122 Similarity
Students do struggle with this shift, and occasionally vocalize their discom-
fort, as with one student, who finally protested, “Is all we do as lawyers think of
ways to get out of contracts we’ve made?” (2/6/146). This exchange highlights the
marginalization of both emotion and unmediated concerns about ethics and mo-
rality. The student leads into this ethics question with a statement of emotion:
Transcript 6.20 [2/6/16–18]Student: Thank God you brought that up! [... ] Does anyone else feel angry?
[[laughter]] I mean, I’m just furious. I mean, I’m the only one in the
room?
Prof.: I missed something, I missed something, I don’t- why are you angry? ()
You’re angry at me?
Student: I’m- [[laughter]] I’m angry at the whole class. [... ] all we can do is try
and think of ways to worm out of [the contract we just made]? Is that
what we’re trying to do as lawyers?The professor’s somewhat startled response here signals the perceived incongruity
of this level of emotional response to the issue. In subsequent turns, the professor
first invites discussion of the issue, leading into a hypothetical involving the con-
cept of efficient breach, which generates some role-play and joking. He then broad-
ens the discursive frame (although setting clear limits in terms of time) by asking
a practicing lawyer in the class to comment and subsequently opening up the floor
with the comment, “We’re going to have a few minutes on this issue” [of lawyer
ethics]. In the ensuing discussion, a practicing lawyer gives a view from the trenches,
stating that he generally just goes along with the system (the implication being that
this is in fact realistically how the system runs). Another student says that she is
worried about the emotional student, characterizing him as being “innocent.” At
the end of the exchange, the professor suggests taking a class vote on the issue, but
backs off when a student asks whether it would be appropriate to do so in such an
emotionally charged atmosphere. The professor closes off discussion with the fol-
lowing comment: “About (.) quite frankly, I mean I have my own views on issues
like this which at some point I’ll express. But as a general matter on issues like this,
in terms of our Contracts class, we’ll find it mainly pretty agnostic the way I see
this; I don’t know what the ultimate views are and what you all do in the world.”
In conclusion, he notes that he sees his job as training the students to be “masters,
black belts of contract argumentation” (2/6/30). By the close of this exchange, the
emotion with which it began has been capped off, although backchannel rumblings
in the class indicated that a number of students were not satisfied with the out-
come. The professor has modeled for the student a split between the selves with
which he approaches these problems: there is the personal opinion, which he holds
in abeyance and over which he exercises control, and there is the professional re-
sponse, which is “agnostic” and whose primary goal is honing the students’ dis-
cursive power (quite literally; note the “black belt” metaphor). This approach is
somewhat reminiscent of the way a medical student might be taught to hold emo-
tional responses in abeyance while treating a badly injured patient, and then to deal
with personal responses later, putting them away while exercising professional