Improvement Of Case Method In The Undergraduate Education Of Law School

Case method was founded by Christopher Columbus Langdell,dean of Harvard Law School, in1870. As a fire-new teachingapproach, this method adopts case-based teaching materials andpresents students with knowledge and skills of laws throughSocratic discussion in the classroom. Both the teachers and thestudents must be interactive in this process, which bothimproves the students’ activity and also cultivates thestudents’ thinking ability and practical experience of laws.Case method was introduced into legal education in Chinain the late1980s, which has gone through two dozen years. Overthe20years of development and localization, case method hasplayed a very positive role in the legal education in China.But we also note that this teaching approach is still not themainstream in most law schools. Case method is stilloccasionally adopted as an experimental product, for there aremany reasons and difficulties requiring to be solved by Chinese legal personnel. According to the current status of relativesimple training mode in Chinese law schools and weak practicalabilities of students, the Ministry of Education and Committeeof Political and Legislative Affairs, CCCPC enacted the"Outstanding Legal Talents Education and Training Program" in2011aiming to train practical and compound legal professionals.The "Outstanding Legal Talents Program" highlights theimportant position of case method in legal education, whichdirectly brings case method back to the sight of educators andlays foundation for the extensive implementation of thisteaching approach in legal education in China.There is no doubt that case method has achievedconsiderable progress since being introduced into the legaleducation in China. This new philosophy of education,emphasizing on the training of practical abilities, is deeplyloved by the students. Its advantages are just able to overcomemany shortcomings in the Chinese traditional teachingapproaches. With the implementation of this teaching approach, its problems are exposed. Being started in common law countries,"case method" suffers certain climate sickness in China. Thereare many reasons, such as different position of precedent injuridical practice, different abilities of legal educationworkers, thinking inertia in educational philosophy, etc. Allof these contribute to a condition that this mainstreamteaching approach in law schools in UK and U.S. hardly obtainthe desired attention in China.This paper will analyze case method adopted in Chineseundergraduate legal education in three parts. The first partwill focus on the position, implementation status,achievements and shortcomings of case method in the legaleducation. To present the full view of case method in the legaleducation in China through collection and sorting of currentcase method information, and on this basis, the second part ofthis paper is led out, namely relevant experience and lessonsof foreign case method. Case method is originated from U.S.,therefore, the second part firstly introduces the generation, criticism and revolution of case method in U.S.To know how andknow why. Only through systematic analysis on case method inU.S. can the essence of this teaching approach be understoodand its complementary role in Chinese traditional teachingapproaches be realized. In addition, this paper also describesthe practical teaching situations in Germany and Taiwan.Germany and Taiwan belong to the civil law system, while theirachievements in practice teaching are also of greatsignificance and reference value for the reform of legaleducation in China. Both German example teaching method and thecommon law comparative teaching method of Taiwan SoochowUniversity are the exploration and experience of city lawcountries （regions） in changing the academic tendency of traditionalteaching approaches, which deserve our thinking and learningfrom. The last part will first to introduce the OutstandingLegal Talents Training Program which is the background of thecurrent vigorous promotion of case method in China. OutstandingLegal Talents Training Program emphasizes the importance of case teaching, which proposes new requirements for the legaleducation in China, especially for law teaching approaches.After clearing the strengthening direction of case teaching,this paper will presents its own thinking and recommendationsfor the improvement of undergraduate case method by combiningthe existing problems in the implementation process of casemethod and current legal education status as well as by makingreference to the case teaching experience in the U.S., Germanyand Taiwan.