Rebecca Shepard is seeking to become the first tenured female professor at the fictional McKinley Law School. Most of McKinley's faculty want to maintain their all-male club. In addition, they vehemently oppose Shepard's attacks on the traditional methods of teaching law, including use of the Socratic method of the title. Woven in with this story are myriad subplots about Shepard, the male faculty members, the law students and others. --from L.A. Times review.