Riddle me this: What is the single hardest concept to teach a law student, a new lawyer, or even a seasoned veteran? Cross-examination? The Rule Against Perpetuities? How to think like a practicing lawyer, not a tenured professor? No. Here's the answer: teaching the mindset brave enough to question authority and adept enough to do so effectively. To that end, here are five suggestions.

The Socratic Method as Socrates Intended

Whether at a law school or at a firm, a cultural icon that has inflicted incalculable damage on teaching a questioning authority mindset—and continues to do so—is the movie, "The Paper Chase." Recall the establishing shot with Mr. Hart, the student, who is unprepared for class; Professor Kingsfield mocks him; a so-called Socratic dialogue ensues. Professor Kingsfield explains that through this teaching method, he will be "probing" their minds and transforming their "skulls (now) full of mush" into a skull full of legal acumen. But Socrates, in the Apology, envisioned the method as being a two-way dialogue, not a one-way interrogation, with a teacher questioning a student, and a student, in turn, questioning the teacher. Questioning the teacher not merely on holdings and legal conclusions but also, crucially, on the validity and viability of those holdings and conclusions. As Joshua Krook perceptively writes, legal education fails all of us "(by focusing) solely on the reasoning of judges; students learn that a decision is always justified by reference to another decision. Never is the 'end point' or the original conception of (the legal principle), in terms of its derivation from politics, society, morality, (or) social values allowed to be questioned." A self-referential and closed-off loop.