Landis Calls Public Service Keynote of Legal Education

Young lawyers must be trained not merely to serve well great corporations and private individuals, but, above that, to serve the public, James M. Landis, Dean of the Law School, stated last week in a New York Times interview.

Public service is fast becoming the keynote of modern legal training. The young lawyer must learn to act as a mediator of human affairs rather than as a craftsman. Although the Law School will try to develop this attitude in its students, it will not relax its technical training in the least, Dean Landis added.

He pointed to administrative law as the solution to our present legal difficulties. Because of the complicated interlocking nature of modern society, it is necessary to set up correspondingly specialized legal and administrative commissions to deal with the problems of this society.

As an example of such claims, he gave those set forth by the worker for protection against discrimination because of his membership in a union. The previously existing common-law machinery could not cope with this case arising in equity. Therefore a special board had to be set up--the NI.RH.

Dean Landis pointed out that such agencies have arisen through long agitation on the public's part for action on such problems as transportation, communication, banking, and labor relations.

Departure from the old common-law concepts is inevitable, he declared, because administrative law grapples with a special phase of our national life, whereas the present legal machinery is general in nature.

He criticised the legal profession for its unwillingness to accept the progressive principles of administrative law. Our present legal set-up cannot resist for long, he feels, the multitude of new claims made upon it by our complex civilization.

Although his ideas on administrative law correspond to those of the present New Deal administration, Dean Landis said that the attitude of the Law School will remain impartial as far as politics are concerned.

In closing his interview, he declared that his advice to the pre-law student is to "study the things you won't get in law school, especially the cultural subjects--art, music, literature."

"After all," he concluded, "the best lawyer, probably, is the most civilized person."