Blackstone's Tower: The English Law School - College of Social ...

Law School Culture: A Visit to Rutland
to its declared pretensions, this may, after all, be a trade school or mechanics
institute.
10 This is an example of the fallacy of the Way of the Baffled Medic: Prescribe First,
Diagnose Later, If At All; in legal education this takes the form of believing that
one can study rules before, or even without, studying the problems to which they
are purported responses. That is rather like studying medicines or other cures
without reference to diseases. HDTWR pp. 215-216, RE Chap. 10.
11 On the core subjects see below, Chap. 7.
12 On a scale of five grades, three represented "Research equating to national excellence
in a majority of areas, or to international in some."
13 See below n. 20.
14 RE p. 368.
15 There are now National, European, Commonwealth and International Law
(Jessup) mooting competitions, almost exclusively for undergraduates.
16 One notable exception is Northwestern University Law School, described TEBW
pp. 109-111. The most interesting modern book on legal architecture is Yosef
Sharon, The Supreme Court Building, Jerusalem (1993).
17 Under the old UCCA system the national ratio of applicants for each available
LLB place was fairly steady, averaging just over 14:1 between 1965 and 1991
(Wilson, op. cit. p. 148). Rutland's ratio in 1991 was 13.5:1. The standard offer
was ABB in A levels (or equivalent) and, except for "mature" students, interviews
were used sparingly. Under this system each candidate had five choices of
department, so a more realistic indicator of the competition for a law school
of this kind is between two and three to one, with allowance being made for
self-selection. An experiment at Rutland using an English adaptation of the American
Law School Admission Test (a form of critical reasoning test) was abandoned
after two years in the mid-1980s. Rutland applies the same entry criteria to overseas
as to home students and has had no difficulty so far in filling its universityimposed
quota of "high fee" places. The ratio has remained steady over the
years, but the standard minimum offer has increased as has the number of places.
About 500 applicants attend open days.
18 Nearly all of these were from outside the European Union and were, therefore,
classified as paying "high fees"; in fact, over half were on scholarships or
bursaries.
19 The diversity of English law schools is brought out clearly in the 1993 surveys
by Wilson, op. cit. above, and Harris and Bellerby (1993) op. cit. above Chap.
2, n. 41.
20 See the vivid and disturbing picture presented by recent reports on the problems
of ethnic minorities seeking to enter legal practice: Equal Opportunities at the
Inns of Court School of Law (Barrow enquiry final report, 1994) and for the Law
Society by David Halpern, Entry into the Legal Professions: The Law Student
Cohort Study Years 7 and 2 (1994), Chap. 8. This interim report by the Policy
Studies Institute on behalf of the Law Society contains by far the most thorough
profile and analysis of undergraduate and professional law students (including
those taking the CPE) in England and Wales published to date. It deals with a
wide range of issues affecting intending solicitors, and includes some disturbing
findings on "Unfair advantages and discrimination in the selection processes for
the LPC and articles."
21 For the historical and comparative background up to the late 1980s see R.
Dhavan, N. Kibble and W. Twining (eds.) Access to Legal Education and the
Legal Profession (1989).
22 Halpern, op. cit. at p. 42.
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