Fictocritical Encounters: Conversations About the Law School World

Fictocritical Encounters is an account of a teacher's engagement with students that left a lingering impression-and an impetus to recreate scenes of engagement that offer a glimpse of the student struggle to understand the law school experience. In these encounter scenes (accompanied with a case study), the reader is invited to see law school as the port from which law students and their teacher-intrepid travelers-cast off into unexplored terrain. Participants in these encounters find themselves beyond the grounds of the big house where so much of law school life takes place.

Law students and their teachers inhabit a law school island. What they share is an interest in making their stay on the island a meaningful experience. Time on the island is not a frivolous enterprise. In law school there are serious matters to sort and understand.

During his more than four decades of teaching, Professor Elkins engaged students in conversation about their law school experience and how they were navigating the law school labyrinth. Fictocritical Encounters is a report on these conversations.