According to a recent Above the Law post, the dreaded cold call in law school has a single origin: a Harvard dean who invented the case method. That method, which relies on students being called on to dissect judicial opinions, became the foundation of modern legal education.
The source credits this dean with creating both the case method and the modern law school experience that comes with it. The article frames the invention as the root of what it calls “cold-call nightmares,” implying that the anxiety of being put on the spot is a direct legacy of that pedagogical decision.
No other sources are cited, and the piece offers no alternative explanations or critiques. It simply points to that dean’s innovation as the reason generations of law students have learned to fear the sound of their own name in class.