In the Fall 2025 edition of Syllabus, a publication of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Paul Marchegiani writes about the importance of embodied learning in “Untethered: Why Legal Education Needs to Get Lawyers Out of Their Seats.” A taste appears after the jump.
The piece reminds me of a course developed and taught by my Pitt Law colleague Ben Bratman originally titled “Applied Improv.” Paul Caron blogged a couple of years ago about a local news writeup of the course. Since then, Ben has written a full article describing his motivations and the design of the course. Titled “Saying ‘Yes, and’ to a Changing Legal Profession Through Improv,” that piece is up on SSRN and is forthcoming in the Journal of Law Teaching & Learning.
From Marchegiani:
[A]s the legal profession confronts seismic changes from artificial intelligence and evolving client expectations, this pedagogical model increasingly fails to prepare students for what lawyers actually do: stand before judges and juries, negotiate across tables, counsel anxious clients in hallways, be fully present and persuasive on Zoom calls, and lead organizations through uncertainty ….
We’re training future advocates as if advocacy happens entirely in their heads. It doesn’t.
