Legal Education as a Model for the Education of Evaluators

While the skills of quantitative analysis are commonly a part of an evaluator’s training, the skills of logical analysis and argumentation are little emphasized. For example, an evaluator needs to argue from evidence to conclusions or recommendations. Such skills typically are taught to lawyers during their training. There are two parts to this paper. The first part is a discussion of legal education, which uses the Socratic method of pedagogy and the study of case histories. The second part examines what aspects of legal education might be used as a model for the education of evaluators. There is a discussion of what information an evaluation case history might contain.