I remember the first time I heard of Pixar. It was long before they were purchased by the evil ones. It was the summer of 1990, and I was hanging out in Livermore, California, as the New Mexico representative to a Department of Energy Science Student Honors Program. Superkids, they called it, and it was a quality gig—we lived with a host family, Livermore scientists were generous with their time, we had ample coupons to eat at the Lab cafeteria, and we were left with plenty of time for truly important tasks like basketball and volleyball. In short, they did it just right, leaving good memories and mementos, including a photo of me leaning against a Cray-2.
One of our presenters was a rep from Pixar, who brought and shared their recent short films. (Remember, this was in prehistoric times when we dialed into ‘bulletin boards’ with 2400 baud modems, and there was no way we’d be able to realistically download a few minute film even were it somewhere available.) Tin Toy, the first CGI to win an Academy Award, led to the Toy Story franchise, meaning it did some genuine good in the world—“Great, now I have guilt!” And Knick Knack was clever. They don’t look like much by today’s standards, of course, but that’s what happens when we each carry around more computing power in our handheld phone than existed in that Cray-2. (My ‘Superkids’ project was a still-frame ray tracing of a trumpet, for god sakes… visualization was hard back then. And, of course, I did need to play a lot of basketball.)
So it is that I’ve long been a fan of Pixar shorts, the best of course being Boundin’, a runner up being Jack-Jack Attack, and a pretty good addition being Forky Asks a Question… only an addition for which I can’t point to YouTube because, yeah, the evil company did buy Pixar, and you have to subscribe to watch. (But I can tell you that What is a Friend is the best of the series.)
“I don’t know,” Forky likes to say… and when it comes to the important questions of law, that’s us professors too. The story of Socratic ignorance is a wonderful parable, and the day any of us forgets that wisdom of Forky/Socrates should be the day we hang up the teaching hat. On the other hand, there is a lot that we do know. I mean, I’ve been doing this for nearly 25 years, so I certainly hope I’ve picked up a thing or three during that time. Thus, the goal of quality legal education is to teach the legal mumbo-jumbo we do know (e.g., substantive and procedural law) effectively, using the best cognitive science and its correlative pedagogies, but also leveraging the Forky-“I don’t know”-Socratic method to shepherd each student along her own journey for truth when it comes to the questions that actually matter.
So, caring quite a lot about this stuff, and ever trying to improve on my own ‘workbook-style’ casebooks in Criminal Law, Policing, and Adjudication, which will soon each have an accompanying Solutions Manual, I decided to write up my thoughts on the Socratic method, on the history of American legal education, and on textbooks and teaching.
Teaching Law is the result, forthcoming in fall 2026 in the newly reunified Penn State Dickinson Law Review. The abstract is thus:
American legal education has a rich history and a wonderfully Socratic tradition. But after plying this gig for decades, I cannot help but wonder if we too often play the wrong Socratic part. When it comes to teaching what we professors know—the legal rules of our trade—we too often seem unskillful, turning not to cognitive science and correlative pedagogy but to some sort of traditional mysticism. Yet when it comes to teaching the ‘big questions’ for which Socratic ignorance is paramount, we unskillfully claim to know. It seems we might be playing rather the worst posture in the Socratic parable, that of mediocre craftspeople who claim wisdom. In this Article, I explain and interrogate my own two-decades-plus attempt at teaching law, looking to history, pedagogy, and science to situate and explain my ‘workbook style’ casebooks. While I am certain they can be improved upon—and put them forward here for such deserved critique—I believe them better than what has come before. So, both standing on the shoulders of giants and looking forward to being led by them again, I make my contribution.
And here’s the Table of Contents:
Introduction
I. Socrates and the Oracle
II. American Legal Education
III. Cognitive Science and Pedagogy
A. Retrieval Practice
B. Scaffolding
C. Desirable Difficulty
D. Spaced Practice
E. Interleaving
F. Cognitive-Processing Language and Metacognition
G. Preferred Learning Mode and Technology
IV. Teaching with ‘Workbook Style’ Casebooks
V. Whose Job Is Learning, Anyway?
Conclusion
Feedback is welcome!
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