Abstract: Teaching methods have been a key issue in the theory and practice of U.S. legal education. In the past 20 years，there have always been controversies and reversals over teaching methods. During this process，the Socratic method received an increasing amount of criticism and seemed to have vanished from the history. Research and theoretic analysis find，however，that the origin，structure，and function of the Socratic method have close corresponding relations with the core content of U.S. legal education. With the development of the times，many aspects including the objectives，operational mechanisms，and curriculum design are facing reforms，but expectedly a modified Socratic method will dominate the future U.S. legal education. This phenomenon can be a beneficial reference for China’s reform of teaching method in legal education.

Key words: higher education, legal education, U.S. legal education, Socratic method, case- based teaching