Eugene Volokh (UCLA; Google Scholar), Free Speech Rules, Free Speech Culture, and Legal Education (Hofstra Law Review Symposium, Freedom of Expression at American Law Schools (Feb. 10, 2023)):

The lawyer's job is to persuade people, including people who may disagree with the lawyer. To do this, lawyers must be able to connect with people whose views may be very different from their own.

And this is so even if the lawyer's views are held by the majority: Sometimes, for instance, the lawyer must persuade all members of a jury. Even in a solid blue state, the lawyer may need to persuade some red jurors, and vice versa. Even in a jurisdiction where most judges are liberals, the lawyer may draw a conservative judge, or a majority-conservative panel. A lawyer will also often need to persuade opposing counsel; to build trust with a reluctant witness; and of course to interact productively with the lawyer's own client. All of them may sharply disagree with the lawyer on important matters.

One critical function of law schools is to help students learn the skills that they can use to persuade people with whom they disagree. As importantly, law schools must help students learn the habits and attitudes required for that—and to unlearn the habits and attitudes, which are so much a part of human nature, that tend to undermine such connections.

It is of course human nature to categorize the world into us and them, the good and the bad, the "enlightened" and the "deplorable." It is human nature to let these categorizations leak into our assumptions about people, into our decisions about whether to listen to people, and into our manners when we speak with people. It is human nature to resist being exposed to arguments that challenge our deepest beliefs, or to facts that we may disapprove of or find offensive. That human nature, though, interferes with our effectiveness as lawyers.

My claim in this Essay will be that creating a culture of free speech and openness to contrary ideas at law schools—including on the most controversial of topics—is vital not just for democratic self-government, the search for truth, self-expression, and the like, but also for effectively training future lawyers. Law schools should do all they can to communicate this point to students, in thought and action.