The Shortcomings of the Case Method why not let, for instance, the Texan keep and enjoy his kind of law, the Californian his variety, and the Pennsylvanian his? — let them all grow and flourish ad libitum; standard legal ideas and principles are to be regarded as destructive of local state peculiarities of law! And so this argument totally ignores the fundamental principle of juridical evolution, that the fittest law should survive; on the contrary, it seems to lay emphasis on keeping alive outworn and obsolescent law. All this is but another and sentimental way of injuriously emphasizing "state rights." Every citizen today has to suffer an enormous legal risk in business because of the increasing uncertainty of knowing just what the law is through out these United States — a situation largely due to the present perpetuation of traditional state doctrines of law with out regard to the law of any other state. Perpetuating the local dissimi
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larities of state law is a good thing for but one class of persons — namely petti fogging lawyers, who naturally will do their best to hold back as long as pos sible the chariot of legal progress. Must all the vast multitude of interstate busi ness transactions in this country be jeopardized, in order that Rhode Island or Delaware, for instance, be kept dis similar in order to benefit the lawyers of these states? The present malady of American law is its lack of uniformity. Sooner or later our bulky, prolix, largely case law, which is increasing proportionally in uncer tainty as it increases in bulk and in its visible form annually deluges law libra ries, which alone may store its host of new reports, must give way to a scientific codification of small volume, wherein the law is clearly and definitely set forth, easily found, and which shall be the sole private law of the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean!
The Shortcomings of the Case Method
CRITICISMS of the case method of teaching law which go into de tails are infrequent. The impressions of a foreign observer who took the trouble to study the system at first hand are therefore the more valuable.1 Professor W. Harrison Moore of the University of Melbourne visited the United States in 1911 for the purpose of acquainting himself with the workings of the case system. His four weeks in this country were divided equally be tween the Harvard and Columbia Law Schools. He attended classes, sitting '"Legal Education in the United States." By Professor W. Harrison Moore- 13 Journal ofCom parative Legislation N. S., pt. 2, no. 28, p. 207 (July, 1913).
side by side with the students, and also had opportunities to discuss matters with the members of the staffs of both institutions. Professor Moore readily acknowledges the merits of the case method of instruc tion. Before citing his opinions, his description of the methods used at Har vard and Columbia will be of interest, the more so because he attended classes of nearly every teacher of the two staffs and his summing-up must there fore give a fairly accurate picture of the methods in vogue. In theory, he says, neither text-book nor formal lecturing enters into the course. "The students are required to read ahead of the class work, and the
