“What the Best Law Teachers Do” – In Conversation with authors Michael Schwartz, Gerald F Hess and Sophie Sparrow

Published in August this year, “What the Best Law Teachers Do” is a exhaustive study of twenty-six law teachers in the U.S. The book, whose goal is to be the first, “systematic, rigorous study of excellent law teaching”, is not only based on interactions with the teacher (who were selected out of 250 nominations) but also incorporates interviews with students, past and present. In this interview with Bar & Bench, the book’s three authors Michael Hunter Schwartz, Gerald F Hess and Sophie Sparrow share their thoughts on the book and on the state of legal education..Bar & Bench: Close to five years in the making and the fourth such collaboration between the three of you, this book has a tremendous amount of research. What kept the three of you motivated through the process?.Michael Hunter Schwartz: I experienced each of the people we studied and everything we learned from them and from their students as incredibly motivating. Each of the study visits proved to be an opportunity to get to know an incredibly smart, dedicated, kind, and inspiring person. We three co-authors must have had about a half dozen conversations about how much fun we were having doing this project because of the people. It also is a lot easier to stay motivated on a project when your co-authors are Gerry and Sophie; each is uniquely gifted, laughs readily, humble, and dedicated..Gerald F Hess: One source of motivation was our belief that this book would fill a void in the legal education literature – a rigorous qualitative research project to study teaching and learning in depth. In addition, the teachers and students that we studied were interesting, inspiring, and fun to be around. It was a privilege to explore the attitudes, practices, and characteristics of these 26 outstanding teachers..Sophie Sparrow: Visiting the teachers, talking to their students, and then reading the transcripts was an incredibly powerful and moving experience. It was inspiring to read transcripts for teachers I had studied; reading the transcripts of other teachers was just as compelling. I wished I had worked with all of them. I could have read the teachers’ comments and those of their students over and over..B&B: Amongst other things, the book highlights the diverse approaches used by these teachers in their classes. Was there any one method/approach that you now want to adapt into your own teaching methodology?.Schwartz: The most difficult question I could imagine is being asked to identify only one teaching methodology I learned from working on the book and use in my own teaching; I believe I learned dozens of things. One that stands out for me today is the teachers’ steadfast commitment to both asking challenging things of their students while communicating, at all times, that the students will achieve those high expectations..Hess: My teaching methodology relies heavily on variety – large and small group discussion, exercises, questioning, lecture, visual aids, etc. The diverse approaches I observed help me add to the variety of methods in my courses. A major take-away for me from the teachers we studied was not the methods they used in the classroom but the depth of their commitment to the quality of their teaching and to their students’ success..Sparrow: There are more techniques and approaches that I want to use than I can possibly do. One of the lessons I am working on is being more authentic as a teacher, trying methods in my teaching that have been known to produce significant learning, and to use them even if they are not the norm in law school..[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”22670″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”style”:”line-height: 1.538em; width: 177px; height: 294px; float: right;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]B&B: Your thoughts on the increasing costs of legal education in the US? This may be a clichéd question, but do you think a law degree is “worth it”? If so, why?.Schwartz: Studying these 26 people and hearing about the many great teachers we were not able to study has convinced me that law students in the US learn extraordinary, transformative things in law school and grow both intellectually and in self-awareness. Legal education with these people is undoubtedly “worth it.”.Hess: I share many of the recent criticisms of legal education. However, legal education in the US has many strengths, including teachers and students who are committed to outstanding education and to the use of legal education in the pursuit of justice. For many students, a legal education remains a pathway into a rewarding, meaningful professional life..Sparrow: Yes, a legal education is still worth it. At every school there are wonderful teachers and courses, places where students can truly learn to develop the kinds of skills, values, and knowledge that will help them in their professional practice. As teachers, we can help students by making them aware of what law practice is like, the opportunities available within law schools, and guiding them in their professional development. As with much of education and life, it also helps when students are proactive in seeking challenging and engaging learning experiences. I’ve heard from many graduates that they wished their legal education was more practice-focused. In fact, those graduates attended law schools with many practical skills and professional clinical courses, but chose not to enroll in them..B&B: Dean Schwartz, in a paper published in the Tennessee Journal of Business Law, you write, “Law students also become depressed because the process of legal education we have adopted causes them to lose their sense of personal autonomy, their sense of self-efficacy.” Strong words. How do you think the teachers you have highlighted in this book try and overcome this problem?.[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”22669″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”style”:”line-height: 1.538em; width: 181px; height: 300px; float: left;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]Schwartz: Because the teachers we studied are so student centered, because they know and treat each of their students as an individual and communicate both respect and caring in everything they do when they interact with students, and because they hold their students accountable for treating each other well, their students feel a greater sense of community, purpose, and autonomy, all of which increases the students’ well being..B&B: Professor Hess, you are the co-Director of the Gongzaga’s Institute for Law Teaching and Learning. What do you think is the role of institute’s such as yours in shaping legal education?.Hess: I am a co-director of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, which is sponsored by Gonzaga University, Washburn University, and the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. Over the past two decades, the Institute has taken a leadership role in promoting student-centered legal education and enhancing the effectiveness of teaching and learning in law school. In the future, the Institute will strive to serve legal educators from the US and abroad in the movement to improve the quality of legal education around the globe..B&B: Professor Sparrow, the last time we spoke you were on a Fulbright at NLU Jodhpur. If there were one particular aspect of teaching you would want Indian law schools to focus on, what would it be?.Sparrow: It would be to engage students in more active learning. My limited understanding of Indian legal education is that many professors focus on transmitting information and then assessing students to see if they can repeat that information back. Instead, it would help students learn if professors required students to first prepare for class, learning about the law, and then used class time engaging students in applying that knowledge in class discussions and on different assessments..B&B: One of the observations made in the earlier part of the book reads, “Like many professionals, the teachers struggle to find appropriate work-life balance.” Given the high number of class hours in Indian law schools, do you think that this problem is aggravated here? Do you foresee a more detailed exploration of this aspect in the near future?.[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”22672″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”style”:”line-height: 1.538em; width: 182px; height: 300px; float: right;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]Sparrow: Certainly expectations of students and teachers have to change when teachers are in the classroom 20 hours a week. Preparing for and delivering a lecture is much easier than putting together significant, relevant and appropriately challenging problems for students to solve during class. In addition, if students don’t prepare for class, it is difficult to engage them in the kind of complex problem solving that depends on a foundational understanding of the underlying rules, policies and procedures..I also think that Indian law schools would benefit, as would law schools everywhere, from identifying their priorities. It’s important to balance the role of innovating the curriculum with service to the community and profession and scholarship..(What the Best Law Teachers Do, Harvard University Press, $29.95)