Letters to law students #36 ‘The Ideal University’

Letters to law students #36 ‘The Ideal University’ 

My dear law students 

My goal this week was to write on law and technology, but my friend Murali Neelakantan had other plans for me. He nudged me towards an excellent blog post by the economist Ashish Kulkarni on how students ought to be assessed. Kulkarni’s post is part of a series of posts on an ideal university. I urge all of you to take a look. I find some of his ideas utterly compelling. For example, why can’t we make our students do something relevant to their study rather than write something theoretical in order to graduate. Can you imagine what this might do to legal education? We will not ask students to write exams; instead we will ask the students to do what lawyers do: draft plaints, contracts, defend clients, write memos-all in real life, not make believe. If they are able to do what real lawyers do, they graduate. Until then, they stay in law school. 

The beauty of what Ashish proposes is that students stop obsessing about standardized tests or getting good grades or indeed, competing with each other. So much of what is toxic in law schools is eliminated. Students demonstrate what they can do. Once they do that, they are released into the real world. 

But, as Ashish will surely recognise, even if the educational system that we have today will allow his new paradigm, there are a number of details to be ironed out. How will law students demonstrate real world potential unless assisted by real lawyers? Lawyers will need to buy into this paradigm and law schools will have to make arrangements such that all students have equitable access to good lawyers who can mentor students. The system can be gamed by students getting their work done by others, so law schools will need to figure out some ways of monitoring student work. Mentoring, arranging and monitoring will entail its own bureaucracy. But it’s a great idea worth thinking about. 

Ashish also makes a number of interesting points about teaching. Two of his comments are particularly thought provoking. He believes online classes, especially on youtube, have the potential to disrupt traditional classroom teaching. He says 

‘With the internet, the cheapest and most efficient way to conduct the same class is to come up with a reading/viewing/listening list, and spend the class discussing the doubts and questions that students may have. This can happen in a class or online. Those who don’t have any doubts, or don’t want their doubts resolved by me are free to not attend.’

I agree with the first part. I think basic doctrinal information in any domain need not be imparted in classrooms anymore. Ashish’s last line appears to suggest a diminishing role for classroom instruction. If this is what he intended, I disagree. Traditional classroom instruction that results in actual physical instructor-student interaction, is critical to student learning. A good classroom teacher’s narratives, examples, anecdotes, and stories cannot easily be substituted by YouTube lectures. Besides, I am afraid Ashish has way more confidence than me in the motivational levels of undergraduates. If you tell undergraduates, especially in 17-19 years range, that they don’t have to attend classes, that’s exactly what many of them will do…not attend classes. 

Here’s another interesting statement from Ashish: ‘You make sure that students earn the right to learn from the best, by having them read and digest the works of the best in the business.’ 

I just want to add one caveat to this statement. In some cases the best are the worst at communicating what they know best to the students. As a student, I found that some of the best practitioners and academics in the business left me cold. They could not explain the intricacies of the law to me even though no one knew the law better and worse, they did not make the subject come alive for me. 

The best in the business may not be the best at communicating their knowledge to others. We need teachers who can make break down complex concepts and make sure the students understand the connections between different legal concepts. The best practitioners of law will make the subject glamorous. But we will also need great teachers to make the subjects accessible and enjoyable. Ideally, in the future, practitioners and teachers will work together in the classroom to enhance the learning process. 

Finally, I want to leave you with one thought on the proposal to replace exams with real life work assignments. Replacing exams means replacing the idea of toppers in a class. This sounds right for the reasons I gave above but there is only one issue that rankles and for which I don’t yet have a solution. Motivated kids from poor or underprivileged families use exams as a means to demonstrate their worth to potential employers. A kid who has no connections and/or no money can top exams and signal to a lawyer or a law firm that he or she is worth a punt. Won’t this opportunity be lost in an assessment system based on work assignments? I don’t have an answer but would love to hear from you all. 

Nigam Nuggehalli 

Professor

School of Law 

BML Munjal University