68 Similarity
that might easily escape the eye of an average lay reader attempting to tell the story
of a conflict between people:
Transcript 4.4 [3/3/7]^57Prof.: Wait, wait, was there a contract for a delivery of wheat? No, for sale of
wheat, right? A contract for the sale of wheat?
Student: Right.
Prof.: Okay, and so what was the price of wheat?
Student: Well, the delivery to- (price at the) time of delivery (.)
Prof.: When was the time of delivery?
Student: Specifically? Ah (.03 pause)Similarly, in the next example, a professor stops the student’s recitation of facts to
probe his understanding of what might appear to be a small detail—one which a
nonlegal reader could skip over with impunity.
Transcript 4.5 [5/34/4]Prof.: Now, tell me about this mortgage that the defendant held on the
plaintiff’s land. What kind of a mortgage was it? In a minute we’ll try to
figure out what the mortgage is.
Mr. K.: Um (.07 pause) What do you mean what kind of mortgage?
Prof.: What does it tell us in the case? What is it called?
Mr. K.: Um (.14 pause) Well, it said that uh (.) it was a third mortgage ().
Prof.: What does that mean?
Mr. K.: I have no idea.
Prof.: Third mortgage. That means there must have been three mortgages,
right?
Mr. K.: Right.
Prof.: What’s a first mortgage and what’s a second mortgage; what’s a third
mortgage? You’re lucky, Mr. K., you haven’t yet had to have first, second,
and third mortgages. [[laughter]] You haven’t yet had to face the
problem. Someday you may. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll become a
high-priced lawyer and this will never bother you. But there are folks out
there dealing with third mortgages. (You) probably will never see a third
mortgage, but this person strangely enough did. What’s a third mortgage?
Let’s- uh, let’s ask around a little bit.Note that here, as in many of the classes, the professor uses humor to soften the
effects of this detailed questioning. Thus, although the exchange in many ways
mirrors that with which we opened this chapter, taken from Scott Turow’s vivid
(and horrific) account of Socratic teaching at Harvard Law School, the overall tone
here is somewhat different. There is a similar attention to detail. There is also a
parallel, quite strong suggestion to be gleaned from this line of questioning: that a
good legal reading of facts might entail some background investigation of perti-
nent legally relevant features. It is not good enough to simply gloss over or guess at