The Writing’s on the Wall: Using Multimedia Presentation Principles from the Museum World to Improve Law School Pedagogy

Law school pedagogy is a relic. Nearly 150 years after Christopher Langdell pioneered the case method, the typical doctrinal course remains predominantly a verbal domain, featuring lectures, Socratic dialogue, and final exams. But the visual disconnect between legal education and legal practice does students a disservice. Under the proliferating influence of laptops, iPads, smartphones, and Zoom, students now read, work, and study electronically more than they ever have before.

So instead of business as usual, it’s time to embrace “visualization”—using multimedia to enhance, or even supplant, the near-exclusive reliance on language—to build a more vibrant and inclusive learning environment. Law schools should emulate museums. Having long understood the need to appeal to a diverse audience to convey an educational message, museums are old hands at leveraging the power of multimedia to teach visitors in an enjoyable, entertaining, equitable way. This Article calls for professors to take cues from museums to curate students’ classroom experiences.

By integrating five high-impact, low-friction strategies borrowed from the museum world, we can upgrade our classroom presentations and remove the barriers to entry long associated with hidebound, text-based law.