Laptops Banned from Law School

It is a picture we get from movies and television. Students sit in a law school classroom, studiously clicking away on their laptops as the professor lectures. Every once in a while, a student is questioned about the topic at hand, and he or she typically presents what seems to be a thoughtful, germane response.

Some law schools, however, apparently think the rest of the students in the class are checking their email, playing World of Warcraft or watching YouTube. Because of that, they are banning the use of laptops during classes.

Even outside of law school, taking notes in any class can be tedious, and the use of a laptop helps reduce issues with fine motor skills. It eliminates problems deciphering handwriting that becomes a scribble after 30 minutes of constant writing. It allows students who are fast typists to actually pay more attention to the lecture and less to the business of taking notes. And it can save an incredible amount of time later when students need to refer to specific ideas (you can use the "find" or "search" command) or include them in other papers (copy and paste). Laptops are also a great boon for many students with disabilities, both physical and learning disabilities. Banning laptops in the classroom eliminates all these potential benefits.

And apparently some students do misuse the privileges. The ease of information and entertainment from the internet certainly makes it tempting for some students to find other ways to stay busy when the class becomes boring. And the professor sees only the front of the laptops, not what the student is actually doing on the computer.

But we are talking about law school here. Law school students are usually pretty motivated. They have little time outside of class to engage in video games or idle entertainment, much less the time they are in class. And those who do focus elsewhere during lectures are bound to do poorly on test, on assignments, and in courses. The consequences are natural.

The argument for banning laptops in law school goes that those around such slackers are distracted by what their classmates are doing, hindering their ability to do well even though they are attempting to pay attention. This may certainly be a problem, particularly for those students who have ADD or some similar condition that affects their ability to focus. But wouldn't these students be distracted by other things, such as the formatting another student is using, the perfume of someone a few seats away, the birds that keep fluttering by the window? People with true disabilities involving attention are not diverted only by fun, entertaining events but by all kinds of activities. Banning the laptops is ridding the classroom of just one of many distractions.

Having taught composition in a computer classroom for over 10 years at a junior college, I do have some experience with this subject. Although I asked students to stay on task not only for their own learning but for that of their fellow students, some still insisted on doing their own thing during class, like email, solitaire and poker. And those were the students, amazingly, who got the worst grades on papers and exams. They were the ones who were never sure what the homework assignment was, or didn't remember being told something we had spent 20 minutes discussing in class. Ultimately, they had the lowest grades and seemingly learned the least from the class.

So is banning the laptops in law school the answer? There seem to be many other solutions that could be explored first. The internet for a class or for student accounts could be disabled during certain times. Instructors could become more aggressive in their questioning of students. Professors could wander around the room rather than remaining at the lectern. And they could allow students who don't show the commitment to be in law school to fail.