Why impose a course on constitutional law on our students?

[Stephen Siegel]

I always present Sandy's views questioning why we require
constitutional law and tell my students that I disagree with his point
that they are unlikely to practice constitutional law.  They can, I say,
practice as much as constitutional law as they like - if they are willing
to do it for free (as many members of this list do).  I also remind the
students that they have a pro bono obligation and that involvement in
constitutional law and litigation is a very engaging way to fulfill it.
Constitutional law can be a very practical course for them, though I hope
they learn it in the "grand" style as Karl LLewellyn might say.

Stephen Siegel
DePaul University College of Law

On Mon, 9 Jul 2007 DavidEBernstein at aol.com wrote:

>
> I always tell my students that when they are sworn in to the bar they will
> take an oath to uphold the Constitution, they should have some idea of what
> they  are swearing to uphold and some theory as to what it means, and that they
> shouldn't confuse the latest pronouncement of five Justices with "the
> Constitution."
>
> In a message dated 7/9/2007 3:56:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> SLevinson at law.utexas.edu writes:
>
> This  comes under the category of shameless self-promotion.  Our
> colleague  Malla Pollack has founded a new (online) law review, the
> American Justice  L. Rev., and the first issue includes a piece of mine,
> "REFLECTIONS ON THE  ROLE OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IN THE LAW SCHOOL
> CURRICULUM."  It can be  found at
>
> http://www.ajsl.us/review/Pollack%20LevinsonforPUBLICATION.pdf
>
> To  make a longish story short, I argue that there's no good reason to
> require  constitutional law (as is done at most law schools, save for the
> University  of Chicago) in terms, e.g., of preparing students for the
> bar--we don't  teach lots of subjects that are covered on the bar--or
> preparing students  to practice law--most of our students will never have
> a constitutional law  case in their entire careers, though they are
> likely to have lots of cases  in subjects that we don't require, e.g.,
> family law.  So, if there is  a justification for requiring
> constitutional law, as I think there is, it  is to prepare them to be
> good citizens and civic leaders.  But it  should be obvious that
> preparation for that role does not require that our  students learn the
> latest three- and four-part tests or most other  contemporary doctrine.
> Not surprisingly, I argue that it does require an  historical overview of
> American constitutional development (which can be  taught, normatively,
> as a story either of decline or progress, or neutrally  as the way that
> the Constitution, for better or worse, has actually  developed over the
> past 220 years) and paying far more attention that we  now pay to what I
> have come to call the "hard-wired Constitution."   Indeed, not to put too
> fine a point on it, I think that the legal academy  is criminally
> negligent in failing to teach our students about what are in  fact the
> most important parts of the Constitution (which, of course, are  never
> litigated and most of which raise few questions of "interpretation"  the
> way legal academics define such questions).
>
> Obviously, I  would be delighted to read any responses, on- or off-line,
> to my arguments,  which are, just as obviously, meant to stir up a debate
> (and not only to  promote sales of my book and adoption of our casebook
> :)  )
>
> sandy
>
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> ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
>