I think perhaps the reason one would say that legal education is better is that it is understood from the first day that many of the problems that will be posed actually have no answer (“What is justice?” “How can we balance the interests in this scenario?” “What would the reasonable [sic] person do given this dilemma?”) and that what is important is the quality of the reasoning you use to come to your answer, not the outcome.
When a well-argued, incorrect answer is scored more highly than a correct answer with no justification, the get-the-gold-star incentive is removed and it improves quality of thought on the matter.
Maybe this person meant something entirely different; I can’t claim to speak on their behalf.
It would be no surprise if legal training turns out clever arguers, but there’s a big difference between arguing persuasively and getting the right answer. Training in questions where there is no single right answer may improve students’ rhetoric, but I think it’s likely to leave them underprepared when they have to weigh in on questions where there is a single right answer, and no amount of argument will make any other answer acceptable.
I think perhaps the reason one would say that legal education is better is that it is understood from the first day that many of the problems that will be posed actually have no answer (“What is justice?” “How can we balance the interests in this scenario?” “What would the reasonable [sic] person do given this dilemma?”) and that what is important is the quality of the reasoning you use to come to your answer, not the outcome.
When a well-argued, incorrect answer is scored more highly than a correct answer with no justification, the get-the-gold-star incentive is removed and it improves quality of thought on the matter.
Maybe this person meant something entirely different; I can’t claim to speak on their behalf.
It would be no surprise if legal training turns out clever arguers, but there’s a big difference between arguing persuasively and getting the right answer. Training in questions where there is no single right answer may improve students’ rhetoric, but I think it’s likely to leave them underprepared when they have to weigh in on questions where there is a single right answer, and no amount of argument will make any other answer acceptable.