Class: Why Bother?

There's a popular school of thought among law students that regards class as just a waste of good study time. It's true, we often spend half an hour in class on a concept the textbook disposes of in four lines. My Civil Procedure professor stated the problem pithily early in the course when he observed that the Socratic method sometimes devolves into a game of "Guess what I'm thinking." A professor may go around and around the room until he or she gets someone to state a legal theory just so. I'd probably skip a few classes if I weren't paying so much for them.