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

Law in the Universities: The Historical Context
versities and polytechnics can iron out any difficulties in implementing the
Ormrod recommendations, it has become one in which the professional bodies
can seek legitimation for watering down those recommendations—notwithstanding
that they were based largely on their own submissions. The first step was to
add a further core subject to the five unanimously suggested after lengthy discussion
by Ormrod. This was just silly rather than calamitous. The latest step, which
was more serious, was an apparent attempt to dictate to the universities and the
polytechnics how they should assess their students—something which the members
of Ormrod never contemplated for one moment and to which they would
have taken the gravest exception." L. C. B. Gower, "Looking Back", Presidential
Address to S.P.T.L. (1978) 14 ).S.P.T.L.(N.S.) 155, at p. 158.
49 For a summary in 1982, see P. A. Thomas (ed) Law in the Balance (1982),
Chap. 8.
50 On the core subjects, see Chap. 7, below.
51 The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies has taken several steps in the direction
of creating a national centre for the study of legal education, first by setting up
a Legal Skills Research Group, and recently by raising funds for a Chair of Legal
Education and an archives project.
52 Abel (1988) op. cit., n. 62, below, produces some complex and incomplete figures
on the educational background of barristers and solicitors up to 1984. There
has been a steady trend toward a graduate profession, but in recent years the
number of non-law graduates seeking to qualify has increased to the extent that
it is not quite true to say that the law degree is the "normal route of entry".
53 The phenomenon of the "creeping core" refers to an accumulation of pressures
which both overload and constrain the undergraduate curriculum: English Legal
System (or equivalents) are core subjects sub silentio; Trusts was added formally;
EC/EU Law has been proposed and, although not formally required, is almost de
facto a core subject; some subjects, especially Public Law, Restitution and
Human Rights, have expanded in scope and importance. In the process Roman
Law, legal history, and most theoretical and socio-legal courses have come under
pressure, although Jurisprudence survives as a compulsory subject in about half
the undergraduate law degrees. The process has been one of attrition, and the
influence of the core subject requirement can easily be exaggerated. Law schools
have more freedom to manoeuvre than they acknowledge, but they do not always
use it. See further, below Chaps. 4 and 7.
54 See below, Chap. 3, n. 23.
55 See W. Twining, "The Initial Stage: Notes on the Context and a search for Consensus",
ACLEC Consultative Conference, July 1993, Report, pp. 1-13.
56 Discussed below, Chap. 7.
57 For a more detailed overview of developments in academic law between 1972
and 1993, see "Remembering 1972", in D. Galligan (ed.) Socio-legal Studies in
Context: The Wolfson Centre Past and Future (forthcoming, 1995) and references
there.
58 Halsey at pp. 1-2.
59 A recent international survey reports that the morale of U.K. academics is very
low, even compared to other countries during a period in which higher education
is in crisis internationally (T.H.E.S. June 24, 1994).
60 Halsey's surveys suggest that academic opinion was split about the effect of
expansion on the quality of students, but that by 1989 "academics of all political
shades were beginning to adopt more cheerful views." (op. cit. at p. 242-243.)
61 Halsey, op. cit, above n. 2.
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