Many students entering law school are surprised to find that the debating activities there (moot court, mock trial work, and trial advocacy courses) bear little resemblance to the debating they did at the undergraduate level. Those who teach, whether speech communication or prelaw, have an obligation to communicate to students the differences…

The teacher of a law-school course in Legal Imagination discusses the evolution of his personal approach in the classroom, which is designed to discern the gifts of each student rather than to simply identify the gifted. Three crucial elements are explored: use and treatment of writing assignments; the use of silence in the classroom environment;…