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

Epilogue
lent—tend to be excluded, as do many important kinds of legal
documents. Perhaps the first important ritual of socialisation of law
students is their initiation into the mysteries of this inward, exclusive,
selective sanctum.
One of the great myths is that law is a discipline that is difficult
to penetrate. Volumes have been written about the self-interested
mystification of law by lawyers and about jargon, persiflage, verbosity
and unnecessary use of latin and law french. Historians testify
to the difficulty of interpreting legal records and regularly praise
Maitland, who was a lawyer, for having unlocked their secrets. 12
Non-lawyers often regard the alleged mystery of the law with awe
as well as resentment.
Yet there are counter-examples: Blackstone wrote his Commentaries
so that the principles of common law could be part of the
equipment of any English gentleman; in the nineteenth century jurists
were much more part of the intellectual mainstream than they
are today." English academics of my generation have had to grin
and bear it when very senior judges and other members of the legal
establishment used to boast that they had had no legal education,
thereby implying that law teachers did not have a real job. This was
sufficiently common to be known as "the look-at-me syndrome".
Today England is one of the few jurisdictions in the world in
which a law degree is not a necessary qualification for practice.
There is a growing industry of do-it-yourself law books and materials,
for dealing with problems of conveyancing, probate,
divorce, consumer claims, and domestic violence. Legal awareness
programmes, law in schools and law days are designed to make
law more accessible to ordinary people. And most citizens have
to cope with law daily as a practical matter. Yet, ironically, one
rarely finds do-it-yourself books or "law for non-lawyers" in a university
law library, for such concerns have traditionally fallen outside
the purview of university law schools. Developments in new
technology may help to break down some of these barriers. 14
Blackstone's Tower, then, is a vantage point from which traditionally
only parts of law have been regularly observed and studied;
as it has expanded in size it has broadened its focus; it has been
absorbed into the university, but it is in many respects still seen to
be somewhat apart; it is a relatively young institution which has
yet to develop a clearly defined role. It is rapidly approaching a
point where important decisions will have to be taken as to
whether it should continue to diversify and expand, or consolidate
or even contract. As we have seen, power over decisions about
194