Thinking like a lawyer
91
Is “Thinking Like a Lawyer”
Really What We Want to Teach?
Nancy B. Rapoport1
“You come in here with a head full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer.”2
Every law professor, and almost every law student,3 is familiar with this quote from the movie The Paper Chase. Whenever law faculties are asked what it is that they intend to pass on to their students, the phrase “thinking like a lawyer” is the first thing that they say. 4 Often, that is the only thing that they
1. © Nancy B. Rapoport 2002. All rights reserved. Nancy Rapoport is Dean and
Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center. Special thanks for this paper go to H.C.
Chang, Alison Chien, and Harriet Richman, for their wonderful research, and to Seth Chandler,
Susan Evangelist, Debbie Hirsch, Alex Kopatic, Peter Linzer, Michael Olivas, Greg Robertson,
Morris and Shirley Rapoport, Peter Shaw, Ben Turin, Jeff Van Niel, and Bob Wimpelberg, as well as to the participants in ALWD’s outstanding conference, Erasing Lines: Integrating the Law
School Curriculum, held at the University of Minnesota from July 26-28, 2001. Although it was mighty intimidating to present a paper at a conference for those whose scholarship is in legal writing, it was also exhilarating, and I’m also extremely grateful to my co-panelists—Scott Bice,
Christine Coughlin, Molly Lien, Sandy Patrick, Arnold Siegel, and Deborah Schmedemann— and to the audience for giving me such good food for thought.
2. The Paper Chase (Twentieth Century Fox 1973) (motion picture).
3. As the years go by, however, fewer law students seem to have seen the movie. Peter
Linzer has pointed out to me (in an e-mail that included comments on an earlier draft) that the movie itself, having hit the screens in 1973, is older than most of our students. E-mail from
Peter Linzer, Prof., U. Houston L. Ctr., to Nancy Rapoport, Dean & Prof., U. Houston L. Ctr.,
Thinking Like a Lawyer (June 21, 2001) (copy on file with author).
4.
Is “Thinking Like a Lawyer”
Really What We Want to Teach?
Nancy B. Rapoport1
“You come in here with a head full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer.”2
Every law professor, and almost every law student,3 is familiar with this quote from the movie The Paper Chase. Whenever law faculties are asked what it is that they intend to pass on to their students, the phrase “thinking like a lawyer” is the first thing that they say. 4 Often, that is the only thing that they
1. © Nancy B. Rapoport 2002. All rights reserved. Nancy Rapoport is Dean and
Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center. Special thanks for this paper go to H.C.
Chang, Alison Chien, and Harriet Richman, for their wonderful research, and to Seth Chandler,
Susan Evangelist, Debbie Hirsch, Alex Kopatic, Peter Linzer, Michael Olivas, Greg Robertson,
Morris and Shirley Rapoport, Peter Shaw, Ben Turin, Jeff Van Niel, and Bob Wimpelberg, as well as to the participants in ALWD’s outstanding conference, Erasing Lines: Integrating the Law
School Curriculum, held at the University of Minnesota from July 26-28, 2001. Although it was mighty intimidating to present a paper at a conference for those whose scholarship is in legal writing, it was also exhilarating, and I’m also extremely grateful to my co-panelists—Scott Bice,
Christine Coughlin, Molly Lien, Sandy Patrick, Arnold Siegel, and Deborah Schmedemann— and to the audience for giving me such good food for thought.
2. The Paper Chase (Twentieth Century Fox 1973) (motion picture).
3. As the years go by, however, fewer law students seem to have seen the movie. Peter
Linzer has pointed out to me (in an e-mail that included comments on an earlier draft) that the movie itself, having hit the screens in 1973, is older than most of our students. E-mail from
Peter Linzer, Prof., U. Houston L. Ctr., to Nancy Rapoport, Dean & Prof., U. Houston L. Ctr.,
Thinking Like a Lawyer (June 21, 2001) (copy on file with author).
4.