I once had a discussion with my lawyer brother regarding the teaching
methods of professor Kingsfield (IIRC). Taking into account artistic
license where entire lifetime of interesting experience may be compressed
into a few episodes, etc. His opinion was that there was *some* merit in
Kingsfield combative methods of teaching for lawyers. In particular he
mentioned that he thought it served some purpose in aquainting naive
beginning lawyers with some of the shenanigans they may be faced with
regarding odd-ball judges.
I wouldn't want to press this point too far, but rarely is any method all
bad or all good.