LAW SCHOOL'S SOLE PURPOSE TO TRAIN FOR THE BAR

This is the fourth of a series of articles published in the Crimson, dealing with the work of the various graduate schools and written by their respective deans or professors.

The relation of the professional school to the college can be set forth in a very few words. The college furnishes the foundation and on that foundation the professional school erects the specialized training which equips the man for his profession. Whether and to what professional school a man should go depends, therefore, entirely on the profession he elects to practice. If he chooses to practice law, a law school training is absolutely essential. The time has long gone by when the successful lawyer began his legal career as an apprentice in a law office. A law school degree is now a prerequisite to admission into any reputable law office. The law school is, therefore, essentially for the man who intends to practice law, and in no sense a finishing school for the average business man. For while the practice of the law not infrequently opens business opportunities into which men may stop and find their legal training of invaluable assistance to them, few men who do not intend to make their livelihood at the bar can afford to spend three years at law school for the sake of the additional polish it may give to their general education. Nor is it advisable for any man to take up the study of the law in this dilettante spirit.

A Process of Mental Toughening

Most college men, I suppose, visualize the study of the law either as a matter of memorizing legal forms or of learning the circumlocutions of dry logic. It is neither and far more difficult than both. It is a process of strenuous mental toughening, not unlike the process of toughening one's muscles, and strengthening one's wind and endurance for the supreme test of the "big game" or the "big race" which the college athlete endures. Learning the law is learning a method of attack and training the intellectual muscles until they are tough as whip cord, spring with the resilience of fine-tempered steel and have the endurance and persistency of a cow pony.

The process is simple. The prescribed reading consists mainly of a selection of actual cases from the law reports. The class room work consists first of a statement of the case by the student and then of an open discussion of the principles involved by the Socratic method of question and answer in which the teacher seeks to put the student through the mental processes by which decisions are come at, rules laid down and principles developed. The test of efficiency comprises a four-hour examination of ten questions for each full year course. These questions are nearly always concrete cases, not infrequently taken from the reports, to which the student is required to apply the principles he has learned during the year and reach a decision on the facts of the same processes by which a court would reach a decision.

Lawyers Needed Today

Three years of this and the successful student is equipped with the technical assets requisite to admission to the practice of the law in any state in the Union, and the tough mindedness and mental stamina to enable him to deal successfully with the myriad of intricate questions constantly confronting the practicing attorney.

So much for the mechanics of studying the law at a law school. As has already been intimated, the question of whether to go to law school is essentially a question of whether to take up the practice of the law. Into this question enter all the considerations which influence a man in choosing his life work. Space will permit of only the briefest mention of a few of the considerations which lead men to take up the law. Anglo-Saxon social, political and industrial life is built upon the law and the important part which lawyers have always played in the political and economic history of the Anglo-Saxon nations is too well known to need repetition here. There never has been a time, not excepting the stirring years in which the American Republic was founded (and the place of the law and the lawyer in that historic episode is written large on the pages of history) when the world needed tough minded, straight thinking, Anglo-Saxon lawyers so much as it needs them today. Out of the upheaval of the war have come grave problems of social, industrial and political readjustment comparable to those which faced the American colonies in 1783, and if these are to be met and solved with any degree of enduring success, they must be met and solved by the same straight thinking, forward looking processes of thought and action that laid the foundations of the Anglo-American common law and erected upon them the sturdy bulwarks of the American Republic. Into this atmosphere, charged with the frontier spirit of the American pioneer, the coming generation of lawyers will step, and the nation and the world will lay much store upon the hardihood, endurance, straight thinking and fearless acting of these men. To be one of those may well be deemed a privilege.

Reward Out of Proportion to Cost

As for the material rewards, what is no doubt true of other professions is true of the beginnings of the practice of the law. The reward is entirely out of proportion to the expenditure of time and money involved in preparing for the profession. The average lawyer will tell you with a great degree of truth that the law school graduate is worth less than nothing to his office for the first six months. It takes at least that long, and some times longer, to "learn the ropes," and like learning one's way about a strange city, this can be acquired only by experience. For the first six months or a year, therefore, the average law school graduate may expect to receive little more than his "keep." After that his progress will be nearly proportionate to his ability, making due allowance for "the breaks of the game." By and large, with a proper accounting for the accidents of life and the inherent infirmities of individuals, the average law school graduate may look forward with reasonable certainty to a comfortable livelihood within from three to five years of graduattion. The upper heights of material success are as unlimited as those of any professional or business career, and the practice of the law itself opens business opportunities. Moreover, I have heard it said and seen it demonstrated, that the successful lawyer, so long as his mentality remains intact, is seldom if ever voluntarily retired. He never becomes obsolete; his business does not outgrow him. Even after he becomes unable to practice actively his name, reputation and opinions continue to have material value.

Forensic Ability Not Necessary

Common impression no doubt is that the qualities which the man who aspires to the law must find in himself are forensic and rhetorical. On the contrary the law requires not so much speaking and writing as thinking, and no man need be deterred from entering the law because he is not a gifted speaker or writer, although, of course, in the law as in nearly everything else, ability to clothe one's thoughts in expressive and becoming language is an immeasurable advantage. But not all lawyers spend their time addressing juries or arguing before appellate tribunals. In fact the most remunerative branches of practice may be conducted without putting foot in court room. In the law as elsewhere the most successful qualities are honesty of thought and purpose and imperviousness to mental and physical fatigue.

There is, so far as I have been able to discover, no special preparation to be recommended for the Law School. A good solid foundation in the facts of life and a habit of accurate thinking are the best assets. For these any liberal selection of college courses will do.

More particularly with respect to the Harvard Law School, the equipment and courses at the school are fully described in the annual catalogue. In order to receive the degree of Bachelor of Laws the student must have attained the age of twenty-one years, have put in three years of residence at the school and successfully passed the examinations on the entire course of three years. There are a number of scholarship and loan funds from which assistance is furnished to deserving students. While the school draws more students from Harvard College than from any other institution, the percentage does not exceed 25 per cent, and in 1919-1920 162 colleges were represented at the school. Law offices throughout the country annually seek men from the school and every facility is afforded to the student in aiding him to discover his opportunity.