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

The Quest For a Core
a twelfth man) and has a balanced mixture of batsmen, bowlers,
and a wicket keeper. One or two all-rounders are a bonus. The
standard English law degree has twelve subjects, spread over three
years of study. 37 The original Ormrod formula listed five subjects,
with English Legal System there sub silentio because it was an
almost automatic selection. This was equivalent to allocating half
the places to rather stodgy batsmen, leaving the academics free to
choose the other half. Some law schools wished to make one or
more other subjects compulsory: most commonly Jurisprudence
(the wicket-keeper?), sometimes Roman Law or Legal History or
Comparative or Foreign Law or even a non-legal subject, such as
Economics. Other subjects were listed as options, many of which
looked suspiciously like additional batsmen.
The Ormrod settlement was subverted in a number of ways: first
and most insidious was the "creeping core". The Bar and then the
Law Society added Trusts in the seventies; recently they have
pressed for the addition of EC Law, again without suggesting what
should be dropped. 38 From time to time possible further additions
were aired in England, sometimes because some senior practitioner
had just come across a young lawyer who knew nothing of Mareva
Injunctions or VAT or F.O.B. contracts. Equally important, most
students would naturally choose options with an eye to their perceived
vocational relevance, or to make life easier in their fourth,
vocational year.
Student culture made its own interpretations of the conflicting
messages that would come down from the profession on the practical
importance of this or that substantive law subject or a European
language or a knowledge of accounts. 39 By 1994 the de facto
"core" effectively filled nearly two thirds of many curriculums and
most students also chose vocationally "important" options. As
staff-student ratios declined, more and more under subscribed
options were felt to be in danger of being squeezed out; Welfare
Law, Sociology of Law, Roman Law, Public International Law and
Legal History were among those thought to be at risk. Meanwhile,
in the "real world" new fields of law were opening up: Administrative
law expanded in scope and importance; Restitution, Human
Rights, Environmental Law and a host of other subjects attracted
attention. In 1965 the inter-collegiate London LLM listed 30
options; by 1992 the list had grown to nearly 150. 40
During the late 1980s a new theme developed: skills came into
fashion and lists of desirable skills grew exponentially. One symptom
of this further pressure on the undergraduate curriculum is
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