission to the new model law school, and a law degree was promoted as the best preparation for admission to the bar. In Logic and Experience: The Origin of Modern American Legal Education, William LaPiana provides an in-depth study of the intellectual and institutional history of the transformation of American legal education during this period. He thoughtfully details the evolution and adoption of the modern method - the case method - of legal pedagogy that was developed at Harvard and that supplanted the earlier commitment to the memorization of legal principles which was most practiced at Yale. LaPiana links the spread of the Harvard style to changing ideas about the social role of the legal profession. He reveals that practitioners in the American Bar Association, often assumed to be friends of the new style education, were deeply opposed to it. Through this history of American legal education, LaPiana offers a revisionist portrait of Langdell, Dean of Harvard Law School from 1870 to 1895, and the earliest proponent for the modern method of legal education. Placing Langdell and his colleagues into a broader intellectual and cultural context, LaPiana demonstrates that the usual portrayal of Langdell and his colleagues as formalists is faulty. Logic and Experience offers a provocative analysis of the development of the American law school and a powerful discussion of the controversy that surrounded these developments both at the time and today. It will provide insightful and informative reading for lawyers, students and scholars of legal, American, and intellectual history, as well as the general reader Contents......Page 10 1. Introduction......Page 14 Appointing a Dean......Page 18 Developing a Law School......Page 25 Birth of the Case Method......Page 33 A Science of Principles......Page 40 A Practical Science of Procedure......Page 49 Education in Legal Science......Page 55 A Science of Narrow Rules......Page 66 A Technical Science of Contracts and Equity......Page 69 Changes in Procedure and Legal Thought......Page 81 The Struggle for Standards in New York......Page 90 Case Method Comes to Columbia......Page 103 Case Method and Practice......Page 110 Fact-Based Legal Science......Page 121 Harvard Teachers and Positive Law......Page 133 The Case Lawyer......Page 143 The Evils of Positivism......Page 149 The Spread of the Case Method......Page 159 The Failure of Sociological Jurisprudence......Page 163 The American Law Institute......Page 169 The Coming of Realism......Page 175 Epilogue......Page 179 Notes......Page 182 Bibliography......Page 232 B......Page 254 C......Page 255 F......Page 257 H......Page 258 L......Page 259 M......Page 261 P......Page 262 S......Page 263 V......Page 264 Y......Page 265 LaPiana revises our understanding of the origin of modern legal education. He places the changes at Harvard in the context of the broader movements of 19th century intellectual history and provides a new understanding of antebellum legal education.