Herbstausgabe 2010 - Fachverein Jus | Universität Zürich ...

What was the reason to accept the offer of
Zurich University?
Well, first of all, I was attracted to its good reputation
as Research University. Zurich is a very good university
with a very good international reputation. It is ranked very
highly among the leading European research universities
and it is in LERU, the «League of European Research Universities».
Compared to British universities, I think Swiss universities
have more research support for the professors. For
instance, British professors have no assistants at all. To have
a research assistant, they would have to get an outside research
grant. I think it has always been a great advantage
of the Swiss system that the professors are supported with
teaching help and with research help by a group of students
that are working in the department. For me, this has been a
great advantage. It is not the only reason I came to Zurich, but
I think it is an example of how Swiss universities do support
their faculty more fully than other European universities, especially
the UK. Now the UK has got some great advantages,
too. The academic system is very flexible and if someone
has just finished their PhD, there are a lot of opportunities
to get a lectureship that moves to an academic career. This
is also how I entered academia. I was practising law in London
and as I wanted to switch into academia, I got a research
fellowship at Cambridge. That led to a lectureship and down
the academic career steps. But once someone has moved in
their career quite a bit, the UK universities probably are not
as strong as providing support for senior academics.
So would you say that research is more important
for you than lecturing?
No, in fact, I enjoy lecturing more than research! But
I think research is very important. It is fine if someone is a
good lecturer, but if they have done research as well, they
have got more knowledge and more ideas they can share with
students. In the British universities, there is a lot of pressure
on academics to do research and to publish because the money
that the department gets depends on how they are assessed
on research. Therefore in the UK, academics cannot
have their contract renewed if they are not providing good
research. I was brought up in that system where you literally
have to do research or the department's budget gets cut.
But I also think that it is important that those who
have an interest in research think about how their research
is relevant for teaching their students, too, and that all researchers
should take lessons in being lecturers.
Coming back to your international background,
how can students and the university profit
from your international experience and your professional
activities?
Well, my academic career has been in the UK and
my professional career as a solicitor was in England, so
I think I bring a knowledge and experience of the common
law system. I think for Zurich, recognisably being an international
faculty, it is good to have one or two professors with
a common law background. Having been a practitioner and
someone who has done a lot of policy advice for the British
government on financial regulation, I also bring a practical
understanding of how business law and financial law work
in a dynamic economy like the UK, especially in the financial
markets. And then finally, in the last three or four years, I
have been an advisor to the European Parliament. I have had
to work on a lot of the important issues in European financial
law and the adoption of new European financial legislation. I
played an advisory role and have been part of helping to draft
documents relating to new legislation. That has been a great
experience to me and I think I can share that practical understanding
of EU institutions and of EU law with students. In
my opinion, it is very good to have people teaching in Zurich
that have an understanding of the EU institutions and how
Brussels operates; because even if Switzerland is not in the
EU, Brussels is still very important for Switzerland.
Do you have to have lectures on Swiss law?
Yes, I do! Next semester, I am co-teaching «Gesellschaftsrecht
II» together with Prof. Vogt. I have been reading
the Swiss law of obligations, the various commentaries on
the Swiss legal frameworks for corporate law and banking
law and I have also been studying how the Swiss implement
Basel III and the recent expert committee report on the «too
big to fail»-banks which shows another way of implementing
banking regulation. I am very interested in learning
more about that and then being able to integrate it into my
teaching.
Will you teach in German?
I hope to be able to do it in German at some point
down the road but «Gesellschaftsrecht II» next semester
is in English; and actually, Prof. Vogt's part is going to be in
English, too. I am taking a German course now and will be focusing
more on that to be able to do lectures in both German
and English.
«What I have been
surprised at the most is the
Swiss' internationality.»
What is your impression of the Swiss students'
English skills?
I think their English is very good! I have taught postgraduate
programmes in English in different European countries
and I think the Swiss students have got the best English
«I think that if you are doing something
you are not happy with, do not be afraid to
change!»
(laughs). In my opinion, this is a tribute to the Swiss «Gymnasiums»
because they require students to learn English to
graduate. So the Swiss students' English is very understandable
for me and I do not think that I talk to fast for them;
of course, they are very polite, but they seem to understand
it. And after having graded exams from the «Financial Market
Law» master course last semester, I thought that those
who wrote the exam wrote in very good English – probably as
good as my British students (laughs).
What is your opinion; does teaching law in a foreign
language have a future?
I think that it depends on the law you are teaching.
For international law, teaching in a foreign language is definitely
the future. But law is very much a creature of language
and to understand it fully, for the student who is learning it
for the first time, it is probably better to study the local law
in their own language.
However, in jurisdictions that are very international
and very global like Switzerland, there is a need that once
you have learned your law in your own language to then be
able to know what it means in English. Zurich's vibrancy as
an economic area depends a lot on foreign investment. The
international business language being English, multinational
companies here in Zurich are in need of having lawyers who
can express what the law means in English. So I think one
of the strengths of Zurich as an international business centre
is the fact that you can walk into many of these business
headquarters in the Zurich area like Kraft Foods, you know, a
big American multinational who has got a big headquarters
building in Oerlikon for their European operations, you walk
in there and everyone is speaking American English! I think
one of the reasons these companies have headquarters
here is because they realise that Switzerland has not only
got a great quality of life but also has linguistically versatile
employees. They speak three or four languages and most of
them speak very good English, especially if they have gone
to university. Switzerland is a very versatile market for foreign
investment, for multinational companies to come and
set up and to use Switzerland as a base from which to trade
throughout the EU. I think that this is at least in part due to
the linguistic versatility of the Swiss workforce.
Do you try to support or strengthen this
internationality of Zurich University, for example
by a joint seminar with a British university?
Yes, we had a meeting two days ago and I proposed
a joint Zurich-UK seminar next semester to be with a British
university. I am now working on the logistics, where the students
would have to stay, how much it would cost and that
kind of thing. But I proposed that and I hope it will get approved
for next semester.
Also, I will be jointly teaching a seminar next semester
with Prof. Kellerhals on the US-Swiss business law which
is offered with Miami Law School. First, the Zurich students
go to Miami for three or four days of seminars and presentations
and then for the second half of the seminar the Miami
students come to Zurich. Prof. Kellerhals did this seminar
already last year with Prof. Vogt and I am looking forward to
working on that! In fact, I actually am a member of the Florida
Bar and I practised in Miami for eight years before coming
to Britain. So I am a member of both the English Bar and the
Florida Bar and I think I could tell students about Florida law
as they conduct their research and I could have a good comparative
analysis with Swiss law.
You said that you have worked and taught
in different countries. Would you say that there is
a difference between Swiss students and
European students in general and British students
in particular?
I think that the students in the UK, the US and in
Switzerland are in many ways very similar. The Swiss students
remind me more of the American students than the
«I would not take a career
path simply because of the
financial rewards.»
UK students. The UK students start university at the age of
eighteen, so one thing I noticed is that the undergraduates in
the UK are a bit younger and have possibly less knowledge
of what they want to study. They normally pick a subject not
fully knowing what it means. I think the Swiss students are
more mature in knowing what they want to do regarding their
academic studies.
Another thing is that the Swiss students are just
much better at languages and much more multinational. The
British students often do not know other languages. They
are normally very well educated but they want to stay basically
in Britain whereas in Swiss students, I see more of
an interest in going abroad as part of their education. That
is a more normal part of a Swiss university student's future
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