The Caveat, February 1969

Golden Gate University School of Law GGU Law Digital Commons Caveat Other Law School Publications 2-1969 The aC veat, February 1969 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/caveat Part of the Legal Education Commons Recommended Citation "The aC veat, February 1969" (1969). Caveat. Paper 18. http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/caveat/18 This Newsletter or Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by the Other Law School Publications at GGU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Caveat by an authorized administrator of GGU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. VOLUME 4, No.4 GOLDEN GATE COLLEGE SCHOOL OF LAW FEBRUARY 1969 CURRICULUM REFORM The American experiment of 1776 bodiment of a system insensitive to their torneys. Here is an attempt to go through brought to fruition a political revolution, needs. The most important reason for this the "channels" and the success or failure with the consolidation and protection of chasm lies in the law schools. For as the of this effort could pose serious conse democratic freedoms remaining a matter educational process in our colleges re quences for all of us. In a relatively brief of vigilance and necessity to this very mains relatively unresponsive to the prob article such as this only a few of the day. The political revolution carried with lems of race relations and urban poor, law highlights of that report can be touched it the seeds of a social revolution which is schools will fail to develop young men upon with the hope that the curriculum now reaching an unprecedented culmina and women equipped with the knowledge committee here at Golden Gate will take tion in our time. to serve the interests of all people regard immediate steps to get the report and Part of this social revolution has less of their economic status or racial study its detailed course evaluations and engulfed our educational system. As a group. This failure has put the law and recommendations. teacher recently put it, "The lessons to be the courts that administer it outside the In the preface to the curriculum it learned from this past year have shown us reach and understanding of millions of is stated among other things, "The three beyond doubt that our public school people in this country. year curriculum should be structured so system is too big, too bureaucratic, and It is understandable but not excus as to provide all students with an effec too indifferent to the desires of the com able that this situation exists. For in our tive general legal background and a spe munity and the needs of its teachers and generally affluent society the majority of cialty at the level of the first degree in students." people seem more concerned with econ law ... It is assumed that the Bar expects The strike at San Francisc.o State omic questions and broken windows on a us to produce basically trained generalists College has been the most dramatic ex college campus than with protecting the who can develop themselves in the tradi .' ample of the dissatisfaction of students rights of their fellow citizens to life and tional mold if they desire, but the cur ,., aIld teachers with the institutions of high liberty. This feeling that property rights riculum must also recognize the trend er education. The struggle at this Bay are more important than human rights is toward specialization and provide for it. Area college has alienated many people in amply evident in the curriculum of law This curriculum is designed to insure that the city justly or unjustly because of the schools today. all students have received minimal train tactics of the strikers, but it has also One need only look at the catalogs ing in (1) doctrine; (2) skills; (3) policy exposed many of the contradictions that of law schools throughout this state to determination and evaluation." are embedded in our educational system see the sharp contrast in numbers of As quoted above, the proposed cur- and heightened the consciousness among courses dealing with law as practiced in 6culum for Hastings divides the types of administrators of the need for changes to the neighborhood law office compared to courses to be taught into three classifica be implemented now. Across this state the law practiced in most of our large law tions. The first classification labeled needed improvements are being brought firms. The main emphasis of law schools "doctrine" relates to the standard bar ex about in our public institutions with the seems to be a mass disgorging of gradu am courses such as torts, contracts, and development of ethnic studies programs, ates who will take the bar and be able to property. Some of the proposals in the a greater voice for students in decisions start climbing up the ladder of success report in this area such as making Agency relating to curriculums, .and growing ef over the wallets of their clients. Certainly an elective and combining Wills with forts to bring minority group members indigents and poor people do not fit into Trusts and Estates are already in effect at into higher education. While the progress this scheme of ordered liberty. A purview Golden Gate. These traditional courses is still too slow for many of us, neverthe of law school catalogs reveals a dispropor taught by the case method employing le less, the trend toward making education tionate number of courses such as Cred gal doctrine, precedent, and rule of the more relevant is as unmistakable as it is itor's Rights, Security Transactions, Cor case are still important to legal practice. inevitable. It is only unfortunate that in porations, Trusts and Estates, Corporate This writer would suggest that it would all too many cases administrators have Reorganization, Business Planning, Oil be well for any future student-faculty re riot taken the initiative, but have waited and Gas, International Business Transac view to discuss the feasibility of Profes until student pressure forced their hand. tions, etc. sors spending more time in some of these The situation in our public schools Recently students have been moved courses on contemporary developments has been reflected in the law schools of to criticize and suggest changes in the law in these fields, especially pertaining to the this state. One of the major problems in school curriculums. At Hastings Law law here in California. Textbooks should ~ this country today is the fundamental School a model curriculum has been be selected whenever possible that have a .. iJreakdown in communication between drafted as a proposal for presentation to representative sampling of California our legal system and the poor. The law- the administration. Under the able chair cases. After all, the great majority of stu yer, a product of our legal educational manship of Miss Darcy Cremer this report dents will have to practice law in this system, is considered by millions of non represented the combined efforts of state. This does not suggest that Califor white people in this country as an em- many students, faculty, and practicing at- nia code memorization is necessary, mere- continued on back page powered and directed to prevent persons, becomes a "partial substitute for com partnerships or corporations ... from petitive merit." To force non-sponsored using unfair methods. of competition in brands to overcome this kind of econ commerce and unfair or deceptive acts or omic advantage would, indeed, be "unfair practices in commerce." The remedy for competition" within the meaning of th.. a Section 5 violation is a cease and desist statute, which, incidentally, does not r. RECENT order. The action against Texaco was quire a total elimination of competition, brought under these provisions, the Fed merely a determination that " the prac CASE eral Trade Commission alleging that Tex tice unfairly burdened competition for a aco had undertaken to induce its service not insignificant volume of commerce." OF station dealers to purchase Goodrich Of course, the time consumed in INTEREST tires, batteries and accessories (known in reaching this decision (some 16 years the trade as TBA) in return for a 10% from the inception of the commission commission to be paid by Goodrich to practice by Goodrich and Texaco in Texaco; that such an arrangement consti 1952) may tend to bear out Nader's tuted "unfair competition" within the charge of "endemic inaction, delay and terms of the Federal Trade Commission secrecy." And there may be some who Act. At the same time similar actions would find the "crony-ism" Nader pur were filed by the FTC against ATLAN portedly uncovered in his analysis of key by TIC REFINING CO. (See: 381 U.S. 357, Commission personnel ("all are from Elizabeth L. Emerson 85 S. Ct. 1498, 14 L. Ed'2 443 (1964) small southern towns") extended to the and the SHELL OIL CO. (360 F2470 happenstance that Justice Black authored The Supreme Court in FEDERAL (cert. denied, 385 U.S. 1002, 87 S. Ct. the TEXACO opinion in such strong sup TRADE COMMISSION v. TEXACO, 705, 17 L. Ed'2 541). Those previously port of the FTC. (According to the New INC., et aI., 89 S. Ct. 429, U.S. , decided cases held that similar commis American Encyclopedia, Justice Black 21 L. Ed'2394 (1968), has taken some of sion arrangements between those com was himself a southern lawyer, relatively the sting out of recent criticism leveled at panies and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. little known outside his home locality the Federal Trade Commission. Almost at and Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. respec prior to his election as a Senator from the moment 1968 was becoming '69, tively were unfair competition.

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