The Importance of Hands-On Experience in Law

The Chinese proverb, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn,” stated thousands of years ago is something that still remains true today. The pinnacle of education has, and always will be, hands-on experience. Historically, hands-on learning has been around as early as 350 BCE when Aristotle wrote, “for the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them”.

While law school provides students with the ability to learn how to ‘think differently,’ it rarely teaches students what it actually is like to be a lawyer and often leaves students panicked and confused on the first day at their new jobs. Many of the tasks given to new lawyers can only be learned through hands-on experience, which is only just beginning to be offered in the legal education system.

This form of ‘experiential learning’ is based on the idea of immersing oneself in a subject in order to learn. This idea ultimately became popular in the early 1950s and thanks to the backing of famous psychologists (Jean Piaget, Kurt Lewin and John Dewey), Experiential Learning quickly became a staple in American education but is only recently developing in the legal education system.

Pressure for sending the maximum amount of students to corporate law in order to have a higher average salary for graduates leads law schools to focus solely on the classroom education itself. The irony of the law school curve is debilitating for many law students and the law schools themselves as well.

Today it seems as if hands-on learning only applies to vocational education. However, in reality it can, and should, be a part of all subjects.

When it comes to the workforce, hands-on experience allows you to understand what to expect on-the-job and how to properly use the information placed in front of you. Studying what to do, and actually doing it are entirely different situations. It’s the difference between reading how to ride a bike and actually riding it.

Additionally, by directly stimulating the mind with materials and applicable concepts, people retain more information. While auditory and visual information can become misinterpreted in the brain, hands-on experience allows live examples of core concepts to register in the brain as holistic experiences. This type of experience proves invaluable in a workplace that is constantly seeking experienced individuals.

When it comes to transitioning from law school to the workplace, making the shift can provoke anxiety. However, if you spend a large portion of your time working as a professional and gaining hands-on experience, it’s safe to say that much of that burden can be lifted from your shoulders. This is exactly what gigLAW hopes to do for our law students on board. We provide students with the opportunities to gain that hands-on experience to better prepare for their law firm, in-house or other job opportunities.

Overall, when it comes to hands-on experience, people simply learn better when they’re allowed to roll up their sleeves and experience the subject matter in a simulation, rather than being distanced from it by a third-hand narrative or a passage of dry text.

*Thank you to our fantastic intern, Alexandra Cornelsen, for this article! If you are interested in becoming a part of gigLAW either as a student or law firm, reach out now!