AMERICAN LEGAL EDUCATION: REFLECTIONS IN THE LIGHT OF ORMROD1
| Published date | 01 May 1972 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1972.tb01331.x |
| Date | 01 May 1972 |
AMEKICAN LEGAL EDUCATION
:
REFLECTIONS IN THE LIGHT
OF
ORMROiD
THE
next two years show every sign of being vital for the future
of legal education in both England and America. In England,
presumably, there will be some decision
on
the recommendations
of the Ormrod Committee Report within the next few m6nths.
In
the United States
it
will also be an active period. The Ford
Foundation recently convened a meeting to discuss the Report
on the Future of Legal Education undertaken by the Association
of American Law Schools. (The basic recommendation of this
group, incidentally, is that law school should be reduced from
three
to
two
years.) By the end of
1973
the Carnegie Commission
on
Higher Education will have issued its report
on
legal education.
In
the meantime, the American Bar Association’s Section
on
Legal
Education and the National Conference of Bar Examiners are to
issue significant reports
on
accreditation
of
law schools and a
national bar examination respectively.
LAW
IN
ENGLAND
AND
AMERICA
But,
(‘
so
what?
”
you may say.
Is
there merit in attempts to
draw analogies between English and American legal education
?
The law plays a very different role in England and America.
So
does the lawyer.
So,
inevitably, does legal education. This
seems axiomatic. Those
of
us who have been reiterating the point
over these last few years have at times been accused of reiterating
the obvious. But
I
am prepared to wager that the obvious will by
no means be entirely apparent to all
of
those-both English and
American-participating in the joint meetings between the
American Bar Association and the Bar Council and Law Society in
July.
I
fear we shall all be subject to more than
our
share of
painful platitudes about the bonds
of
the common law binding
together the English-speaking peoples.”
Yet at the same time-for a number of reasons, but particularly
in the light of the Ormrod recommendations-I would argue that
in the next few years there may well be a remarkable
rapproche-
ment
between legal education in the two countries. Comparisons,
therefore, are timely, at least in considering the basic rationale
1
Extractti from
a
University
of
London
Public
Lecture, delivered at the London
2
Report
of
the Committee
on
Legal Education, Cmnd. 4595, March 1971.
a
A.A.L.S.,
Training for the
Public
Professions
of
the
Law,
1971, mimeograph.
242
School of Economics
on
May
6,
1971.
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