De-effeminization of UM Law?

Many seasoned lawyers comment that law school has become too "soft" on students. They point out that professors once not only called on students randomly, but they ridiculed them for incorrect answers. If a student had a panic attack, or better yet started to cry, so much the better.

Today things have changed, and keeping with leftist notions of entitlement and accomodation, law schools bend over backwards to make everyone "comfortable". Professors are encouraged to allow students to "pass" when called on, and to be given advance notice of when they will be called on and what will be asked. The result? Its not uncommon for four or five consecutively called-on students to "pass", or for students given notice they will be "on call" to simply not show up for the session. It makes a mockery of a time honored tradition that also serves as very practical training for communicating in court with impatient and demanding judges.

The Socratic method is constantly written about and discussed in literature directed towards law students, such as the ABA's Student Jouranal and the National Jurist. Although I don't have the cite handy, within the past few years the UM Law Review published a student authored "comment" filled with the usual liberal blather about how law school should treat every student's shortcomings as a "disability" and make special accomodations, i.e. if being called on causes the student undue stress then that student has a learning challenge to be accomodated by the school no less than if that student were blind.

On a slightly different but related issue, I was pleasantly surprised by the email we all received from Assistant Dean Fajer, wherein he politely gives the finger to all the nancy law students whining about the possiblity that laptop and bluebook users will (gasp!) share the same exam rooms. I can just imagine the torture it put him through to read all the lengthy emails from students sobbing about their "learning disabilities" verified by psychologists and insisting that the clickity-clack of a laptop, as opposed to the scratching and shuffling of papers, would doom their law school careers. Now, of course, Dean Fajer couched his sentiment in feigned concern. But coming from him, that response is good enough for me.

I've made my criticisms of law school exams known on this blog, but one thing I do like is their tendancy to test a student's ability to think under time pressure. Do these complaining students think that when they are pressed for time a law office is going to hush-up for them? Will co-workers turn off their laptops and whisper with their clients while the whiner works on that assignment for the senior partner due in two hours?

I suppose the lingering question is whether or not Fajer's stated reasons for denying the request for separate exam rooms (lack of rooms) is legitimate, or if his real reasons are because he feels students ought to tough it out. Interestingly, Professor Fajer is an old-school practioner of the Socratic method, and while he'll stop short of pushing a student to tears, he's not afraid to embarass someone who obviously isn't prepared. I find it hard to believe that it is literally impossible to accomodate the whiners, so I think Fajer just doesn't want to. Good for him.