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

What are Law Schools for?
Below, Chap. 4.
In the U.S., tightening of the job market in law has in recent years had a delayed
effect on the size of the applicant pool. Experience suggests that decreased opportunity
may lead to increased competition for entry to the more prestigious schools
and pressure on less prestigious schools to lower entry standards or cut both
faculty and student numbers. The process is complex, not least because application
to law school has to be made in anticipation of the state of the job market
several years ahead.
As recently as 1987, it was felt necessary to criticise this attitude, see Keith Patchett,
"The role of law in the development process" (1987) 48 Commonwealth
Legal Education Association Newsletter 33.
op. cit. Chap. III.
ibid, at p. 35.
ibid, at p. 36, see further below pp. 59-60.
The text was so worded as to try to accommodate a broad range of theories of
law and of perspectives on development.
ibid, at p. 38.
This shift of emphasis is quite closely associated with the propagation of free
market ideologies in the wake of the collapse of socialism. An example is the
FILMUP Project in Tanzania, which treats the upgrading of financial and legal
management, including judicial administration, as a high developmental priority
in a free market economy. I personally have some reservations about the policies
recently pursued by the "North" in the name of democracy and good governance:
"Constitutions, Constitutionalism and Constitution-mongering" in Irwin P.
Stotzky (ed.) Transition to Democracy in Latin America; The Role of the Judiciary
(1993) pp. 383ff.
I was a member of the team that drafted the report, but this chapter states the
position better than I could have done on my own. Twenty years on, it still
represents my views subject only to minor changes of wording and emphasis.
op. cit. at p. 36 (paras. 90-92).
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