One thing that distinguishes excellent lawyers (or excellent academics, for that matter) is the ability to see more than one side of a legal question—to marshal all the arguments for and against a position, and weigh their relative strengths.

A lawyer drafting a contract needs to foresee the various ways a contract might be interpreted and try to minimize the ambiguities. A lawyer advising a client about regulatory compliance needs to understand the different ways the applicable statutes and regulations might be read. A lawyer litigating a case needs to anticipate her opponent’s best arguments and the weaknesses in her own arguments to be an effective advocate.

But how does one teach open-mindedness to law students? It’s a problem on exams. Students often fixate on one view and ignore any arguments against their chosen positions.

It’s also a problem in the classroom. Once some students have taken a public position, it’s very hard to get them to concede that any argument against that position has validity. And some students come to class having already formulated a position about a particular case or policy issue, making the task even harder.

I have been teaching for over 25 years, and I’m still not sure how to deal with that problem. I tell them they need to deal with both sides of every issue, but it’s one thing to know that intellectually and another thing entirely to do it well. I assign them positions to argue, but that often doesn’t help. If the assigned position is contrary to what they already thought, their assigned argument is usually weaker than it should be. If they didn’t have a position before, once I assign them a position, they’re unwilling to concede the legitimacy of the other side’s argument.

I just don’t know how to teach open-mindedness. Many students get it, but I don’t seem to have much effect on the others. And that frustrates me, because I know how important open-mindedness is to being a good lawyer.