Harvard Law School - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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7 W, Y Developments Af Che auf School A story is told about one of the several occasions when the faculty of the Harvard Law School considered the question of ad- mission of women. This time was about 1913, when Ezra Ripley Thayer was dean. After some discussion, one of the members of the faculty, not known for his reticence, spoke up and said, If women are admitted to the School, I will have to revise all my lectures. There was a suitable pause. The dean is then reported to have said, Are there any other arguments in favor of the proposal? When one is speaking of changes at the Harvard Law School and the future course of its development, it will be impossible not to record that women were finally admitted to the School in the fall of 1950 falthough two were actually registered, in cooperation with Radcliffe College, as long ago as 1899, and attended classes for a few weeks until the arrangement was vetoed by the Corpor- ationj. Nevertheless, it does not seem to me that this particular development is either very important or very significant. Most of us have seen women from time to time during our lives, and have managed to sur- vive the shock. Wfe have even had a few around Langdell and Austin Halls for a good many years now, with no serious con- sequences. There seems to be no likelihood that we will have a very large proportion of women among our students. I think we can take it, and I doubt if it will change the character of the School or even its atmos- phere to any detectable extent. As of to- day, I doubt if this change alone will require nhl'- DEAN ERXVIN N. GRISWOLD any of our faculty members to revise many of their lectures. But there are some other developments in the air which do seem to me to be of great significance. As far as I know there are no plans for revolutionary change. I do not detect any notion that the Harvard Law School feels that it has devised a new formula for legal education, or that my brethren of the faculty propose throwing over all of the past and replacing it with some dazzling new-found approach to the law and legal education. Nevertheless, there are developments. Most of the lectures given in the School in 1913 would seem inadequate nowg while many of those now given would have struck the students of that earlier gener- ation as strange, vague, and far afield. Without meaning to be exhaustive, and without undertaking to foretell very much of the future, let me list below some of the significant developments which seem to me to be occurring in the Law School, at the middle of the twentieth century. 1. Teaching Materials and Meilaods. Law Schools have had to make some remarkable adjustments since fifty years ago. We are inclined to look back on those days as a relatively simple period, and we may well be right. Five courses in the first year, six in the second, six in the third, all standard courses, no Taxation, Labor Law, Adminis- trative Law, Accounting, no seminars, no papers, not much feeling that a lawyer needed to know anything but law, and that rather pure law, too. From such compari- sons, it is easy to see that we have made some changes, and those changes are clearly still in progress. Law schools now have available the same time for their task that they have had for the past seventy-five years or so. But the subject matter with which they must deal has greatly changed and increased. The necessary adjustments in teaching programs have not been easy to make and are by no

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THEY WILL BEEUMEIAW, PARTNERS Herman li. Brnudmiller Hillurga Graduated Tl!!'fl'H.9lr 'U!'!3'33FUUL1ITHf NNW . HW lf- . a large number of challenging difficulties. To achieve substantial justice of the type We would like to hope civilian courts dispense, within the disciplined ranks of a military establishment, seems, at times, to be an im- possibility. On the face of it, a better ex- ample of colliding objects cannot be found. The Morgan Committee began its Work in August of 1948 and completed its mam- moth task by submitting a completed Uni- form Code of Military Justice in February, 1949. This was a remarkable achievement, and it will stand as a monument to Pro- fessor Morgan. Although Professor Morgan had served in the Office of the Judge Advocate Gen- eral of the Army in World War I, he had not been concerned with problems of mili- tary law for some twenty-five years. His ability to master the whole, complex and technical subject of military law was a rev- elation. The problems usually faced by the academic professor in the practical work- a-day World were no problems so far as he was concerned. As Chairman of the Com- mittee, his erudition and amazing fund of legal knowledge Were smoothly and quickly translated into the most practical solutions. All the tools of the teaching professor Were natural and useful in his hands when used in conferences Which brought together people representing strong conflicting view- points. He cajoled, he persuaded, he con- vinced. He listened, he was convinced, he changed his mind. This was the same Pro- fessor Morgan, but in a wholly different classroom. We saw the same brilliance practically applied in an important and highly specialized field of law. As I am sure two generations of Harvard students have found, he was conservative in all things, except his shining ideas and ideals. We found a sharp mind Working with a Warm heart. On a subject on which honest men differ, he achieved a remarkable unanimity of opinion among the Committee members, and produced the Uniform Code of Mili- tary Justice, which provides the some sub- stantive law and the same procedures for all persons serving in all the armed forces. Felix A. Larkin Department of Defense Page five

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means completed. The changes reflect a change in the position and function of law- yers in the community. At one time they were primarily family solicitors and forensic advocates, and legal education was designed for fitting men to perform these tasks. These functions are still performed by law- yers, and they must not be ignored in train- ing. But lawyers today are also extensively engaged as business advisers, and have to deal constantly with many aspects of gov- ernment regulations not even thought of a few decades ago. To meet these new demands, new subject matters have been added to the curriculum, old courses have been adjusted, often at great pain, to make way for the changes, new materials have been developed, and new teaching methods experimented with. There is clearly a ferment in the faculty on all of these matters, and out of it will come more developments and more changes-which will surely make the next half century of legal education as interesting as the last has been. 2. Faculty. The next area of develop- ment is closely related to the last. There have already been significant developments cent larger than it was before the war. Not more. During the past year we have under- taken the Teaching Fellow program, with marked success. Counting the Teaching Fellows, our faculty is now about fifty per cent larger than before the war. Not counting the Teaching Fellows, nearly half of our faculty have been appointed within the past ten years, most of these since 1945. In making faculty selections, many fac- tors have been considered. Although the faculty is now perhaps as young in average age as it has been for many years, it stands rather high in practical experience. Some of this experience has been obtained in gov- ernment serviceg several of the new faculty members have had substantial experience in private practice of the typically strenuous sort. We may expect that new faculty members will continue to be persons who combine intellectual and teaching capacities with the ability to keep their feet on the ground. One of the factors which limits develop- ment of a faculty is, of course, the matter of finances. I think quite a case can be made for the proposition that Law Schools have long been among the stepchildren of education. To put a rather striking ex- ample-the Harvard Medical School spends not twice as much per student each year as is spent at the Law School, but seven times as much! Of course the problems are some- what different, but not that much differ- ent. Ways must be found to make it plain that adequate work in the fields of law and the social sciences generally requires finan- cial support of a sort far beyond that which has hitherto been available. Prograss of this sort may be slow, but I think we can count on developments over the years to come which will mean a continued strength- ening of the faculty and enlargement of its activities and resources. 3. Amelioration of the lot of students! The present generation of students will probably never admit it, but we have sof- tened up considerably in the past few years. Some of us still have a nostalgic yearning for the days when men were men. But they are apparently gone for good, and there will not be too much wailing at the change. The development of the highly selective admissions system has greatly re- duced the first year failure rate, and fail- ures at the end of the second and third years have all but disappeared. The Teach- ing Fellow program with its system of Group Work performs a great service in assisting the first year students at what has been regarded as their most confused and uncertain period in Law School. There is