VIRTUAL JUSTICE: A PROPOSAL TO REFORM LEGAL EDUCATION IN THE POST-LITERATE AGE

The way we teach law conflicts with the patterns of events and transactions that the world perceives. We teach with the stop motion memory of words on the paper as if the law were still carved in stone.

Not only does the perception of world in generally conflict with the law school view of the world, but the courts themselves have changed from being bound by transcripts of testimony to viewing the video tape of an event. Today the judges act as both witness of fact and appellate judges of the law. Yet, law is taught in the same manner as in past centuries as if the change in medium had no effect on the perception of truth and justice.

Law students can learn to examine the ways in which the electronic media alters the structure of legal reasoning. The switch from printed cases to the Internet and from the oral testimony of an eyewitness to video recordings of an actual event typifies these changes. By combining jurisprudence with media theory, legal education will consider the way in which electronic thinking fits into (or destroys) the template of legal reasoning we lawyers embrace. The principles of causation and relevance (born of print media) are essential elements of traditional legal reasoning. By understanding technology, law students will learn to understand the shocking effect of the change from print to electronic pictorial evidence.

Because our culture has become one driven by images rather than words, the legal system and the school that teach law must adapt to the change or be ignored.