Osler's Razor

Yesterday, the faculty at St. Thomas had our annual retreat.  There were speeches and presentations and so forth, but  the heart of it really was groups of people talking about what it is we do in class and with our scholarship.  It was fascinating... as usual, I was struck by how many worthwhile projects my colleagues have going on right now.

In one session, several profs talked about the same thing happening in their third year classes-- that when they talked about the most practical things, it ended up coming back to faith, principle, and theory.   In my own classes I see this very thing.  In criminal practice, for example, I try my best to make it a practicum-- we work through realistic problems and the nuts and bolts of how a case proceeds in the criminal system. However, once we crack that open, something emerges, something important:  The big ball of prosecutorial discretion that fills the room when those proceedings happen.  Prosecutors have to make important, definitive decisions in discrete cases about what to charge, what plea to offer, and what sentence to seek.

So... when we talk about the practical side of criminal law, we end up looking at this orb of discretion at the center of the system, raising the inevitable and crucial question of how a prosecutor decides to use all that discretion.  That, in turn, takes us all the way back to faith, principle, and theory.

Practical skills and faith/principle/theory are not an either/or proposition.  When taught well, the first reveals the second.  I'm proud to be at a school where we acknowledge and embrace that raw, true thing.