The Socratic Method of Study in Law School

To take you on this journey of discovery, the professors for most, if not all, of your first-year classes will employ the Socratic Method. This method is named for the Greek philosopher Socrates, who educated his students by asking them questions, rather than by lecturing. During a typical class, your professor will begin by asking a class member to describe a case that was included in the day's reading assignment. Although professors vary as to the exact information that should be included in this presentation, typically it should include a statement of the legally relevant facts, procedural history, issues, holdings, and the court's rationale for deciding each issue.

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Your case brief is invaluable for this part of class. If you are called on to present the case, you have all the information you need in your brief, and you already will have determined which facts are legally relevant and which legal principles are holdings, rather than dicta. Even if you are not called on to present the case, you can follow the presentation more effectively with your case brief and can take notes about the case on it.

If your professor asks you to present a case, do not read your case brief to the class no matter how brilliantly written it is. Reading a presentation is boring for the listeners and does not demonstrate that you actually have absorbed the case. Additionally, reading a case brief out loud will not help refine your public speaking skills. Therefore, review your case briefs immediately before class so that you can describe each case from memory.

Describing the case is merely the introductory step in the Socratic Method. In fact, your professor may dispense with the case presentations after the first few weeks when the class members have become proficient at deciphering cases. The essence of the Socratic Method is what comes next. Your professor will ask questions that are designed to explore the legal principles and policies that are raised by the case. Your professor may alter one or more facts of the case and ask you whether and how the result would change. To answer this question, you must know which facts in the case were crucial to the court's decision and how those facts affected the decision. You must recognize the goals sought to be served by the law to determine the best way to meet those goals under the changed facts. You must determine whether the same rule of law should apply or whether a different rule should apply. Finally, you must have determined whether the court's analysis in the case is correct.

After you respond to the hypothetical case (the "hypo"), your professor will ask another question that is designed to test the validity of your answer. For example, your professor might present another factual situation in which an undesirable result would be reached if your reasoning were applied. By doing this, your professor is asking whether you should refine your answer to the first question. You must determine how to state it more precisely or otherwise revise it to better serve the law's goals.

Moreover, the law does not stay the same. It is constantly evolving as courts, legislatures, agencies, and other lawmakers perform their assigned functions. Therefore, your legal knowledge quickly would become outdated if you simply memorized legal rules in law school. The Socratic Method is designed to teach you how to determine the current state of the law and how to apply it to any situation.

The Socratic Method also creates a strong incentive to prepare thoroughly for class. To engage in the Socratic dialogue, you must understand the reading assignment You must understand the stated rules, exceptions, policies, and procedures and should have thought through questions that the professor or your colleagues might ask. Even if the professor does not call on you, careful class preparation is essential so that you can understand and can evaluate the in-class discussion, contribute your observations, and ask questions. This process makes class much more interesting than lecture-style classes, in which you passively listen, take notes, and memorize what was said. You also will learn a great deal more.

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The Socratic Method requires you to formulate, explain, and defend a position on a variety of legal issues. This process not only hones your analytic and speaking skills, but also prepares you for the adversarial method, which is a key feature of the American legal system. Under o the adversarial method, the parties to a dispute present the strongest possible arguments to support their positions. The prospect of having your position challenged in class provides an incentive to think it through before class, to refine it, and to prepare defenses to potential challenges. Each step is a valuable learning exercise.

In a similar vein, the Socratic dialogue teaches critical thinking. Few questions have just one clear-cut answer. Virtually any position that you take in class can, and probably will be, challenged by your professor or by a colleague who does not share your point of view or spots weak points in your argument. The existence of weak points does not necessarily mean that your position is wrong; few positions represent absolute truths. You must be able to explain, however, why your position is best despite its weaknesses. Denying that weak points exist can undermine your credibility.

You must learn that your professor and colleagues are not challenging you personally but only some aspect of your argument. This is difficult for some people to accept, but it is absolutely essential. In practice, other lawyers and judges often will challenge you. If you take it personally, your ability to respond will be hampered. Conversely, you must learn to challenge others without making it a personal attack. The person on the other side of an issue is not a bad person simply because you do not agree. Throughout your career, you will be on the opposite side from many people more than once; do not alienate each one the first time!

The Socratic Method sometimes frustrates students because they are not given "the answer." Students sometimes complain that the professor is "hiding the ball" or that the class is unfocused. Neither is true. The Socratic Method is designed to teach an approach and not a set of rules. The questions are the focus and purpose of the class.

Of course, you also must understand the law for exams and for the practice of law. If you do not understand a subject after class, read about it in a hornbook or other study aid or talk with your professor or colleagues.

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