| At the end of the 19 th century, Case Method established by Langdell’s legal education reform in Harvard Law School, can be described as the main features of American legal education. And this method plays a pivotal role in American legal education.Case Method is a teaching method which is widely used in American law school. It takes the judicial judgements of Appeal Courts as the main target of education, and forms it’s own logical system. By means of the Socratic Method, teachers inspire students to think independently, form their own understanding of the concept and basic principle of law.This paper is divided into five parts. In order to display the complete development of Case Method, it arised from the historical background, teaching form and spiritual essence details.It also included the analysis of the gradual decline of Case method and reasons of its’ failure besides the United States.The first part is a brief introduction to the American law education before the reform of Harvad legal education in 1870. After the war of independence, the United States inherited the common law, the lawyer training mode also followed the traditional apprenticeship of England, but the extent of the legal profession was generally low, and developed slowly. Therefore, it was also known as a "law without lawyers" era.1870s and 1880 s, the debate on the pros and cons of apprenticeship was fiercely. Lacking of legal books, as well as the prominent contradictions of the identity between lawyers and teachers,all these factors made apprenticeship unable to adapt to the environment of American legal education. The voice of calling for reform was strong.The second chapter elaborated the "birth" background of Case Method, and its’ development. In 1869, Langdell was appointed the dean of Harvard Law School. He carried out a vigorous reform movement. After this reform, Harvard law school not only became the nation’s most prestigious law school, and also established a legal professional training standard. Namely, Case method was the core of legal education paradigm.To gain the substance of common law, teachers guided students to form legal thinking mode by analyzing a large number of effective judgements, and summarized the principles of jurisprudence implied. Generally speaking, Case Method was not Langdell’s creation,and he was not the first person to use this method in the classroom. But the real innovation which Langdell creatived was that he made Case Method as a teaching method and led the students to "seek the Fountains".Practicality is the strongest voice of United States in 1900 s, Case Method catered to the needs of the times, and many law schools accepted this method qucikly. By the end of the 19 th century, Case Method(studying classical cases) and Socratic Method(questioning students’ understanding of case reasoning) became the main method of American legal education.In the third chapter,I used the comparative method to explore the deep roots of difference between Britain’s Formalism and American’s Pragmatism,from the two countries’ historical tradition,political culture and public psychological level.Although Langdell’s Case Method was affected by Positivism,and had a tendency of Formalism,in essence it was still typical American pragmatism.3 The forth part, it was a sharp turning point in the development of Case Method, because of its inherent defects and external Formalism, Case Method was criticized by Legal Realism Movement.After the legal education reform of Harvard Law School in 1870, Langdell model dominated the American law schools, but it also buried a hidden danger. By virtue of its limited legal principle and logical reasoning to guide legal practice, Case Method sacrificed the reality diversity to obtain a unified theory, and it resulted in understanding the law simply and mechanically, keeping away from the goal of legal education. In addition, in Langdell’s opinion, law was just a collection of legal provisions, rules and principles. And school had no obligations to teach any legal professional skills. This paranoid view led Case Method got a notorious reputation of legal Formalism.1930s, Legal Realism gradually replaced Sociological Jurisprudence, and become the mainstream thought of Legal Philosophy in the United States, which was in contrast with Legal Formalism.Realist Jurists combined legal courses with the lawyers’ practice, and integrated law with Social Sciences. By function analysing, Legal Realism made legal education more feasible, and put forward the Legal Clinical Education to remedy the defects of Case Method.Today the American mainstream teaching mode has obviously different from Langdell period. Besides Case Method, each law school have opened "Legal Clinic courses", "Subject Teaching ", "Classroom Discussion", "Legal Writing courses", "Moot court", etc., such practical courses as supplements.American Law schools tend to use Case Method to teach junior students, in order to make the transition of senior students more easier.The fifth chapter discussed the extraterritorial effect of Case Method. Case Method is an important achievement of Harvard legal edcation reform, and influenced every country’s choice to choose the law education mode in the world. But in the process of transplantating this method, it is necessary to observe whether Case Method meets the needs of the actual needs of your society.In order to verify the universality of the Case Method, I chose the typical countries and regions from the continental law system and Anglo American law system. And finally come to the conclusion, Case Method does not catch all countries’ diverse demands, so the legal education method could not come to the top besides United States. In addition, with the emergence of other alternative methods of, the impact of Case Method declined gradually.American law schools pay more attention to the professional skill training, and target at cultivating legal professionals. By this legal education mode, which includes Case Method, Legal Clinic, Professional skills training courses, etc., United States became the developed contry with the largest number of legal professionals. |
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