Yale Law School is on the approved list of the American Bar Association and is a charter member of the Association of American Law Schools. When the case method was introduced in American law schools by Langdell of Harvard in the latter part of the nineteenth century,its advocates hoped to base the study of law upon actual cases rather than abstract concepts. Concreteness and particularity were to be empha-sized,in contrast to the rather loose generalizations of the older textbooks. The case method was regarded as a better way to teach legal rules,as well as a way to learn how the rules had been derived. This narrowness of focus was attacked by the two schools of thought loosely called sociological jurisprudence and realist jurisprudence.
Many courses make use of the findings, concepts, and suggestions of the social sciences.
The recent past has seen efforts to expand the forms of training and areas of experience. The clinical program,for example,offers the opportunity to work with facts and to reflect on their central role in the work of lawyers and their impact on the development of law. Yet the appellate cases are still the main raw material of legal education. By the end of most courses students are encouraged to patch together a fabric of law, torn and riddled as it may be, by tracing the experience reflected in appellate cases and other materials. Students practice moving quickly in and out of complex fact situations, grasping what is known and what is not.