Teaching Morality

Abstract

Several years ago in Connecticut, during a criminal trial, the judge looked down from the bench and saw the defendant standing there alone. The judge asked, "Do you have counsel?" The defendant looked up at the judge and said, "Allah is my counsel," to which the judge responded, "I mean local counsel." Those of you who know me will say "he will do anything for a cheap joke," which is true. But this joke is a lot like legal education. In trying to teach law students, we law faculty are much like the defendant. We have our religion and our religion is the Rule of Law. Our religion has substantive rules and the ultimately mystical part of our religion we call "teaching people to think like a lawyer." As we and the students go through this process we lose much along the way as we try to disassociate law students from the real world.