Developmental Learning Theory in the First Year: From Regression to Progression

The traditional first-year curriculum in American law schools takes incoming law students as novice or dualistic thinkers, in the nomenclature of developmental learning theorists. Thus the traditional first-year curriculum emphasizes the determinate nature of law and practice, and the role of authority in the law, just to name two features. But while our incoming students may, in fact, be novices in the law, they are increasingly sophisticated thinkers in other areas of their lives and in their moral reasoning abilities. They can deal with indeterminacy, and they can be agents of development (not merely recipients of knowledge), outside the law. Moreover, they can apply these capabilities to their legal studies. In treating first-year students as novices, the traditional legal curriculum neglects these capabilities. Worse, it regresses first-year students as thinkers and as moral reasoners on conventional developmental continua. In contrast to the traditional curriculum, actual legal work in the first year - where students take responsibility for actual legal work, with all its attendant indeterminacies - builds upon the capabilities that our students bring to law school and thus promotes their intellectual development, their ethical reasoning skills, and their development as professionals.