7HAT IS THE FUNCTION of a

WHAT

state-supported law school? One is tempted to answer this question summarily by saying, "To make good lawyers." But no law school can possibly do that. It is only the Creator that can make lawyers. The intellectual ability, the temperament, and the personality necessary to real success at the bar are God-given. The man who has the lawyer's qualifications in a pre-eminent degree will achieve distinction at the bar, though he comes from an inferior law school, or from none at all; and, on the other hand, the training given by the best law school in the land cannot fit for success at the bar a man who is intellectually and temperamentally unsuited to the profession. The best that can be expected of the law school is that it shall train those naturally fitted for the legal profession for a broader, more efficient, service to the state, for an earlier and

*Based upon an address delivered before the Minnesota State Bar Association.

more complete success as counsellors and barristers.

RELATION OF THE LAW SCHOOL TO THE STATE

In considering the function of the state-supported law school, this fundamental principle must never be lost sight of; that is, that a law school maintained by the state is to be conducted in the interest of the people of the state as a whole, and not merely for the benefit of the lawyers as a class, or for the benefit of those young men who seek admission to the bar as a means of gaining a livelihood. It is quite true that the welfare of society is promoted by enabling every member of it to earn a living by engaging in that employment best suited to his tastes and talents. But this is not the primary motive of the public maintenance of professional schools.

The people of the state desire that the most sanitary conditions that modern science can establish shall prevail, so as to

conserve human life and health; hence they provide in the State University the best possible training for the young physicians. They know that the welfare and wealth of the state are directly dependent upon success in winning ample foodstuffs and raw material from the soil; hence they provide the best known scientific training for the farmers of the state. In like manner the people have slowly come to understand that the welfare of society demands that their laws shall be wisely and justly made and fairly and honestly administered; hence they seek to provide for the proper training of the men who are to be the lawyers of the future.

In considering the problems of legal education, it is important always to keep in mind this fundamental principle just stated. We are too apt to draw general conclusions from particular instances. For instance, in fixing requirements for entrance to law schools or for admission to the bar, we are disposed to keep in mind such rare geniuses as Patrick Henry and Abraham Lincoln, or their lesser analogues at some local bar, who have achieved honor and fame at the bar without preliminary education, and forget entirely the thousands of shysters, ambulance chasers, and other unworthy members of the profession, whose misdeeds are doing more than all other agencies combined to bring the profession into public contempt and to destroy that respect for the law which is absolutely essential to the success and happiness of any organized society.

Still another very admirable characteristic of the legal profession works toward the same unfortunate result. Despite the sharp conflicts at the bar, ours is a kindly profession. The older members of the bar are always ready to lend a helping hand to a younger brother, and

particularly do they look with sympathy upon the competent young man who is struggling against adverse conditions to secure admission to the bar. Hence, again having the particular individual only in mind, they oppose the raising of requirements for admission to the bar or to the law school, not realizing that the same rules that let in the one admirable and exceptional man will also introduce into the ranks of the profession hundreds of ill-qualified persons, who can make a living only by trickery and preying upon the public.

The avenue of approach to the profession should be kept open to all, but the bars that test the candidate's ability to travel the hard and rough road ahead should not be lowered. No young man who has in him the stuff that lawyers are made of is going to be permanently barred from the profession by any reasonable admission requirements. And we must not forget that it is no real kindness to a young man to send him to the bar if he is not qualified to make in the law the honest living that he might easily make in some other calling. It may also be a very real injury to society, for many a young lawyer who is unable to earn a living legitimately has been driven to trickery and crime by sheer want. It is estimated that quite forty per cent. of the hordes of men in New York City who hold themselves out to practice law are without sufficient legitimate business to afford a living income. Some of them starve, others steal, and only a few go to Sing Sing.

The physicians, the dentists, and even the horse doctors have put their requirements for admission far above ours. Those young men of the sort who follow the line of least resistance, who are looking for an easy way to make a livingthe very kind we don't want in the pro

fession-finding that a lawyer is required to know less than a physician, a dentist, or a horse doctor, will flock into the law.

TEACHING PRACTICE

Leaving these more general aspects of the subject, let us consider for a moment the immediate and obvious function of the law school to prepare men technically for the practice of the law. Twentyfive years ago it was not difficult to find lawyers of standing and ability who held the law schools in ill-concealed contempt, so thoroughly were they convinced that the law office was the only place for the education of the young lawyer. But this debate was finally settled years ago in favor of the law school, and now we are in a position to consider constructively the limitations of the law school. Lawyers engaged in active practice are often shocked and pained by the ignorance of law school graduates upon the simplest points of practice, and many amusing stories are told of the blunders made by them. On the other hand, young men who have gone to the bar through law offices and have been admitted to advanced standing in the law school, not infrequently surprise and grieve the teacher of law by their colossal ignorance of the simplest principles of substantive law.

At the present time I think there is no man connected with a law school, who is fair-minded and reasonably intelligent, who will not admit that the training of the law school is weak on the practice side.

The law school may teach with great profit the theory of evidence and pleading, but it can do little in teaching the art of examining and cross-examining witnesses, or of drawing pleadings adequately and precisely. It can teach the nature and use of the demurrer and

other dilatory proceedings, but it cannot with any degree of success supply that good judgment in the use of them which. a good lawyer acquires through practice, and a poor lawyer never acquires at all. In short, we are now prepared to say that, while the law school can teach the substantive law better than the law office, the right kind of law office can teach practice far better than the law school.

Reasoning from this accepted fact, one of the greatest of American law schools has concluded that sound economy requires the law school to confine its work to substantive law and leave the practice to the law offices. There is much in this contention; for we all know that the student can give all of the three years embraced in his law school course to the substantive law, and yet know relatively little about it. Perhaps the course of the school referred to may be justified, in view of the fact that a large proportion of its graduates readily find positions in good law offices. But in the Western states, where many of the law graduates are so circumstanced that they must begin practice on their own account, the situation is different, and it is necessary for us to use our best endeavors to teach practice efficiently.

In the University of Minnesota Law School we are earnestly trying to fit our graduates for the actual practice of the law. It is unreasonable to expect them to be finished lawyers when they leave the law school. How many men are finished lawyers after five years at the bar, or even ten? But we are trying to train them so they can institute and prosecute to a final conclusion any ordinary court proceeding with reasonable safety to the cause intrusted to them. All of our procedural courses are taught by men who now are, or recently have been, in active