Lloyd on Theory and Practice: The Inherent Inseparability of Doctrine and Skills @LloydEsq

Harold Anthony Lloyd, Wake Forest School of Law, has published Theory Without Practice Is Empty; Practice Without Theory Is Blind: The Inherent Inseparability of Doctrine and Skills in The Doctrine Skills Divide: Legal Education's Self-Inflicted Wound 77 (Linda H. Edwards, ed., 2017). Here is the absbtract.

This article maintains that the so-called theory-practice divide in legal education is not only factually false but semantically impossible. As to the divide's falsity, practitioners have of course performed excellent scholarship and academics have excelled in practice. As to the divide's semantic impossibility, this article examines, among other things: (1) the essential role of experience in meaning, (2) the resulting inseparability of theory and practice in the world of experience, (3) problems the divide shares in common with debunked Cartesian dualism, and (4) modern cognitive psychology’s notions of embodied meaning which further underscore the semantic impossibility of separating theory from practice in the world of experience. Using insights from such examinations, this article also explores implications of a debunked theory-practice divide for, among other things, law school curriculums and law school faculty hiring standards.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.