Law school is a funny place. Often law students will hear that the experience teaches one to "think differently" or, barely less vague, "think like a lawyer." To a certain extent, that really means a certain way of putting information together to reach conclusions. For the non-lawyers out there, you have to figure out the rule of processing certain like situations, then apply the rule--derived from miscellaneous other situations--to a completely new fact pattern. It doesn't sound bad, but most people are not accustomed to that way of dealing with information.
My biggest problem is not that. In fact, my mind worked more or less that way even before I began law school, so it hasn't been a wrenching experience for me, as it is for a lot of people. My biggest weakness is far different, and it is generally only revealed in practical classes. My problem is that I tend to fill in the gaps with my own assumptions. If someone gives me an outline of a fact pattern, I have a tendency to fill in the details with what I assume to be reasonable based on my own experiences. Many times I'm not even aware I'm doing this.
Needless to say, this creates problems, mainly because if my opponent notices that I sort of left the details out, she can fill those in with her own theory. I'm good at the broad concepts, but not the details. It's a matter of being precise. Law school has helped quite a bit, and I am much better at this than I ever have been. But it's still not where I'd like to be.
I suppose that's a change I'd like to see in legal education, and I don't see it stressed enough. It comes out more in the 'practical' classes. I think it will help that the new ABA standards require that students (starting with the class of 2008) have minimum practical hours. Still, it's something I need to work on. I just feel glad to recognize it because I know I'm not the only person who has this problem, and only those of us who realize we're doing it can really address it.
