What Exactly is Teaching Law in the Grand Manner?

By Dean Pacifico Agabin

Holmes: If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only
for the materials consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict.
o the study of law is still to a larger extent a study of historyviewed from the lens of economics
and statistics.
o Holmes was rebelling at the study of law in Harvard which, at the time, was a study of law in the
books.
George Malcolm founded the College for the purpose of preparing young Filipinos to hold public office
in anticipation of independence.
o He taught law in the grand manner. Students should not alone be tutored in abstract law
dogmas but also be inculcated with the principles of democracy.
o He followed the pedagogical truth that a sense of purpose facilitates the learning process.
o When Malcolm looked back on the record of American colonialism, he thought of it as a
success and attributed the policy of independence to how Filipino leaders were educated in the
ways of democracy. However, it means Americans and Filipinos clung to the illusion that they
share a common public philosophy, democracy, when they are actually dramatically dissimilar.

The Case Method

Before American colonization, legal education was the monopoly of private schools, which was stuck to
the civil law system using the textbook method.
Before the case method in the US, study of law was undertaken by a priestly class of scholars who
derived the tradition from medieval monks. These monks saw law as a ritualistic and mystical exercise
by memorizing provisions and emphasizing relationship between law and religion.
On the other hand, case method considered law as a science consisting of principles and doctrines. Its
growth is to be traced through the cases. The way of mastering a doctrine effectively is by studying the
cases in which it is embodied.
o Doctrinal analysis of cases by analyzing and even critiquing the principles in cases. It is latched
on to the scientific method.
o Socratic dialogue: professor leads the student to elicit the principle from each case by asking
the facts, position of litigants, the issues, the ruling and the reasoning.
Langdell thought that a law school should become part of a university and not as a separate institution.
o Every student who would obtain any master of the law must resort to the ultimate sources
teachers who have travelled the same road before him. A university can afford every possible
facility for teaching and learning law.
o His reasoning has very little to do with the role of law in the social sciences. It has not located
law in the company of the emerging empirical social sciences. He saw it as self-contained.

The Case Method in his madness

When Marcos was in UP Law, they were so strict and unyielding. He memorized all codal provisions
including commas. Professors would ask things that were not in the texts so students were compelled to
research. No fewer than 50 cases were assigned each day.
 From this anecdote, Brillantes carped at the case method, which he saw as devoted to memorization.
Law schools place great emphasis on the inductive method, which has little to do with the universal.
They have little inclination to delve into other fields. It breeds practitioners who find it profitable to
uphold the law as the last refuge of scoundrels. In this thought, Brillantes was mistaken.
Case method merely insists that theory should be founded on fact.
After Martial Law, people question how the academic tradition of excelling in the College could have
twisted the mind of Marcos.
o Its possible that this tradition may go against the grain of democratic government. Such
tradition creates professional elite who perpetuate the power of the ruling class.
o Law in the grand manner develops the mode of thinking, encourages skepticism about the laws
and develops skills for problem solving.
Not accurate to blame the grand manner of teaching for Marcos abandonment of moral principles. The
College also bred radical students who later launched their own version of revolution. The grand manner
opened the mind of Marcos to the use of law as social control.
o He was a keen student of history. He knew our laws was incongruous with our culture.
o He was acute enough to revolt against the prevailing ideas of constitutionalism and morality.
He cloaked obsession with power with the mantle of reforming society.
o Unfortunately, he was derailed by the absolute power. This is the consequence of the tunnel
vision of law developed by the case method if taught without relating it to the social sciences
(historical, social, and economic perspectives that form the source of law).

Law as a Liberal Art

Holmes pointed out that the way to a liberal view of the subject is to get to the bottom of the subject.
He is a founding member of the realist or positivist school. Members of this school realized that reason
is not a reliable guide to moral understanding. The isolated case methods fail to take to account the
factors for the evolution of legal principles. They viewed law as a process of legal observation,
comparison, and criticism.
In the Philippines, case method had a very tenuous hold, except in UP, because of the incompatibility of
the approach with the civilian system and the lack of materials.
The College should break away from its stated goal of producing elite professionals catering to the needs
of the business establishment. Our laws were imported wholesale by the colonial powers in an attempt
to create our country into their image.
o An urgent need to approach law as a social science in view of our colonial past. We should
examine the roots of legal culture and see if it accords with the spirit of the people.

Using the tools of Social Sciences in teaching

Only the methodology of social science can validate our social and political assumptions. Through
empirical research, we pierce the veil of traditional legal rules to see if the implementation of laws lead
to substantial justice. It will also emphasize the role of law in social order.
Seven central problems which circumscribe the main subject matter of the study of law in relation to the
social sciences: the relation between law and social type; the functions of law in society; the modes of
operation of law; the creation, development and evolution of law; law, culture, and the main social
institutions; law and social change; law and law personnel.
Marriage of law and the social sciences is easy to make but difficult to consummate.
 o Law faculty will have to acquaint themselves with the tools of the related social sciences.
o Law school must go into outreach and extension services.
Most popular example of the use of social science data is Brown v Board of Education.
o Issue: Does the segregation of public school children solely on the basis of race deprive them
of equal educational opportunities?
o US Supreme Court resorted to psychological data and found that there are psychological
harms to the black schoolchildren in a segregated environment.
Always better to test the underlying assumptions of the laws with the standards of the empirical
sciences.

Empiricism and Social Values in Law

Teaching in the grand manner does not mean completely teaching law using social science methods.
Morals are the source of the law. It cannot be limited by the methodology of value-free empiricism in
social sciences.
In the clinical method, students apply scientific method to aid in solving legal controversies and gives
students proper understanding of the law in the light of social realities.
Studies of social scientists show that society based on the principle of legal equality, the bulk of the
people actually live under a regime of practical inequality.
Because legal training is steeped in tradition of conservatism, the atmosphere of testing in the social
sciences can be an inspiration for question in law that will lead to legal reform.
It is not only the methodology of the social sciences that are useful but also the concepts such as
political science in terms of power or the economic interpretation of the law.

The Stumbling Block to the Teaching in the Grand Manner

Main obstacle of introduction of social science courses in the law curriculum is the bar exam. The
doctrinal classification of subjects (civil law, political law, criminal law, etc.) shows that law is seen as a
set of rules independent of social environment.

Conclusion
By giving more training to law students in the methods and concepts of the social sciences, UP law
students will get to see law as a means to achieve justice in a country where quality of justice that a man
get depends on the quantity of his property. There is a need to give meaning to the concept of equality.
Teaching law in the grand manner abide by the following guidelines:
o Must be integrated with the social sciences
o Training in the Law Complex must be training in the public interest
o Train lawyers who are not only superior craftsmen but also socially conscious leaders promoting
public interest
o Develop basic working skills such as analytical skills, communication skills, negotiating skills, as
well as awareness of institutional and non-legal environment
o Legal education must be woven around a sense of purpose as it eases the path of learning