> Second, the "Socratic" Method for teaching law is nothing like it is in philosophy; it's more of a weird combination of hide-the-ball and distraction that again ensures people who can see through the clouds are using out-of-band information, and share it only with those they seek to enlist

How so? In my view, the socratic method is one of the few useful parts of law school. Most people, even quite smart people, think in a fuzzy way. Their ideas can seem superficially compelling in written form, but often fall apart when you start questioning their assumptions and chain of logical reasoning.

The biggest problem is that most law schools don’t use socratic method, because it’s a lot of work for teachers. Just cold calling a student and asking them to explain what happened in a case isn’t socratic method.

So, I graduated from law school 20 years ago, and -- given even the internet THEN, like, pdfs over mail -- that law journal filing cabinet thing was actually already dying; I had more than enough past history of outlines and stuff.

That all being said, I would be entirely unsurprised if the "mythology" of "YES the journals have the secret fancy sauce that no one else can get" lived on.

Also -- and I don't necessarily want to denigrate law school professors, it's another thing that's just gone on so long that "this is how we do it" -- yes, the law School "Socratic method" (at worst) is an effective form of possible professor laziness; they can just "ask questions about the cases" and not really teach.

Related to how law school "textbooks" aren't textbooks. They're literally just a bunch of cases slapped together with a tiny bit of commentary (unless that's maybe changed too, I hope?)

Again, not all professors, you CAN still teach very well under this framework. -- but it is an out for those fancy people who's forte isn't teaching.