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The Socratic Method
Legal education is about creating legal thinkers not just legal technicians. Legal education operates by taking qualified students and immersing them in a culture of legal discourse that develops in them the ability "to think like a lawyer". To accomplish this result, many law schools employ the Socratic Method of teaching as a primary tool especially in the first year curriculum.
Although much of legal practice requires mastering technique, procedure and use of authority, as displayed in the IRAC Method, law schools want to produce graduates who can handle the law intellectually, devise legal strategies, counsel clients, draft legislation, and make meaningful contributions in every facet of the social community into which the law reaches. The Socratic Method is an interactive model of instruction that turns learning into a cooperative search for solutions to legal problems and issues. You may be used to the lecture format of your college career, but with the participatory Socratic Method, students help each other learn critical analysis of legal problems, evaluation of one's own arguments and those of others, persuasive communication and insightful reasoning by analogy.
The instructor may start by having one student describe an assigned case. From that platform, the instructor begins a series of questions about the case directed to the same or other randomly selected students. Responses to questions often lead to other questions or to rebuttal responses from other students. Students become involved in articulating, critiquing and/or defending various perspectives and ideas. The questioning process is the crucial underpinning of the Socratic Method. It encourages students to actively engage in analysis of the case, to independently critique positions and arguments proffered by others, as well as reassess their own ideas as new approaches are developed through the discussion.
The process of honing reasoning skills and acquiring the confidence to convincingly present ideas is often more important than deriving a "right" answer. Think of the Socratic Method as similar to solving a math problem in grade school. You could often get credit if you showed how you would go about solving the problem even if you didn't get the right answer. Or think of it like the process of brain-storming in which you need the synthesis of everyone's participation and input to arrive at a solution or path forward.
Take advantage of the Socratic Method. Take the initiative. Don't be afraid to contribute or make mistakes. Prepare for class and participate actively even when you are just listening to the responses of others. Your Study Group can be very helpful in this regard. Go for that "Eureka" moment in which you begin to discover insights and deeper understandings of the law on your own. The collaborative effort of exploring legal issues through the Socratic Method can help you confront and define legal issues and problems and learn to develop and produce solutions that can become the building blocks of your future legal career.