LAWYER'S BUSINESS

Six years ago Yale and Harvard announced a cooperative course to supplement their football rivalry. Fathered by the dynamic William O. Douglas, the plan was to send ten or twelve Yale law students to the Harvard Business School for their second year of study, to give them a better insight into the business aspects of the law. Since Douglas has left Yale, interest in the plan has faltered both here and in New Haven, and now announcement is made of its abolition.

There is no doubt that the plan was a sincere expression of a strong trend the tying together of the studies of business and the law. It is not unusual to find professors from both Schools collaborating on new treatises, and working together in their courses as well. Harvard's two Graduate Schools on opposite sides of the Charles are joining hands more closely today than ever before. But this double training is not for every law student, because many of them will have little to do with actual business administration. However, for the few it is essential, as shown by the small but consistent number of Law School graduates who spend a year at the Business School before leaving Cambridge. Yale men are not so lucky, for they have no business School. The cooperative plan made Harvard in effect a mere crutch for them. It is no wonder that the scheme was dropped by mutual consent.

The Law and Business Schools of Harvard are now free to go ahead and forge their own link between their respective fields of study. As parts of the same University, they can naturally do a better job than two institutions separated by the distance between Cambridge and New Haven. It may become possible for the Law School to award a special degree to those of their students who do work across the Charles. At any rate, closer cooperation will inevitably come, and with it better educated men.