The geologic strata of the law school curriculum

Vanderbilt Law Review

Volumn 60, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 339-369

  Gordon, Robert W ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 35348981965     PISSN: 00422533     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (201)

1. The best source on Harvard remains ROBERT B. STEVENS, LAW SCHOOL: LEGAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA FROM THE 1850S TO THE 1980S (1983) (providing a general history of law schools, and especially discussing the influence of Harvard Law School on the development of legal education). Much valuable additional material is in WILLIAM LAPIANA, LOGIC AND EXPERIENCE: THE ORIGIN OF MODERN LEGAL EDUCATION (1994) (discussing the origins of modern American legal education, especially the influence of Christopher Columbus Langdell).
2. HARVARD UNIVERSITY CATALOGUE, 1889-90: THE LAW SCHOOL, 191-92 (Cambridge, Charles W. Sever 1889). I have slightly altered the names of some courses to convey their content to the modern reader.
3. See KNUD HAAKONSSEN, THE SCIENCE OF A LEGISLATOR (1981) (analyzing Adam Smith's ideas about legal criticism and atural jurisprudence);
4. AVID LIEBERMAN, THE PROVINCE OF LEGISLATION DETERMINED: LEGAL THEORY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN (1989) (discussing the history of the increasing importance of the law jurists' writing on common law and legislative policy in eighteenth-century Britain).
5. See Stephen Botein, Cicero as a Role-Model for Early American Lawyers, 73 CLASSICAL J. 313 (1978) (discussing Cicero's influence on New England lawyers during the Revolutionary period and after).
6. AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY 231 (Richard Hofstadter & Wilson Smith eds., 1961).
7. Columbia's experience was typical: its original 1857 plan for a Jurisprudence curriculum included Modern History, Political Economy, Natural and International Law, and Civil and Common Law. By the following year it was clear that in order to attract any students the course would have to be pruned back to "those branches of Municipal Law, usually and appropriately pursued for obtaining a license to practice," with the hope that occasional lectures in the "kindred branches" or "superadded Studies" might be offered as an extra sweetener once the students had been drawn in. JULIUS GOEBEL, JR. ET AL., A HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL OF LAW OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 28 (1955).
8. Letter from Woodrow Wilson to Albert Shaw (Nov. 3, 1890), in THE PAPERS OF WOODROW WILSON, 1890-1892, at 63 (Arthur S. Link ed., 1969).
9. Alexa S. Bator, Public Law and Legal Education in the Nineteenth Century: The Founding of Burgess' School of Political Economy at Columbia (Fall 1996) (unpublished student paper, on file with the Yale Law Library) (emphasis in original).
10. On Columbia, see GOEBEL ET AL., supra note 6, at 85-89, 95-97,167-68, for a discussion of the school's attempts to integrate non-traditional courses into the law student's curriculum. See also the illuminating paper by Bator, supra note 8.
11. Duncan Kennedy, The Disenchantment of Logically Formal Legal Rationality, or Max Weber's Sociology in the Genealogy of the Contemporary Mode of Western Legal Thought, 55 HASTINGS L.J. 1031, 1034-35 (2004) (footnotes omitted).
12. The best work I have come across on the German historical school is HEATH PEARSON, ORIGINS OF LAW AND ECONOMICS: THE ECONOMISTS' NEW SCIENCE OF LAW, 1830-1930 (1997) (analyzing the centrality of law in the literature of nineteenth-century historical and institutional economics). For the Americanized versions of their ideas,
13. see Herbert Hovenkamp, The First Great Law & Economics Movement, 42 STAN. L. REV. 993 (1990).
14. ERNST FREUND, STANDARDS OF AMERICAN LEGISLATION: AN ESTIMATE OF RESTRICTIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE FACTORS (1917) (critiquing the way statutes are made);
15. ERNST FREUND ET. AL., THE GROWTH OF AMERICAN ADMINISTRATIVE LAW (1923) (presenting a historical survey of American administrative law);
16. ERNST FREUND, THE POLICE POWER: PUBLIC POLICY AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (1904) (discussing the interplay between the police power and individual rights).
17. On this episode, see WILLIAM C. CHASE, THE AMERICAN LAW SCHOOL AND THE RISE OF ADMINISTRATIVE GOVERNMENT 47-59 (1982). On Freund's work at Chicago generally,
18. see Paul Carrington, The Missionary Diocese of Chicago, 44 J. LEGAL EDUC. 467 (1994).
19. Robert W. Gordon, Legal Thought and Legal Practice in the Age of American Enterprise: 1870-1920, in PROFESSIONS AND PROFESSIONAL IDEOLOGIES IN AMERICA 70, 75 (Gerald Geison ed., 1983).
20. KARL LLEWELLYN, The Study of Law as a Liberal Art, in JURISPRUDENCE 375, 377-78 (1962) (emphasis in original).
21. The best recent treatment of the English side of this enterprise is NEIL DUXBURY, FREDERICK POLLOCK AND THE ENGLISH JURISTIC TRADITION 185-283 (2004).
22. JOHN CHIPMAN GRAY, THE NATURE AND SOURCES OF THE LAW (1909) (publishing a series of lectures given at Columbia University in the spring of 1908).
23. The following generalizations about changes in course offerings are based on sampling of law school catalogues in four private (Harvard, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Yale) and two public (Michigan, Texas) university law schools at ten year intervals from 1890 to 1990. We (my research assistants and I) went through the samples looking for first appearances of new courses and for the appearance and disappearance of required courses. Had we had more time, we would have liked to sample a much wider range of schools, including more non-elite schools and the more experimental schools such as Chicago, Northeastern, Wisconsin, Buffalo, Antioch, and George Mason.
24. This needs some qualification, since virtually every law school now relies on a brigade of part-time adjuncts to do much of its teaching, especially in trial practice and the more specialized aspects of commercial practice.
25. As one might expect, there is some variation among the schools sampled. This summarizes the general pattern. The tables of data on which the summaries are based are on file with the Vanderbilt Law Review.
26. Some subjects dropped out of the curriculum: Equity (as a separate subject, though it reappears in general courses on Remedies), Quasi-Contract (which is folded into the general Contracts and Remedies courses), Mortgages, Suretyship, Bailments, Agency, and the Law of Persons (whose most important components were split off into Corporations and Family Law).
27. The classic accounts of the truncated Realist experiments with integrating social sciences in the 1920s and 1930s are LAURA KALMAN, LEGAL REALISM AT YALE, 1927-1960 (1986)
28. (describing the theories behind legal realism and the justifications given by its proponents during the legal realist movements at Yale and Columbia) and JOHN HENRY SCHLEGEL, AMERICAN LEGAL REALISM AND EMPIRICAL SOCIAL SCIENCE (1995).
29. William N. Eskridge, Jr. & Philip P. Frickey, Historical and Critical Introduction, in HENRY M. HART, JR. & ALBERT M. SACKS, THE LEGAL PROCESS: BASIC PROBLEMS IN THE MAKING AND APPLICATION OF LAW xi, cxiv n.284 (1994, republishing the 1958 Tentative Edition).
30. Richard A. Posner, The Decline of Law as an Autonomous Discipline: 1962-1987, 100 HARV. L. REV. 761, 761 (1987).
31. For recent data on the backgrounds of law school hires, see, e.g., Lawrence Solum, Legal Theory Blog, May 17, 2006, http://lsolum.blogspot.com/ archives/2006_05_01_lsolum_archive.html#114129865560132000.
32. JAMES BRADLEY THAYER, CASES ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: WITH NOTES (1895).
33. Id. at 48. Two years earlier Thayer had published his path-breaking article on judicial review, The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law, 7 HARV. L. REV. 129 (1893).
34. THAYER, supra note 26, at 207.
35. Id. at 449.
36. State v. Mann, 13 N.C. (1 Dev.) 263 (1829).
37. Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 539 (1842).
38. Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1856).
39. Lemmon v. People, 20 N.Y. 562 (1860).
40. THAYER, supra note 26, at 473-96.
41. United States v. Rhodes, 27 F. Cas. 785 (C.C.D. Ky. 1866).
42. Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1872).
43. Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 85 U.S. 129 (18 Wall.) (1873).
44. Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1879).
45. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).
46. People v. King, 18 N.E. 245 (N.Y. 1888).
47. Lehew v. Brummell, 15 S.W. 765 (Mo. 1891).
48. THAYER, supra note 26, at 406-574.
49. Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516 (1884).
50. THAYER, supra note 26, at 575-620.
51. Id. at 693-1431.
52. Id. at 1433-1782.
53. Id. at 1783-2191.
54. Id. at 2192-2420.
55. EMLIN MCCLAIN, A SELECTION OF CASES ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (2d ed. 1909).
56. Id. at 782; Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275 (1897).
57. MCCLAIN, supra note 49, at 1260; Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
58. MCCLAIN, supra note 49, at 917; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886).
59. MCCLAIN, supra note 49, at 974; Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162 (1874).
60. MCCLAIN, supra note 49, at 35; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875).
61. MCCLAIN, supro note 49, at 37 n.1; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).
62. JAMES PARKER HALL, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 56-57, 66 (1923).
63. EUGENE WAMBAUGH, A SELECTION OF CASES ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAW VOLS. 1-4 (1914-15).
64. THAYER, supra note 26.
65. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 83-282.
66. Id. at 206-26.
67. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 491; Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1856).
68. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 506; Osborn v. Nicholson, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 654 (1872).
69. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 509; Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275 (1897).
70. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 516; Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1 (1906).
71. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 520; Bailey v. Alabama, 219 U.S. 219 (1911).
72. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 537; Bradwell v. Illinois, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 130 (1872).
73. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 541; Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162 (1874).
74. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 547; McCready v. Virginia, 94 U.S. 391 (1877).
75. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 556; Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886).
76. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 587; Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516 (1884).
77. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 608; Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78 (1908).
78. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 617; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875).
79. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 623; Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1879).
80. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 630; Ex Parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1880).
81. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 634; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).
82. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 645; Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
83. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 788; United States v. Reese, 92 U.S. 214 (1875).
84. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 701; Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
85. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 651; Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 129 (1873).
86. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 656; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27 (1884).
87. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 659; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886).
88. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 665; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 (1887).
89. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 672; Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U.S. 678 (1888).
90. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 686; Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366 (1898).
91. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 694; Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905).
92. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 701; Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
93. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 707; Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U.S. 104 (1911).
94. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57, at 730; Jeffrey Mfg. Co. v. Blagg, 235 U.S. 571 (1915).
95. WAMBAUGH, supra note 57.
96. NOEL T. DOWLING, CASES ON AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW vii (1937).
97. Id. at 116-392.
98. Id. at 393-588.
99. Id. at 589-1096.
100. Id. at 730; Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897).
101. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 736; Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1 (1915).
102. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 790; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923).
103. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 798; Pierce v. Soc'y of the Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925).
104. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 752; W. Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937).
105. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 1039; Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1879).
106. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 1053; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886).
107. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 589; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).
108. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 1039; Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U.S. 312 (1921) (holding that a state statute prohibiting an injunction against labor picketers deprived employer of his only substantial remedy to protect his property).
109. Id. at 799; Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925).
110. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 811; De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353 (1937).
111. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 817; Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
112. Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 624 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting).
113. Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 372 (1927) (Brandeis, J. concurring).
114. DOWLING, supra note 90, at 19 n.2.
115. Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
116. Adkins v. Children's Hosp., 261 U.S. 525 (1923).
117. PAULA. FREUND, ARTHUR E. SUTHERLAND, MARK DEWOLFE HOWE & ERNEST J. BROWN, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: CASES AND OTHER PROBLEMS VOLS. 1-2 (1954).
118. Id. at 3-198.
119. Id. at 199-292.
120. Id. at 199; United States v. E.C. Knight Co., 156 U.S. 1 (1895).
121. FRUEND ET AL., supra note 111, at 233; United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936).
122. FRUEND ET AL., supra note 111, at 220; Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238 (1936).
123. FRUEND ET AL., supra note 111, at 276; Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942).
124. FRUEND ET AL., supra note 111, at 488-726. This section is a special interest of Professor Ernest Brown of Harvard, one of the casebook editors.
125. Id. at 729-1551.
126. Id. at 779-922.
127. Id. at 1470-1510.
128. Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
129. FREUND ET AL., supra note 111, at 1253-1469.
130. Id. at 924-1142. These cases were a special interest of Mark deWolfe Howe, another of the casebook's editors.
131. Id. at 1553-1750.
132. GEOFFREY R. STONE, LOUIS M. SEIDMAN, CASS R. SUNSTEIN & MARK V. TUSHNET, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (1986).
133. Id. at 1-114.
134. Id. at 18; Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).
135. STONE ET AL., supra note 126, at 48; McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819).
136. STONE ET AL., supra note 126, at 115-248.
137. Id. at 139; United States v. E.C. Knight, 156 U.S. 1 (1895).
138. STONE ET AL., supra note 126, at 187; Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964).
139. STONE ET AL., supra note 126, at 249-338.
140. Id. at 339-434.
141. Id. at 435-690.
142. Id. at 691-924.
143. Id. at 751; Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 (1942).
144. STONE ET AL., supra note 126, at 854; Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
145. STONE ET AL., supra note 126, at 925-1426.
146. Id. at 1427-66.
147. PAUL BREST, STANFORD LEVINSON, J.M.BALKIN & AKHIL REED AMAR, PROCESSES OF CONSTITUTIONAL DECISIONMAKING: CASES AND MATERIALS (4th ed. 2000).
148. Id. at xxxi-xxxii.
149. Id. at 337; Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
150. BREST ET AL., supra note 141, at 1-400.
151. Id. at 401-1604.
152. JAMES BARR AMES, SELECT CASES ON TORTS (1874).
153. JAMES BARR AMES & JEREMIAH SMITH, A SELECTION OF CASES ON THE LAW OF TORTS VOLS. 1-2 (2d ed. 1893-1900).
154. Id. at 550-594.
155. Id. at 139-433.
156. Id. at 434-570, 581-727.
157. ROSCOE POUND, A SELECTION OF CASES ON THE LAW OF TORTS 38-412 (1919).
158. FRANCIS H. BOHLEN, CASES ON THE LAW OF TORTS 190-347, 531-619 (2d ed. 1925).
159. Id. at 33-172.
160. POUND, supra note 151, at 10-27.
161. Id. at 413-512.
162. BOHLEN, supra note 152, at 620-706.
163. Id. at 707-1128;
164. POUND, supra note 151, at 530-1022.
165. HARRY SHULMAN & FLEMING JAMES, JR., CASES AND MATERIALS ON THE LAW OF TORTS (2d ed. 1952).
166. Id. at 1-451.
167. Id. at 824-97.
168. Id. at 898-1035.
169. Id. at 1036-84.
170. Id. at 718-823.
171. Id. at 452-519.
172. Id. at 654-98.
173. MARC FRANKLIN & ROBERT RABIN, TORT LAW AND ALTERNATIVES (6th ed. 1996).
174. Id. at 31-505.
175. Id. at 506-49.
176. Id. at 550-668.
177. Id. at 698-806.
178. Id. at 807-83.
179. Id. at 629-49.
180. JOHN HENRY WIGMORE, SELECT CASES ON THE LAW OF TORTS: WITH NOTES, AND A SUMMARY OF PRINCIPLES VOLS. 1-2 (1912).
181. Id. at 6-7.
182. Id. at 8-10.
183. Id. at 8-9.
184. Lon Fuller & William Perdue, The Reliance Interest in Contract Damages, 46 YALE L.J. 52 (1936) (discussing the purpose of awarding contract damages, especially the reliance interest).
185. WIGMORE, supra note 173, at 9.
186. Id. at 2-186.
187. Id. at 255-93.
188. Id. at 294-547.
189. Id. at 548-613.
190. In a remarkably prescient and comprehensive review of the curriculum in 1916, Wigmore identified six important processes of thought to be learned from the study of law and concluded that the case-method curriculum imparted only one of them, the "analytic" mode. The other processes, to which he urged more attention in a fundamental revision of the curriculum, were: the "historical," the "legislative," the "synthetic" (i.e., systematic legal theory), the "comparative," and the "operative" (the study of law-in-action). John H. Wigmore, Novus Methodus Discendae Docendaeque Jurisprudentiae, 30 HARV. L. REV. 812, 822-27 (1916).
191. LEON GREEN, THE JUDICIAL PROCESS IN TORT CASES (2d. ed. 1939).
192. Id. at 5-1154.
193. On the rise of personal-injury law, see RANDOLPH BERGSTROM, COURTING DANGER: INJURY AND LAW IN NEW YORK CITY, 1870-1910 (1992) (discussing turn-of-the-century Americans' changing response to the danger of accidental injury as an indicator of how society governs itself);
194. EDWARD A. PURCELL JR., LITIGATION AND INEQUALITY: FEDERAL DIVERSITY JURISDICTION IN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA, 1870-1958 (1992) (analyzing the sociolegal process of disputing, settling and litigating claims involving disputes between individual plaintiffs and national corporations);
195. JOHN WITT, THE ACCIDENTAL REPUBLIC 59-63 (2004);
196. and Lawrence M. Friedman, Civil Wrongs: Personal Injury Law in the Late 19th Century, 1987 AM. B. FOUND. RES. J. 351 (analyzing personal injury actions in the Superior Court of Alameda County, California, and from the federal district court for Northern California from 1880 to 1900).
197. Robert Cooter, Address at the Vanderbilt University Law School Symposium: What is Law and Economics? Why did it Succeed? (Apr. 28-29, 2006). Other examples would be the funding of international legal studies by the government and Ford Foundation in the 1950s and of Law & Society studies by the Russell Sage Foundation in the 1950s.
198. Roberta Romano has recently told at length the fascinating story of how the insights of economists and lawyer economists have colonized and reorganized Corporations as a legal field. See Roberta Romano, After the Revolution in Corporate Law, 55 J. LEGAL EDUC. 342 (2005).
199. See RICHARD DANZIG, THE CAPABIUTY PROBLEM IN CONTRACT LAW: FURTHER READINGS ON WELL-KNOWN CASES (1978);
200. A.W. BRIAN SIMPSON, LEADING CASES IN THE COMMON LAW (1995).
201. On these, see KALMAN and SCHLEGEL, supra note 22.