This article takes a position contrary to those of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Report, Educating Lawyers and Best Practices for Legal Education. It argues that much of the harm those reports attribute to Socratic dialogue is misguided— that the problems that arise are a result ofbad teaching technique rather than any flaw intrinsic in Socratic dialogue. It then goes on to argue that because many of the problems the two reports are trying to address are due to poor teaching rather than the Socratic dialogue, the reports’ recommendations cannot achieve the results hoped for. Current law school hiring practices do not select for good teachers. Instead they select for qualities that are not predictive of quality teaching. Until law schools start selecting for teaching skills, the quality of law faculty teaching is not likely to improve. And if the true problem is the ability of law faculty to teach, then changing the curriculum without improving the quality of the teachers is unlikely to improve the law school educational experience.