The Schlegelians v. the Langdellians on Legal Education

Abstract

In great dramas there's a moment when a character shows up who makes such an impression that, whatever else may be going on, you just wait for that character to reappear. Sir John Falstaff makes his entrance in the second scene of Henry IV, Part I, and from that point on has the audience wanting to skip over all the ponderous high statecraft of kings and nobles so we can all get back to Jack Falstaff. Jack Schlegel, in my recollection, made his entrance in my second year at Buffalo in the Fall of 1973. Once you hear that voice, with its almost-whispered, shockingly original and penetrating apergus, followed by the cackling laugh that tells you that you and he, and anyone else who may be around, are just having the grandest possible time together, you want more. A year later Schlegel and I, along with Al Katz and Janet Lindgren, formed "Section 3," an experimental section of the first-year that combined Torts and Contracts, made Procedure auxiliary to both, and set the class to practical tasks like drafting pleadings, arguing motions, taking depositions, negotiating contracts. The enterprise took a good deal of planning, most of which took place in one another's homes, accompanied by many bottles of wine and, when we were lucky, Joanne playing the piano. Our students, surprisingly (for law students) open to unorthodox experiments, indulged us with amazing good humor. I think this may have been the most intense and exciting intellectual experience of my professional life; and Schlegel was essential to it.