Elissa Jacob, Mistaken About Mistakes: Error Analysis as an Untapped Tool for Law School Success 45 Pace L. Rev. 445 (2025).*
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4960352
Mistakes in the legal classroom have historically been sources of embarrassment and avoided at all costs. However, emerging research is showing that when we ignore mistakes we waste valuable learning opportunities. Mistaken About Mistakes explains how our brains are hardwired to learn more from purposeful error-filled learning than errorless learning through harnessing dopamine and adrenaline. To take advantage of these biological processes, three steps are necessary when engaging with errors. First, legal educators must provide psychological safety for their students when erring and work to combat unhelpful fixed mindsets regarding failure. Second, they must choose specific mistake types to engage with as some mistakes better facilitate learning than others. Educators can accomplish this through utilizing self-assessments, eliciting errors of commission, using productive failure to explain concepts, and even encouraging deliberate errors. Third, they must carefully deliver feedback in ways that are interactive and focus on future improvement. This article fleshes out these concepts by providing practical examples of how to incorporate these concepts into class lectures, practice problems, and assessments.
*Elissa Jacob is a 2023 AASE/AccessLex Grant recipient. YOU could be our next!
