are religious perspectives broached in law schools?

At my weblog, f/k/a, I recently voiced my surprise "that so little has been written on faith-biased legal education by weblawgers who might be apprehensive about the idea.  We seem to hear only from fans of the notion."  In response, I received a Comment from JR, who noted that I had previously quoted Prof. Ann Althouse saying:

"What's needed are law schools that expose law students to the full range of professional debate. It doesn't make much sense to counter one law school with another law school: the poor student has to go one place or another!"

JR then asked a very fair question:

"What about the Christian viewpoint in this 'full range of professional debate?' Are any law students being exposed to the Christian side of the debate? If not, how should law schools make sure students are?"

It's been almost 30 years since I attended law school, and 24 years since I was an adjunct professor (when there did not appear to be a Christian perspective on antitrust law).  I'm hoping that current or recent law students and professors can help answer JR's question.   My initial reply to him was, in part:

To the extent that law schools engage in discussions and pedagogy related to what the law and our legal system "should" be [e.g., varying approaches to constitutional interpretation; normative standards for achieving "justice" or "fairness" in statutory and regulatory bodies of law, and their enforcement; standards for assessing "reform" proposals], there should be a very wide-open discussion of the various perspectives that exist in our society.  In that context, the perspective of the evangelical or fundamentalist Christian movement is far too important in our body politic for me to believe it is totally ignored at any law school that seeks to achieve excellence and prepare its lawyers for careers in the 21st Century.

Was I being naive? Please help me answer JR's question -- and add your thoughts on when and how it is appropriate to bring faith-based perspectives into the law school classroom or curriculum.  [For extra credit: take my faith-based law exam.]

Comments

[Martin]

David,
I just want to let you know that I haven't forgot about this...I just haven't had time to think about this as it is pretty weighty.

I went to a public law school and I only remember religious issues coming up in con law (as there is no religious perspective on antitrust or the rule against perpetuities --except the one true religion of the economist!).
In con law my (ethnically at least) Jewish professor and my fundamentalist Christian classmates kept the debate lively. What was missing was really the atheist position as no one would admit to being Madeleine Murray O'Hare. I think it is the duty of all law schools (public, private, and religious) to cover all the intellectual bases of the law otherwise the students are left without the ability to be good lawyers.
I suppose that a school associated with religion X could do a better job of developing lawyers to be members of a religious community as part of a greater secular community much like the Thomas Moore Society (http://www.d-holliday.com/tmore/soci.htm) does for Catholic lawyers.

I would be interested to hear from those who went to Catholic law schools or other religiously affiliated law schools. I just can't imagine their legal training was any different than mine. However, the outside of the classroom community may have been much different.

Now that I think of it, the public law school may have an advantage in having a fuller debate as the students will be from diverse backgrounds and will ask pointed questions. A school like BYU for example does not attract atheists, Catholics, Jews or evangelical Christians. Boston College has a similar self selection issue (attracting many Catholics) while Notre Dame (Go Irish!) attracts mostly football fans ;). These schools will have to work harder to make sure the debate exists for the proper training of their students. A good public law school has all of these types of students and professors and more!

I will think more about this too.

[David Giacalone]

Thanks for your extensive comments, Martin; I look forward to even more of your insights once you let it percolate awhile. I think top law schools at Catholic universities have fairly diverse student bodies these days, but I agree that they students are unlikely to be getting classroom experience much different than those at public universities. Prof. Bainbridge wants to go back to some golden age where Catholic law schools were more Catholic academically, but I doubt that era ever existed or produced practical differences in graduating lawyers.

Some folks might disagree with the notion that there is no such thing as a Catholic perspective on law or economics. See Capitalism and Catholic Economics