The Harvard Law School has become a center of activism and controversy over the last two years. Last year, President Bok used his annual report to take a highly critical look at the American legal system and the role of law schools. Last spring, student concerns such as minority hiring and student input into administrative decisions led to a vocal and protracted sit-in at the Law School Dean's office.

In order to discuss some of these issues. The Crimson sponsored a roundtable discussion with two-Harvard Law School professors--Charles Fried. Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence, and Richard D. Parker--and third-year law student, Ibrahim Gassama. The discussion was led by Crimson editor Mark E. Feinberg '85

Crimson: In President Bok's annual report last year he said, "This nation, which prides itself on efficiency and justice, has developed a legal system that is the most expensive in the world, yet cannot manage to protect the rights of most of its citizens." Could you comment on this quote?

Parker: I think, by and large, Bok's diagnosis is absolutely correct.

Fried: I agree with it in terms of the legal system being inefficient and expensive. Whether it manages to protect the rights of citizens. I think is more complicated, because a lot of rights are in fact protected. They are just protected at enormous cost. But the picture in that statement which is that the society is essentially or substantially lawless seems to me incorrect.

Gassama: I suppose I come at it from a much more critical perspective. One of the things that struck me about his report is that for somebody in his position, of his reputation, it is almost hypocritical for him to make some of the statements that he made. The problems with the legal system are much more fundamental, much more basic than the surface analysis that he presented in his report. This society has developed over a period of years a way of managing problems by not actually dealing with them, and I think the legal system has become the way of not actually dealing with the problem.

Fried: I think we can be in agreement that the legal system does seem substantially to bring about those results which whoever it is that is in control of the legal system has decided should be brought about. Your point of attack and criticism relates to who it is that's making those decisions and the substance of the decisions that are being made. You're not that much concerned with the fact that the decisions that have been made are not being fully implemented. You think they're being substantially implemented, but they're the wrong decisions.

Parker: My view would be that there are, in law, bases for all sorts of arguments critical of the status quo and of the people whom you're referring to, Charles. And I think that insufficient resources have been allocated to those who would make arguments critical of the status quo, but the resources for making those arguments are there in the law. I'm not as vulgar a Marxist as you are, Charles. That's what I'm trying to say. I don't believe the law is strictly the instrument of the ruling class.

Fried: Well, I think it's the instrument of the ruling class in the United States, because I think the ruling class is simply the society as a whole. I think that we are a democratic society.

Parker: I think that's nonsense.

Crimson: Now that we've gone through that major question, maybe we can focus in on law school education and its impact on these larger questions.

Parker: I would say, briefly, that the education at this law school is getting gradually better and better and better. I think there's a great deal more variety here than there was 15 years ago, and that most-of the changes that make for that variety have been in a very good direction. I think it's certainly true and deplorable that a vast majority of our students go on to a very narrow sort of work in corporate law, but I don't believe that's the fault of the law school. I think it's problem rooted in the social and economic system.

Fried: I think that the assumptions that Richard Parker states are totally wrong in a number of important ways. First of all, there is no great problem about where our students are going. The fact of the matter is that our students are disproportionately influential in the governing of the country rather than not sufficiently represented. I would think that if you look at the major bureaucracies, if you look at state, local and federal government, that Harvard Law School graduates are there, present and powerful to a remarkable degree. In fact, it's really hard to imagine how one could make an argument that a single institution should be even more influential in the public government of the society than this one is. I believe that Harvard Law School graduates are very prominent in public service. Now, by public service. I do admit that I mean positions of influence and authority at all levels of government. Now that seems to me, in a democratic society, to be public service.

Now, as to what has happened to legal training at the Harvard Law School, in some respect I agree with Richard. I think that it has gotten broader and more interesting, more variety. In some respects, however, I think it has deteriorated. I think it's deteriorated because there has crept in an attitude, both among students and faculty, that rigor in thinking and careful, painstaking work is somehow not worth it, because one should jump rather quickly to "the big issues." I see it in classes every where, that there is a decline in the willingness to really deploy evidence carefully, to study details in the law and to master them because it is somehow thought to be unimportant. And I think, to the extent that it has happened, that's a loss, but there's a gain that's come across as well in terms of breadth and variety.

Parker: Well, in response to the last statement. I would say first that it's simply not true that the courses taught by some of the people who have come here in the last 10 years or so, fail to attend to details in a rigorous fashion I deny that Secondly, and probably more importantly, it seems to me that to teach law without attending very importantly to the assumptions upon which legal discourse is based is radically unrigorous and indeed sloppy.