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

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What are Law Schools for? view of education. To visit an ivy league law school in the United States, a mass law school in Italy or the Netherlands, a proprietary school in India, 14 or a Shi'i College in Iran is to enter four unrecognisably different kinds of small worlds. 15 As we have seen, for most of our history apprenticeship was the prevailing mode of training. Disdain for formal legal education has not been a uniquely English phenomenon: during the period of Jacksonian Democracy in the United States when the legal profession was under attack even requirements for apprenticeship were abolished in a majority of states and by 1840 a mere 345 students, in the country as a whole, were studying law in university affiliated institutions. 16 When, during the Mao period, the International Legal Center commissioned a report on legal education in the Chinese People's Republic it received a succinct reply: "There is no legal education in China". Law schools are both varied and dispensable. Here I am concerned with function: what are law schools for? In modern industrial societies, despite the complexities, two main conceptions of the role of the law school have competed for dominance: the first is the law school as a service institution for the profession (the professional school model); the second is the law school as an academic institution devoted to the advancement of learning about law (the academic model). Each type has significant variants; most actual law schools are hybrids combining elements of both models. Many of the recurrent tensions and controversies in legal education are rooted in disagreements about objectives and priorities that centre on these two competing views of the nature of the enterprise. It is advisable to treat these as "ideal types". At the time of the Ormrod Report there were three main variants of the professional school model: (i) First, and most prestigious, is an institution which purports to be the practising legal profession's House of Intellect, providing not only basic education and training, but also specialist training, continuing education, basic and applied research and high level consultancy and information services. The nearest analogy is the medical school attached to a teaching hospital which, inter alia, gives a high priority to clinical experience with live patients as part of an integrated process of professional formation and development. In no modern Western country has this model been realised in law. (ii) An intermediate form is the graduate professional school. Typically it is within a university, but stands somewhat apart. Its main 52
What are Law Schools for? function is to provide basic vocational education for intending practitioners, who have obtained at least a first degree in some other subject. The graduate business school is the prototype. The classical American law school approximates to this model. Because the first law degree is postgraduate and is explicitly vocational, it carries a higher proportion of the responsibility for primary professional training than is the case in countries where law is an undergraduate subject. Although the profession has a significant influence in practice through the accreditation process, American law schools have been formally integrated into the university in respect of finance, tenure and the twin principles of institutional autonomy and academic freedom. 17 Postgraduate work, law for non-lawyers, specialist training and even continuing legal education have tended to be marginalised. Most attempts to introduce a substantial clinical element into the first degree have failed, and law schools have generally been inhospitable to clinical teachers. 18 With only a very few exceptions, Jerome Frank's vision of clinical lawyer schools has not been realised. 19 British academics tend to cast envious eyes at the better American law schools—with good reason in respect of resources, pay, willingness to experiment and a generally more "grown-up" atmosphere. But, even more than in our generally modest institutions, the structure in the United States has created an acute and persistent tension between the vocational and academic functions, not least in respect of scholarship. In my experience, the most persistent pressure point in American law schools is the clash between the interests and expectations of vocationally oriented, fee-paying students and a full-time faculty who wish to be accepted as true academics. (iii) A third, and minor, variant is the independent professional school run for—and typically by—the practising profession. Examples of this include the Law Society's College of Law and the Inns of Court School of Law in England and some professional schools in the Commonwealth. These institutions have often performed a useful role under difficult conditions. But only very occasionally in history have they flourished in the long-term—one exception being the Inns of Court in their heyday. The reasons for this are obvious: the price paid for being outside the university system is almost invariably inadequate funding and diminished prestige. The professional school model can be contrasted with the academic model. Again there are variants, mainly in terms of ambition 53
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THE HAMLYN LECTURES BLACKSTONE'S
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AUSTRALIA The Law Book Company Bris
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Published in 1994 by Stevens & Sons
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TABLE OF CONTENTS The Hamlyn Lectur
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The Hamlyn Lectures 1962 Lawyer and
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The Hamlyn Trust The Hamlyn Trust o
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ABBREVIATIONS (a) The following abb
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the course of th
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Preface There is an irony in arguin
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Preface Henry James' caretaker I wo
Page 26 and 27: Law in Culture and Society tures an
Page 28 and 29: Law in Culture and Society The Engl
Page 30 and 31: Law in Culture and Society by the I
Page 32 and 33: Law in Culture and Society narrow d
Page 34 and 35: Law in Culture and Society teric. T
Page 36 and 37: Law in Culture and Society have bio
Page 38 and 39: Law in Culture and Society lectivel
Page 40 and 41: Law in Culture and Society Snell on
Page 42 and 43: Law in Culture and Society cesses a
Page 44 and 45: Law in Culture and Society ated int
Page 46 and 47: Law in Culture and Society 3 Comm.
Page 48 and 49: Law in the Universities: The Histor
Page 74 and 75: What are Law Schools for? distracti
Page 78 and 79: What are Law Schools for? and prest
Page 80 and 81: What are Law Schools for? of legal
Page 82 and 83: What are Law Schools for? continue
Page 84 and 85: What are Law Schools for? 91. While
Page 86 and 87: What are Law Schools for? ibid. Cha
Page 88 and 89: 4. Law School Culture: A Visit to R
Page 90 and 91: Law School Culture: A Visit to Rutl
Page 116 and 117: The Law Library is credited with re
Page 118 and 119: The Law Library A guide to the Bodl
Page 120 and 121: The Law Library cular obviously req
Page 122 and 123: The Law Library in a book entitled
Page 124 and 125: The Law Library "A case is the writ
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The Law Library have long troubled
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The Law Library are really primary.
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The Law Library "Is it not in the n
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The Law Library women and minoritie
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The Law Library British Isles. Ther
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The Law Library dence, Legal Histor
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The Law Library written by practiti
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The Law Library tioners' works, alt
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The Law Library information and ful
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The Law Library 28 S. Chibnall, Law
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The Law Library which see the Prefa
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Legal Scholarship and the Roles of
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The Quest For a Core somewhat diffe
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The Quest For a Core of the law, as
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The Quest For a Core content, it fo
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The Quest For a Core "Of course, la
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The Quest For a Core ive either ref
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The Quest For a Core worth remarkin
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The Quest For a Core In the late 19
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The Quest For a Core the vocational
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The Quest For a Core was essential
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The Quest For a Core riers" between
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The Quest For a Core new skills ort
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The Quest For a Core texts of their
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The Quest For a Core If I am asked
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The Quest For a Core Within the leg
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The Quest For a Core For example, w
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The Quest For a Core is a further a
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The Quest For a Core exposition of
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The Quest For a Core what and know-
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EPILOGUE Roland Barthes' marvellous
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Epilogue two reference groups who h
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Epilogue lent—tend to be excluded
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Epilogue Diversification might help
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Epilogue graduates will in future h
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APPENDIX English Law Teachers as Ac
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Appendix In respect of background,
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Appendix 65% of the rest. I have ma
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INDEX Academic ethic, the, 49-51, 5
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Index Kahn-Freund, Sir Otto, 105-10
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Blackstone's Tower: The English Law
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