The utilization of casebooks as teaching materials is referred to as the “case method,” and the in-class dialogue or questioning is known as the “Socratic method.” Former Harvard Law professor Christopher Columbus Langdell first developed and employed both pedagogies in the late nineteenth century. The case method Langdell introduced ultimately replaced traditional textbooks with casebooks containing actual decisions and opinions from various state and federal courts. Through reading and analyzing these opinions, law students learn to identify the same or similar issues in factually different cases, helping them to attain an understanding of judicial thinking. Despite the dominance of these two methods in modern American law schools, however, there are increasing challenges and critiques directed at their effectiveness in various aspects, including their failure to equip students with the ability to solve real problems. Meanwhile, different pedagogies have been explored to provide law professors with alternative ways in teaching, and there is an increased emphasis on the many techniques available that are more effective than the Langdell methods in reaching students in classroom. While the U.S. legal system is driven predominantly by the interpretation and application of case law, Taiwan’s is driven by the interpretation and application of statutory law. Thus, there is an inherent difference in the training of lawyers in the two countries, respectively, that reflects the inherent difference in the two legal systems. Nonetheless, because the comparison of legal educational systems is an integral part of comparative law studies, the following examination of Taiwanese and American pedagogies will serve to enrich the existing scholarship.

Case Method; Socratic Method; Christopher Columbus Langdell; Legal Education