I find it curious that you refer to something like the first-year program as "descriptive" rather than normative. The first-year program is an integral part of any law school, and the dean who pays no attention to details such as how the program fits the larger vision for the school is the dean who will fail. And fail with flames. In other words, the first-year program isn't a mere detail, something that will take care of itself once you have created your larger (and certainly normative) vision of your school. It will, rather, require its own sub-vision, its own normative judgments.
The big answers are great, but to a certain extent, the big answers have been figured out -- everyone's known since at least the '60's that education (and I don't see why legal education should be too much different from other education) ought to be "interdisciplinary", active, and personal. (As I see from your summaries, Brophy, Oman, and Yen agree with me explicitly, and no one seems to disagree.)
The question is how to implement this (and other big ideas). The first-year program is a huge implementation question.
Why not expect law school to be an instantaneous download? – like the instructions for how to fly the helicopter downloaded to Trinity ex parte in “The Matrix”? Johnny Mnemonic didn’t really die from a download overdose, now did he? - he just suffered a lot, but he didn't really make the bucket list.
Perhaps a more Darwinian way would be to return to the discipline that produced Lincoln (a joke only: Lincoln transcended pedagogy), namely, apprenticeship. What formal school did Melville attend to write “Moby Dick”? or, Heaviside, for his equations?
Whether there’s a normative ethic in discipleship to casuistry itself (Colin McGinn and company on ethics of belief) as a hard-learned trope is too hard for me to call. I’d say, “yes”; but I’m responsible for my purposes. I could care less what's explanatory or normative, since I'm responsible for what I do with what I learned. But, for the frustration of law school, there’s much to be said for being left to flounder, muck, scream from the pit of confused bowels, and hate what little of love’s knowledge (Nussbaum) is left over at the end of a day in the cases.
Cheers,
Jim
Note to Paul: Observe the aretaic nature of this entire inquiry. 
Note to non-philosophers: in case you were wondering about aretaic.
I'm a fan of Larry Solum's work in general, so see also.
I was lucky enough to have Solum come visit a class of mine last week. I was, however, quite unconvinced by his (aretaic) arguments against drug decriminalization.
Belle,
Why do you think there should be a year-long procedure course in the first year and that constitutional law should be in the first year?
I am most assuredly a non-philosopher, and am quite pleased to be one (no offense, Matt).
None taken, Daniel- it's certainly not for everyone and I'm all for a wide variety of intellectual approaches.
I think Con Law is basic--teach it first year! Not everyone comes in as a political science major, and shockingly, not everyone knows the basic structure of government and the Bill of Rights, let alone federalism issues and the equal protection clause. Didn't they pay attention in 11th grade US History? Also, Civil Procedure should be 1 year, but continuous--I had a one semester model, but the prof went from jurisdiction to judgment (just very efficiently). At my school, it's split up into Civ Pro I and Civ Pro II, only Civ Pro I is required, and Civ Pro I doesn't cover jurisdiction. WTF.
And teach professional responsibility in the first year as well.
Hah, this is starting to make me wish I'd been paying attention to this judge.
Oh Daniel, Daniel, I have a perfectionist streak a mile wide, you know. It's just a Millish liberal universalistic kind of perfectionism... (maybe Razish)
by judge, I mean discussion. I have no idea where "judge" came from
You can never know. Judgment just creeps in, like a ninja.
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