The Benefits of Teaching Across the Curriculum

This year, for the first time since I have been teaching at the VU School of Law, my colleague JoEllen Lind gave her students a contracts-based hypothetical in the pleading exercise she does with them every year for Civil Procedure.  The result has been a steady stream of sheepish 1Ls apologetically trying to “confirm” that they are headed in the right directions with their projects.  It is a great educational experience — especially for me.  I have learned which doctrines they have firmly in their grasp — they really seem to understand the concept of promissory estoppel, and some of them know the statute of frauds so well, they think that all contracts must be in writing — and which doctrines still elude them.  

The exercise has provided me with a great opportunity to review the materials for my course with my students.  There is nothing like an assignment — I don’t even know if it is graded — to focus the mind.  It helps that JoEllen describes her teaching persona as “Cruella de Vil.”  Students flee from her smoke-filled cabinet of horrors into the cozy book-lined study of the avuncular contracts prof.  

[Jeremy Telman]