Abstract
This Article argues that modern legal educators should revisit Quintilian, the quintessential law professor, by intentionally implementing his recommended pedagogical strategies in the law school classroom and curriculum. In recent decades, while the literature of law school teaching and learning has been casting about to find new paradigms for legal education in the face of widespread critique of impracticality and ineffectiveness, examination of the philosophies of the great Roman rhetors, and in particular, Quintilian and his principal work Institutio Oratoria, has largely been limited to jurisprudential and rhetorical study. However, a perch in the best practices of law school teaching and learning is Quintilian’s natural home. “Indeed, if we were to design the perfect course for training students to think and act like lawyers, it would be classical rhetoric, particularly from the Roman era.” 2 And, among Roman philosophers, the most natural marriage of legal practice and training is to be found in Quintilian.
Recommended Citation
Kirsten A. Dauphinais,
Quintilian’s Curriculum,
20
Nev. L.J.
917
(2020).
Available at:
https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/nlj/vol20/iss3/5