I’m fond of my law school (which wasn’t Harvard) and proud of having gotten a legal education, but I am keenly aware of what they didn’t tell me in school. My training was noticably light on constitutional doctrines like separation of powers and federalism — protections of liberty as important as the Bill of Rights. (I had to go and learn them myself. Got a little help from an outfit called the Cato Institute and papers like this one.)

Indeed, I recall a college pre-law class where I was taught the “swirl cake” theory of federalism. “Sure, there are layers of government, but they mix and overlap in mysterious ways.” Utter claptrap. “Swirl cake” federalism obscures the workings of government from the people, allows politicians to avoid accountability, and fertilizes the growth of over-large government at every level.

Now comes news (via the Volokh Conspiracy) that Harvard is going to “overhaul” the education first-year law students get. Rather than basics like contracts, torts, property, civil procedure, and criminal law, they’ll learn such things as policy and international law.

In other words, Harvard-trained lawyers will know more about politics and less about law. A step backward for the legal profession and probably for many Harvard lawyers themselves.

As a law review editor-in-chief, I was aware that many top journals had wandered away from doctrinal work that actually advances law. Maybe the whole legal academy is following suit.