Law, Language, and the Law School Classroom 15visions privilege some members of the American public over others.^11 At the same
time, when critics have attempted to specify how people differ from one another,
they have encountered difficult dilemmas that arise from attempting to generalize
using categories such as race and gender.^12 Often discussed under the rubric of
“essentialism,” these dilemmas emerge when we oversimplify based on a social label,
assuming, for example, that all women share a common worldview that is differ-
ent from that of all men, and forgetting that there is a great deal of variability among
women. To continue the example, the notion that there is a homogeneous “essen-
tial” woman whose view of life is completely different from that of men also risks
missing the large areas in which some women’s and men’s views overlap. As with
so many intellectual developments (nature versus nurture, economic versus moral
visions of human motivation), the choice when posed starkly seems a bit ridicu-
lous: surely we can do better than to argue either that gender (or race, or class)
makes no difference whatever, or that it is all-determining. Increasingly, research-
ers seeking to do justice to the complexities involved have sought models that take
account of differences without ignoring similarities and complicated variations.
The work of legal theorist Martha Fineman sets an important example for this, as
when she uses concepts such as “gendered lives” to capture the idea that people
can share orientations based on similar lived experiences rather than based on some
common and uniform “essence.”^13
The results of this study suggest that differences among people (notably by
race and gender) combine with differences across contexts (e.g., distinct kinds of
schools, classrooms, and teaching styles) to create a complex patterning. Thus, the
law school classroom is indeed a different place for students of varying backgrounds.
Following Fineman, I argue for a complicated and grounded approach to analysis
of this difference, one that looks carefully at varieties of shared experience and
context, taking into account similarities as well as differences among students and
professors.^14
Normative Implications
In presenting this work, I am often pressed for normative recommendations: Socratic
method teaching should be abolished or kept; U.S. law school training and legal
epistemology are good or bad, etc. Although I urge more careful contextual consid-
eration of the issues involved than could be encompassed by such yes-or-no ques-
tions, this study certainly points out deeply problematic areas, areas that legal training
and law itself need to address if our legal system is to live up to its central charge in
a democratic state. At the same time, I hope to present a nuanced picture, one in
which there are no simplistic answers, no obvious or overdrawn bad guys. This is
not because I wish to evade analysis of injustices or problems in the existing systems
(of law or of legal education). This study can be seen as contributing to a foundation
for precisely such an analysis. However, I share the commitment of many with my
training to the idea that it is through appreciation of the real complexity of social life
that we can come to a better understanding of the weaknesses and strengths of par-
ticular social settings or configurations. Erasing the ambiguities and ambivalences
only hinders genuine understanding and possibilities for change.