The Paper Chase

Mr. Hart...

Will you recite the facts of Hawkins vs. McGee?

I do have your name right? You are Mr. Hart?

Yes, my name is hart.

You're not speaking loud enough, Mr. Hart.

Will you speak up?

Yes, my name is hart.

Mr. Hart, you're still not speaking loud enough.

Will you stand?

Now that you're on your feet, Mr. Hart,

maybe the class will be able to understand you.

You are on your feet?

Yes, I'm on my feet.

Loudly, Mr. Hart.

Fill this room with your intelligence.

Now, will you give us the facts of the case?

I haven't read the case.

Class assignments for the first day

are posted on the bulletin boards

in langdell and Austin halls.

You must have known that.

No.

You assumed this first class would be a lecture,

an introduction to the course.

Yes, sir.

Never assume anything in my classroom.

Mr. Hart, I will myself give you the facts of the case.

Hawkins vs. McGee is a case in contract law,

the subject of our study.

The boy burned his hand by touching an electric wire.

A doctor who was anxious to experiment in skin grafting

asked to operate on the hand

guaranteeing that he would restore it 100%.

He took a piece of skin from the boy's chest

and grafted it onto the unfortunate boy's hand.

The operation failed to produce a healthy hand.

Instead it produced a hairy hand.

A hand not only burned,

but covered with dense, matted hair.

Mr. Hart...

What damages do you think the doctor should pay?

What did the doctor promise?

There was a promise to fix the hand

back to the way it was before it was burned.

And the result of the operation?

The hand was much worse than before he went to the doctor.

How should the court measure the damages?

What should the doctor pay the boy?

The doctor should...

The doctor should pay for what he did,

and he should pay for the difference

between what the boy had... a burned hand...

And what the doctor gave him, a...

Oh...

A burned and hairy hand?

Mr. Pruit.

Man: Aah!

Ha ha ha!

That's just the screamer, men.

Screams every Friday and Sunday night at exactly 12:00.

It's all right.

Nobody's ever seen him. Not that I know of.

It's my third year now, and he's been screaming since I came.

Right at the stroke of 12:00.

Story is it was kingsfield.

Kingsfield drove him mad.

He's driven a lot of lawyers mad over the 40 years

since he's been teaching here.

I just heard he ripped up a one-l this morning

so bad that the guy lost his breakfast.

That's true. That was me.

Hardly a propitious start.

Well, let's see, I guess I covered

everything I'm supposed to tell you about the dorm.

There's no cooking. No hot plates.

There's intramural football and basketball

if you have the time.

Where's the pool?

It's across the square behind holyoke center.

You a swimmer?

No. Just relaxes me.

There's one more thing.

All that stuff about grades is true.

You gotta work like hell. No kidding.

Nobody jokes about grades.

Try getting a job without them.

It's stacked against you if you don't have the grades.

Don't think you're made 'cause you go to Harvard.

Maybe I better start studying then.

That's it. Study.

If there's any law around the dorm, that's it.

That's the main rule.

Remember, I'm here to answer your questions, so just ask.

And I'm the only third-year student you can trust,

so talk to me.

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Right. So long.

Man: Hi.

My name's Ford. I'm across the hall.

I knocked, but you didn't hear me.

Hi. My name's hart.

I came to ask you to join my study group.

What's a study group?

It's a device. A tool.

Groups of first-year students

get together a couple times a week.

Review the class work, the casebooks.

They make outlines and then share them.

It helps at exam time. You interested?

Yeah. I'm interested.

You plan to study all night?

No, I'm finished. Five hours is plenty.

You want to get drunk?

Of course you have to have the grades.

I mean, hell, you can't wear "Harvard"

on a sign around your neck.

You gotta have the grades and you have to look good.

Where you from, hart?

Minnesota.

You went to the university there?

Yeah. Where'd you go to school?

Harvard.

In the grand tradition of the fords.

I'm something like fifth generation Harvard.

Harvard law school.

And depending on if I get the grades

and then make the law review,

I'm on my way to wall street.

You'll make the law review.

Well, why not? After all, I am a genius.

I've got an IQ of 190.

When I was a freshman at college, I had 3 roommates.

One was a genius, and one was crazy,

and one was inconsequential. Kept to himself.

It was the genius who told me about kingsfield.

First guy to tell me all about kingsfield.

He read an article about him in life or time.

Something about a book he wrote.

It was called contracts in our daily lives.

Yeah.

To make a long story short,

genius took the law school admission's test,

but didn't score high enough to get into Harvard.

Genius.

Ah.

The study of law

is something new and unfamiliar to most of you.

Unlike any schooling you've ever been through before.

We use the socratic method here.

I call on you, ask you a question,

and you answer it.

Why don't I just give you a lecture?

Because through my questions, you learn to teach yourselves.

Through this method of questioning, answering,

questioning, answering,

we seek to develop in you the ability to analyze

that vast complex of facts that constitute

the relationships of members within a given society.

Questioning and answering.

At times you may feel that you have found the correct answer.

I assure you that this is a total delusion on your part.

You will never find the correct, absolute, and final answer.

In my classroom, there is always another question,

another question to follow your answer.

Yes, you're on a treadmill.

My little questions spin the tumblers of your mind.

You're on an operating table.

My little questions are the fingers probing your brain.

We do brain surgery here.

You teach yourselves the law,

but I train your mind.

You come in here with a skull full of mush,

and you leave thinking like a lawyer.

Ford's study group?

Yeah. Yeah. James hart.

Hi. Kevin Brooks.

This is hart, Kevin, and o'Connor.

This is Anderson and bell.

We were just talking about the most sensible thing

to do at the beginning is divide up the courses.

Each person be responsible for his particular course.

Each person do an outline.

Then at the end of the year,

we have them xeroxed and exchange them.

Now, I propose that nobody buys any outlines

because they won't reflect the work we've done together.

I'm gonna take property.

There's no guarantee we'll all be here in the spring.

Some of us might have nervous breakdowns.

I think we should do research on nervous breakdowns.

I want property.

I've already started property.

Hart, don't you think this is the most logical thing,

to divide up the courses?

Yeah.

Let's divide the courses up.

We've divided them. I'm taking property.

I think we should talk about who gets which course.

Maybe we should draw lots.

Like I said, I've already started property.