University of Wisconsin Law School Professor Elizabeth E. Mertz was named one of two winners of the Herbert Jacob Prize for the best book of the year by the Law & Society Association at the association’s annual meeting in Montreal in May 2008.
Mertz's book, The Language of Law School: Learning to "Think Like a Lawyer," (Oxford University Press, 2007) has been featured prominently in the news because of its significant role as a key source of information for a report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which critiques legal education in the United States and Canada. Mertz is part of a continuing working group on the future of legal education convened by the Carnegie Foundation and Stanford University Law School.
Mertz's study, funded by the American Bar Foundation and the Spencer Foundation, is a unique empirical examination of the dynamics in first-year law school classrooms. It is based on actual transcripts of the first semester of Contracts classes in law schools from across the country. The Carnegie Foundation report, "Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law," uses Mertz's research to reexamine the merits of traditional "Socratic method" teaching in law schools, questioning whether this method is optimal in helping students to "think like a lawyer."
Mertz herself points to a "double edge" in traditional law school teaching methods: they teach some aspects of law well, but fail to convey other important parts of professional knowledge -- such as morality and ethics. Her study also scrutinizes the impact of law teaching on students of color and women, concluding that more can be done to achieve true integration in law school training.
The Law & Society Association concluded that "this distinguished work ... fulfills the high expectations of interdisciplinary scholarship that define this association."
Elizabeth Mertz, who holds both a J.D. and a doctorate in anthropology with a focus on language, is a Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation as well as a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
The Herbert Jacob Prize recognizes new, outstanding work in the field of law and society scholarship.
Submitted by on June 4, 2008
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