More than 40 years have passed since “The Paper Chase,” yet the novel and movie’s Professor Charles Kingsfield — the bow-tied academic who used the Socratic method to intimidate his Harvard Law School contracts class — remains the prevailing image of legal educators.
But a Kingsfield is the antithesis of a good law teacher, according to three law professors who spent four years identifying the nation’s best legal educators and what makes them effective. Kingsfield’s one saving grace was that he maintained high expectations for his students, said Michael Hunter Schwartz, dean of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law and co-author of “What the Best Law Teachers Do.” He and his fellow authors — professors Sophie Sparrow of the University of New Hampshire School of Law and Gerald Hess of Gonzaga University School of Law — hoped to provide a blueprint for better teaching.
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