Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/557

 530

THE GREEN BAG

such schools will be high. Not only are they likely to be better taught than a number of the courses in substantive law, but there are no valuable elective courses to be substituted for them. Inasmuch as nearly all of the students are from the state whose practice is taught, even details are not valueless, and the student who does not have the benefit of an apprentice ship in an office before he starts for him self, needs instruction in practice more than if he had had some office experience first. At the other extreme are those schools which offer more important courses on sub stantive law than can be taken in three years, whose student body represents many states, and whose graduates are commonly able to spend some time in an office before starting for themselves. Every argument for the relative value of practice courses in such schools is much weakened. Where more work is offered than can be taken in three years many students will wisely choose that which they are least likely to be able to master by themselves. Probably ordi nary practice can be learned with less diffi culty than most branches of substantive law. It is chiefly statutory, the statutes are abundantly annotated and there are usually excellent local books upon it, its precedents are rarely sought outside the local jurisdiction, its historical roots are of little consequence, it is not a reasoned sys tem based upon complex conceptions of social warfare, it is not related to other branches of law in evolution or by analogy, and its problems conspicuously lack that wealth of circumstance and variety of inci dent which create so much of the fascina tion and difficulty of the substantive law. The student who enters an office for a short time after leaving the law school, will not at once have to decide emergency questions of practice on his own responsibility, and a reasonable amount of systematic study in connection with his office work will make him a fair practitioner in those matters in

which proficiency can be gained without considerable experience. On the other hand, there are several re spects in which law-school instruction in practice is superior to what even a diligent student will gain in an ordinary office. Un less a long time is spent in an office, the work done is apt to be fragmentary. Some things he will do frequently. Some not uncommon proceedings may never chance to be turned over to him. These he must learn from reading, and there are a good many practical hints which he will not find in the books. The unwritten customs of lawyers approve ways of doing things puz zling to one acquainted only with the anno tated practice act. Moreover, there is often a choice between several methods of procedure where the most intelligent reflection, unaided by experience, would scarcely sug gest the one best for a client. A good teacher of practice can give the student much of his experience in such matters, and in his early days this may be very use ful to the young lawyer. Even in those schools whose graduates generally enter offices there are a respectable number who wish to begin practice for themselves at once, or to whom it is important to have a fair knowledge of practice immediately upon entering an office. Certainly there are circumstances where such knowledge is of substantial advantage at the 'start, and its ultimate value as compared with another course in substantive law the student can probably determine as well as anyone else. The theory of elective studies in law schools rests largely upon the belief that there may be a reasonable difference of opinion regard ing the best courses for the individual needs of students, and that the student may ordi narily be trusted to decide this for himself. There must be many instances where stu dents might reasonably think a course in practice more beneficial to them than cer tain courses in substantive law, and my conclusion would be that law schools of all types might wisely offer at least elective