Towards the end of my freshmen seminar the teacher, Prof. Campbell, started using a more Socratic based method in discussing the novels we were reading. I found this incredibly annoying because a) I like straight forward answers to the questions I ask and b) to my mind it became more about how well I and my classmates could b.s. and less about actually knowing anything. I reported this back to my dad who sagely nodded his head and said "that's the method they use in law school. If you don't like it now you probably shouldn't go to law school." I nodded back and added that to the very long list of reasons why I wouldn't be going to law school.
Three months in and I can't say my opinion of the Socratic method has changed all that much. I still find it annoying when my classmates use the method to try and show off how smart they think they are but I can also see why it's used in law school. The point of it, at least to my mind, is to try and get you to see both sides of an argument or at least see why a case or rule has been formulated the way it has. Granted most of my classes don't use the method as the only way of teaching (because at least two my classes, contracts and civil procedure, would fall apart if they did). Particularly in torts* though it makes sense for the professor to probe your mind with open ended questions because so much of torts is speculative and opinion based.** If you can't see both sides or at least understand how the other side might think you'll be screwed as a lawyer when it will be your job to predict w hat the other side will say.
Still because I spend between 3 1/2 hours and 2 1/2 hours four days a week thinking in this manner*** I have a far lower tolerance for intellectual "discussions" than I ever did in college. Talking theory is all well and good when you haven't been doing it all day, but when you have the last thing you want to do is go home and poke at your brain some more. Because that's what it feels like. It feels like your teacher has been poking your brain for an hour and ten minutes. And that's what law school is for the first year or so. Brain poking.
*McDonald's coffee spill case. Liable. Theft. Battery and assault. Trespass. Car crashes. Falling on your butt in a restaurant. The vast majority of cases that aren't criminal cases are torts cases.
**Do you know what a reasonable person is? 'Cuz trust me when I say, that definition is not at all clear and largely dependent on the judge. That's what I mean by opinion based.
***Plus the countless hours I spend in the library. I swear I spend more time in that place than I ever did in undergrad.
