Introduction
" Indiana Law Journal: Vol. 62: Iss. 2
Introduction
Bryant G. Garth 0 1
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1 Indiana University School of Law , USA
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BRYANT G. GARTH
The addition to and renovation of the Indiana University School of Law
building in Bloomington, dedicated on September 12, 1986, signal a major
step forward for an institution with a long and rich tradition in legal
education. As has become customary in recent years, we are celebrating the
occasion with the publication of a collection of faculty essays in our Law
Journal. It provides an opportunity to focus the legal community on the
progress we have made and to remind ourselves of the challenges we face.
This introduction will follow convention by reporting on the School of Law's
physical history; but it will also add a few comments on the direction we
should be proceeding as a scholarly community.
Founded in 1842, the School of Law is the oldest law school west of the
Alleghenies and one of the oldest in the country. It has had several locations
on the Bloomington campus, and moved to the present site in 1956. The
1956 building served us well in what was a very different era in legal
education. The student body comprised only 230 students, the library was
relatively small, and the faculty taught large classes typical of those taught
in law schools around the country. By the late 1960's, it was clear that the
building was no longer adequate. It became only a matter of time as to
when the facility would be upgraded, and the time finally came under the
leadership of Dean S. Jay Plager.
The library expansion and building renovation completed in 1986 suit a
new generation in legal education, providing the law school with a facility
that is for all practical purposes new. With forty percent of additional usable
space featuring an atrium overlooking the woods behind the School of Law,
the building now comfortably accommodates a student body that numbers
close to 600 and a library with four times the number of volumes held in
1956. Classrooms are designed for both large and small classes as well as
seminars, with special rooms for videotaping and trial and appellate court
simulation. The new facility represents an outstanding combination of elegant
design and an optimal working environment for students and faculty, and
fortunately it did not come at the cost of exile to a remote part of the
campus. By adding to and renovating the existing structure, the School of
Law has been able to retain its position at the southwest corner of the
Bloomington campus, closely linked to the rest of the University.
The excellence of the physical facilities and their choice location represent
both opportunities and challenges to the School of Law. Complacency is
hard to support in so impressive a facility; we must demonstrate that the
University and the State of Indiana have been justified in their investment.
It is not so simple, however, to explain the criteria necessary to justify the
investment. Is it enough to have a faculty with even more distinguished
credentials? A faculty that publishes more pages and footnotes? A student
body that succeeds in gaining the most prestigious jobs and clerkships?
Traditional answers to these questions do not necessarily hold up today.
Legal education and scholarship are in a period of some turmoil. Traditions
are being questioned from all sides in the debates, and answers have not
yet emerged. While it may once have been possible for most law schools to
be content to stay out of the debates and wait until guidance came from
the two or three most elite law schools in the country, we no longer can be
so confident in the traditional order. It is foolish and lazy to try to obtain
our criteria from institutions that are themselves unsure how best to proceed.
We have an obligation ourselves to participate in the transformation of legal
study that is presently underway. At a minimum, the major new investment
in the Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington contemplates a serious
institution able to contribute important ideas and voices to the legal profession
and the development of legal institutions.
This challenge requires us to take advantage of our connection to the
University and our nice location on the Bloomington campus. Legal
institutions and problems are of great concern to a variety of intellectual
disciplines which characterize a great university. If that conclusion were not
obvious already, the controversy at our dedication ceremony surrounding
Chief Justice Rehnquist's visit to the campus makes the point even clearer.
There is now a general recognition that law and politics cannot easily be
separated. While many in the legal profession might wish, for examp (...truncated)