This paper will argue that American legal education and research is defined by three paradigms, using the definition of a paradigm as "a set of concepts, patterns, or assumptions to which those in a particular professional community are committed and which forms the basis of further research." The first paradigm is defined by the casebook, or Socratic teaching method created by Harvard Law Dean Christopher Langdell, The second paradigm is defined by the West digest system, created by John D. West in the late nineteenth century, and the third by computer assisted legal research, or CALR, which has supplanted the West Digest system as the main form of legal research in the last twenty years. The paper will further argue that while the West Digest system influenced the development of the American legal system in the twentieth century, so too will CALR influence the development of the law library
