Law Classes Are Too Boring and It’s Ruining Our Ability to Feel Empathy

art by: In-House Clownsel

By Sandra D(eez Nutz) O'Connor

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the 1L curriculum is bizarrely manipulative. I once saw it described as an alternating pattern of “cold” and “hot” case readings. The “cold” cases are technical, faceless, and dull. The “hot” cases, on the other hand, are dramatic stories of love and loss, brimming with intrigue. You’ll find more of these in Torts or Criminal Law. Mesh all of these classes into one course load, and you’re left with a workload that’s specifically designed to detach case readings from reality. We sludge through pages upon pages of tedium, struggling to stay focused, then switch to a case that reads like a soap opera. A mesothelioma case seems a thousand times more interesting when you’re starved for engagement, and as we take a break from the tedium of depositions, we forget that what seems to be an abstract example is a real event that involved some of the worst moments in a person’s life. We start to appreciate the hot cases for what they can do to help us get through our course load, and not for the real human suffering they represent. The parties stop being people and start being characters. This is not the fault of the student. It’s social conditioning.

I’m sure when most people start doing real client work on these kinds of hot cases, as many students do when they participate in clinics, pro-bono or legal aid, that illusion is dispelled (or at least it seems to be). However, that’s not true for everyone, and I’m sure there’s a lot of people who go straight into a transactional, corporate or administrative position without having ever seen the human face of the people whose lives their work will affect (and possibly ruin). That’s a big fucking problem.