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THE GREEN BAG
THE RELATION OF THE LAW SCHOOL TO THE COURTS BY WILLIAM SCHOFIELD THE rise and growth of law schools in the United States during the last century seem destined to mark an epoch in the history of the common law. Most of that growth has taken place since 1870, the year in which Professor Langdell began his career as a teacher in the law school of Harvard University. There are good grounds for the belief that this growth is permanent. According to the valuable report of the committee on legal education to the American Bar Association in 1907 there were then in the United States 119 law schools attended by about 17,200 students. Thirty-one of the law schools own the buildings in which their work is conducted. Valuable libraries have been collected and a good beginning has been made in the establishment of endowment funds.1 The legal professon and the com munity are in sympathy with the schools. It is now taken for granted that the proper place to begin the study of law is in a law school. The graduates have demonstrated their capacity for usefulness, and frequently obtain employment in large offices immedi ately after graduation as the first step in their professional life. The law school has established itself as the regular, if not the exclusive, avenue to the bar. It is generally conceded that the law school graduates come out with a good equipment in the law. Not infrequently, however, one can hear in conversation among lawyers and judges and occasionally see in print adverse comment to the effect that while they know the law, the young law school graduates are deficient in knowledge of facts and of practical life.2 1 31 American Bar Association Reports, 536, 538 el seq. 1 " There is only one trouble, Professor Langdell and that is that they know altogether too much. They know it all. And there are none of us old
One of the principal means by which the law schools exert their influence upon the law is through the work of their graduates at the bar. Any serious criticism of their work or equipment is worthy of careful consideration. When a young man leaves the law school, he quickly learns that he has entered a new world. In the law school his entire atten tion is directed to the law. At the bar, knowledge of facts, ability to deal with facts, and knowledge of human nature are of great importance. When the young graduate in law goes into court he finds that the amount of time and effort which must be spent upon questions of fact is very large in comparison with the amount required for questions of law. This applies not only to his own work as an attorney but to the work of the judges. In admin istering justice, the work of the court is divisible into two parts, the ascertainment of the facts and the application of the law to the facts. Ordinarily the law is clear. The difficulty usually is to determine the true facts and then to apply correctly the right rules of law to the facts. This twofold duty performed by our courts is so familiar to us that it is difficult to comprehend how a la.wsuit could be conducted in any other way. It may be worth while to note that in the Roman law for a period extending over centuries a widely different system prevailed. During men in the law who cannot learn a great deal from them. But it is their misfortune that at the outset they are top-heavy. And it is only when, after six months or a year of running about our streets they have learned that the legs are quite as impor tant to the young lawyer as the brain, that they make themselves really as useful as you intended them to be." From Mr. Joseph H. Choate's address before Harvard Law School Association, 65. (1895).
