Re:Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills
by PatentTroll on Tuesday June 06, 2017 @10:27AM
(#14497430)
Maybe the US's federalism is a part of it too. We learned a lot of 'stock' law from hornbooks too, but there was always a caveat that most of the 1L stuff is state law and may-no, will-vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The 'law' varies quite a bit from state to state with regards to criminal, contracts, property, etc. So you can either produce a great California lawyer who will be confused if she moves to Arizona, or a lawyer who understands how to learn the law and reason about it in general who can adapt to any state's idiosyncrasies.
Harvard's case system didn't spread because it was better as a method of legal education, it spread because one of the most prestigious college in North America started using it and it's more fun to teach that way. The Socratic method has a place as a method in teaching but having it be the method is overkill.