Law School: A Mortuary for Poets and Moral Reason

Abstract

The study of law will train you for many different fields, but it will not train you to embark upon one endeavor: It will not equip you to become a poet. At Columbia University Law School on an oppressively hot August day, Professor Jack Kernochan greeted approximately 150 first year students in his Legal Methods section with the statement quoted above. In doing so he struck upon a subject which has received little attention: the extent to which training represses or increases an individual's creative powers. This article partially focuses on that subject, on the effect education has on the ability to think and write creatively, not only as a poet and novelist but as an attorney serving her' clients. It is, of course, not suggested that the purpose of the law school is to turn out poets, but to the extent that the article touches upon whether law schools are graduating rigid technicians, or attorneys who bring a measure of creativeness to the solution of their clients' problems, it focuses upon a proper subject of education. A major thrust of this article, however, has a broader vision, focusing on how we, as attorneys, become indoctrinated into the legal culture and the effect of that assimilation on our personalities and our sense of morality. In the 1970s Duncan Kennedy and Paul Savoy 2 were two of the principle scholars that led attacks on education, noting the stifling effect of the Socratic method and the psychological toll it takes on students. 3 Students shared in the assault.