Does law school have a role in teaching wisdom? Values? Integrity?
Or is the role of a legal education to impart the "doing" of law? Never mind, the "being" of a lawyer.
If the question of the role of law school has been occupying any of your thoughts, this Macquarie University Annual Lecture given by Professor Steven Schwartz may fuel further thought. You may say that he is talking about the role of undergraduate education. If so, are students coming to law school having completed (or begun) a process such as Schwartz describes? If not, is that of any consequence to the profession? To clients?
Does this lecture provoke questions or thoughts in your mind? I found it so rich that I have read the talk a number of times, each time coming away with new impressions and ideas.
Excerpt from "The dangers of knowledge without wisdom":
The Vice-President of an American university recently asked his students: “Why have you come to university?” The students said, “I want a good job” or “I need a degree to get a promotion at work”. Not surprising. Just what he expected. But, when he framed the question in a larger context: “What kind of life to you want to be leading five or ten years from now?” the answers were different. Students talked about purpose, meaning, identity, integrity and relationships.
There is a hunger for the kind of insight and wisdom that a narrow skills education cannot satisfy.
...
Whatever profession students choose to pursue, they will benefit not only as professionals but also as human beings from being exposed to the greatest works of fiction, history, biography, philosophy and science.
It is from these sources that they will learn about love and loss, about memory and desire, about loyalty and duty, about our world and our universe and about what it means to be a human being.
Click to read the rest (MercatorNet).
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