Interesting reddit post on the (alleged) use of the Socratic Method in law school:

You've all heard it, it's one of the legal community's favorite buzz phrases. But I get sick of hearing faculty and others constantly refer to the Socratic Method when in reality what most professors do is just ask questions that verify if you did the reading, usually with little follow up. This is stupid, I had undergrad professors who did the exact same thing.

The real Socratic Method uses questions posed in an argumentative dialogue to make the student logically defend and think through their position on a specific topic. Essentially playing the devil's advocate. This is often hard to accomplish in a law school context since most classes deal with the law as is and not the law as it should be. The Socratic Method typically works best in philosophical discussions. As a result, it's not actually always that useful in legal classes where the goal is to learn the case law, not debate about its merits.

I guess the reason this grinds my gears is that it sounds both pretentious and scary, and it's misleading. People assume that the Socratic Method and getting cold called are the same thing. Just remember the next time your professor asks you "what did Justice Black say in his concurrence" that is not the Socratic Method. Your professor is just checking to see whether you read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LawSchool/comments/16vf5px/law_schools_suck_at_the_socratic_method/

Is the Socratic Method really as "scary" as it looks in The Paper Chase?

Anonymous wrote:Law school is not conceptually difficult. A middling college graduate can easy grasp them. The main challenge is the sheer weight - and the grading curve if one is gunning for big law, clerkships etc.

Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Anonymous wrote:These are very different environments that lead to very different paths. I would not focus so much on what the school experience itself entails, but where it leads. Do you want to be a lawyer? A research scientist/academic? Start there. If you don't know I would pursue neither for now.

This! I find it odd that someone would be considering these two very different paths and base the decision on what the “school experience” will be like.

Law school is not conceptually difficult. A middling college graduate can easy grasp them. The main challenge is the sheer weight - and the grading curve if one is gunning for big law, clerkships etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - I'll step back to the "generic" PhD vs Law school comparison. Going to Law school, like undergrad, like business school, like high school (and like the masters portion of a PhD program or a stand alone masters program) - where you go to class and are expected to learn something and then show you learned it by taking tests or applying a technique. Getting a Phd - you learn the basics but the entire goal is to produce NEW material that is a contribution to the literature (or whatever) in your field. It's not regurgitation of some other stuff people have told you - it's taking what is already out there and finding some thing new.

Hopefully this explains how it is different. If you want to practice law, go to law school. If you want to go into business consider business school. If you want to be a research scientist...go to grad school in a lab science.... But if you were to go to grad school in the lab science, you'd probably find the universities with the top researchers in the specific sub field you want to eventually work in. It's not some generic lab science PHD....who your dissertation advisor is and their lab work will guide what you specialize in. You need to know what you are interested in achieving when you go to grad school.

A 50 page law paper, say, goes pretty much into the recycle bin after it's graded. The Ph.D. dissertation is archived and indexed as it advances knowledge in the field.

Yes it’s archived, & is SUPPOSED to advance the field. But a lot of those dissertations are about education, & schools have only gotten worse. And some are about psychology, & people have only gotten more screwed up. Some are about sociology but society has only gotten more cruel. Poli Sci>>more division.

Granted, the gaming scholars have managed to devise more addictive games, & pharmaceutical scholars have devised more addictive drugs. And AI scholars have probably doomed us all. So hurray for being a zoned-out 20 year old playing video games in your parents’ basement, waiting for AI to take over your life: you are the culmination of thousands of years of human struggle!!

Great rebuttal.

Anonymous wrote:You don’t decide based upon the relatively short training experience. They lead to entirely different careers, salaries, lifestyles.

Focus on what future you want, not the grad school experience!

Right, I find the question so strange. Figure out what you want to be, then apply to the program that gets you there.

I actually loved law school, but I didn't go for the experience. I went because I wanted to be an attorney.

Anonymous wrote:Law school is essentially the same as an undergrad degree, but USA determines social status by how many years of school you can afford, so they add extra years to professional degrees.

This is a completely uninformed opinion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - I'll step back to the "generic" PhD vs Law school comparison. Going to Law school, like undergrad, like business school, like high school (and like the masters portion of a PhD program or a stand alone masters program) - where you go to class and are expected to learn something and then show you learned it by taking tests or applying a technique. Getting a Phd - you learn the basics but the entire goal is to produce NEW material that is a contribution to the literature (or whatever) in your field. It's not regurgitation of some other stuff people have told you - it's taking what is already out there and finding some thing new.

Hopefully this explains how it is different. If you want to practice law, go to law school. If you want to go into business consider business school. If you want to be a research scientist...go to grad school in a lab science.... But if you were to go to grad school in the lab science, you'd probably find the universities with the top researchers in the specific sub field you want to eventually work in. It's not some generic lab science PHD....who your dissertation advisor is and their lab work will guide what you specialize in. You need to know what you are interested in achieving when you go to grad school.

A 50 page law paper, say, goes pretty much into the recycle bin after it's graded. The Ph.D. dissertation is archived and indexed as it advances knowledge in the field.

Yes it’s archived, & is SUPPOSED to advance the field. But a lot of those dissertations are about education, & schools have only gotten worse. And some are about psychology, & people have only gotten more screwed up. Some are about sociology but society has only gotten more cruel. Poli Sci>>more division.

Granted, the gaming scholars have managed to devise more addictive games, & pharmaceutical scholars have devised more addictive drugs. And AI scholars have probably doomed us all. So hurray for being a zoned-out 20 year old playing video games in your parents’ basement, waiting for AI to take over your life: you are the culmination of thousands of years of human struggle!!

Anonymous wrote:OP - I'll step back to the "generic" PhD vs Law school comparison. Going to Law school, like undergrad, like business school, like high school (and like the masters portion of a PhD program or a stand alone masters program) - where you go to class and are expected to learn something and then show you learned it by taking tests or applying a technique. Getting a Phd - you learn the basics but the entire goal is to produce NEW material that is a contribution to the literature (or whatever) in your field. It's not regurgitation of some other stuff people have told you - it's taking what is already out there and finding some thing new.

Hopefully this explains how it is different. If you want to practice law, go to law school. If you want to go into business consider business school. If you want to be a research scientist...go to grad school in a lab science.... But if you were to go to grad school in the lab science, you'd probably find the universities with the top researchers in the specific sub field you want to eventually work in. It's not some generic lab science PHD....who your dissertation advisor is and their lab work will guide what you specialize in. You need to know what you are interested in achieving when you go to grad school.

A 50 page law paper, say, goes pretty much into the recycle bin after it's graded. The Ph.D. dissertation is archived and indexed as it advances knowledge in the field.

Anonymous wrote:Here's a view:

https://philosophyfacotry.blogspot.com/2005/12/phd-vs-jd.html

And a contrary one:

Okay... I am graduating with a JD in the spring and I have a Master's degree. Law School is 1000 times more difficult than graduate school. The workload is higher, the material much more difficult, and the teachers use the "socratic method" - which would put tears in the eyes of most graduate students. Okay - so the papers may be simmilar in length - but you must have never heard of the idea of QUALITY over QUANTITY. In a masters program, you can fill a paper with facts, quotes, and all sorts of other BS; however, Law School papers require concise analysis of the topic at hand. When you write motions or appellate briefs for the first time, you HATE the fact that there is a page limit because there is SOOOO much to squeeze into such a short space.

Take it from me (as I have done both), masters degrees are nothing compared to Law School.

I also have a JD and a master's degree. I totally disagree that "Law School is 1000 times more difficult than grad school." My grad degree, done after my JD, was much harder than law school. The "Socratic method" is really not a big deal; the fact that you think it is makes me wonder if you are really in law school or if you are applying to law schools and have watched that movie The Paper Chase one too many times.

Assuming you actually are about to graduate, I'm disappointed that law school hasn't beaten the inclination to write things like "1000 times more difficult" out of you. And that "you must have never heard of the idea of QUALITY over QUANTITY" statement is embarrassing as well, and not just because of the all-caps. Finally, let's hold off on your purported expertise on what it is to write motions and appellate briefs until you have actually done so for a living, lol.

Pretty much any Ph.D. could get through law school, but the reverse isn't true.

Mediocre law school vs rigorous grad school or complex major refute your tgeory.

Here's a view:

https://philosophyfacotry.blogspot.com/2005/12/phd-vs-jd.html

And a contrary one:

Okay... I am graduating with a JD in the spring and I have a Master's degree. Law School is 1000 times more difficult than graduate school. The workload is higher, the material much more difficult, and the teachers use the "socratic method" - which would put tears in the eyes of most graduate students. Okay - so the papers may be simmilar in length - but you must have never heard of the idea of QUALITY over QUANTITY. In a masters program, you can fill a paper with facts, quotes, and all sorts of other BS; however, Law School papers require concise analysis of the topic at hand. When you write motions or appellate briefs for the first time, you HATE the fact that there is a page limit because there is SOOOO much to squeeze into such a short space.

Take it from me (as I have done both), masters degrees are nothing compared to Law School.

OP - I'll step back to the "generic" PhD vs Law school comparison. Going to Law school, like undergrad, like business school, like high school (and like the masters portion of a PhD program or a stand alone masters program) - where you go to class and are expected to learn something and then show you learned it by taking tests or applying a technique. Getting a Phd - you learn the basics but the entire goal is to produce NEW material that is a contribution to the literature (or whatever) in your field. It's not regurgitation of some other stuff people have told you - it's taking what is already out there and finding some thing new.

Hopefully this explains how it is different. If you want to practice law, go to law school. If you want to go into business consider business school. If you want to be a research scientist...go to grad school in a lab science.... But if you were to go to grad school in the lab science, you'd probably find the universities with the top researchers in the specific sub field you want to eventually work in. It's not some generic lab science PHD....who your dissertation advisor is and their lab work will guide what you specialize in. You need to know what you are interested in achieving when you go to grad school.