During a speech at the 40th Anniversary dinner for the University of New Hampshire School of Law, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that today’s legal education is a ‘failure,’ according to a report from Seacoast Online.
“I hope most of what I said has no application to this wonderful law school, and if it does I’m sure it will remedied in the near future,” Scalia said.
Scalia was appointed to the Supreme Court back in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. During his speech he noted that today’s legal education is not as rigorous as it once was and it consists of too many electives that have little to do with law.
“We now have classes in the law and … the law and literature, the law and feminism, the law and poverty, the law and economics,” Scalia said.“The teaching of law has failed,” because too many electives permit students to skip “the austere pleasures of doctrinal courses.”
Scalia also offered criticism for the academic trends that help professors become “prominent not because of how they teach but how they publish.”
The dinner was held at the Wentworth by The Sea hotel and it confirmed that a merger is taking place between the University of New Hampshire and the former Franklin Pierce Law Center.
