Another Attempt At Exorcising Langdell's Tenacious Ghost

My latest attempt at exorcising C.C. Langdell's tenacious ghost is now in print: "Langdell & the Eclipse of Character." I've been trying to dispel this specter for years. https://lawreview.law.pitt.edu/ojs/lawreview/article/view/1001/643

Excerpt from Conclusion: "I will not conclude by calling Langdell a confidence man. I will, however, conclude with a few words from Melville’s THE CONFIDENCE MAN. As Melville reminds us: the false cannot plausibly overclaim perfection. For example, ‘[T]he best false teeth are those made with at least two or three blemishes, the more to look like life.’ A legal formalism which claims mathematical certainty (and which further denies the importance of the slings and arrows of substantial law practice for the law professor) does not even pretend to look like life. Were Langdellianism a con, it could therefore not be a plausible one, and those duped by it should be all the more ashamed . . . ."

LBJ's Villanelle: Old Chamberlain & Chambers of the Heart (Addition to "The Apology Box")

The Johnson name shall live forevermore

At home and overseas.  Of virile heart,

I shall not risk the loss of any war.

I’ll slay Jim Crow and poverty before

Another president can steel the part--

The Johnson name shall live forevermore.

I shall not ape old Chamberlain though war

Endangers plans at home. I've rhetoric's art--

I shall not risk the loss of any war.

No hypocrite, I've nitroglycerin for

Myself as well and lob it at my heart--

The Johnson name shall live forevermore.

Though pills roll out my mouth, I've countless more
To keep me standing as I ply my art:

"I shall not risk the loss of any war.

No, we shall overcome Jim Crow, the gore,

The jungles, and old chambers of the heart.
The Johnson name shall live.  Forevermore,

I shall not risk the loss of any war."

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Langdell Defends Langdell With A Villanelle (An Addition To "The Apology Box")

Though I've gone after Langdell several times in prose (Exercising Common Sense, Razing Langdell, and Days of Auld Langdell), I've not attempted it in verse till now.  The Villanelle seemed a good form and I felt he would speak of himself in the third person were he writing it.  Of course, even in the more polished form of a villanelle, I still disagree with Langdell's thoughts on casebooks, experienced teachers, law's nature, and more.  Law is not a certain science.  Law practice experience makes better, not worse law professors.  Theory is blind if separated from practice.  Practice is empty without theory.  Law schools are therefore elevated rather than "dumbed down" by teaching practice and theory both.  The hypocrisy of Langdell's practicing for fifteen years while saying practice taints is of course not lost on me either.  I couldn't bear including a photo of the man so I have instead substituted a page from his infamous contracts casebook.