Reflections On Legal Education

Date01 March 1966
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1966.tb01109.x
Published date01 March 1966
THE
MODERN LAW REVIEW
Volume
29
March
1966
No.
2
REFLECTIONS
ON
LEGAL EDUCATION
TRIs
lecture is, in
a
sense,
a
somewhat belated valedictory address,
and this is my only excuse for offering some reflections
on
a
subject
on
which much, too much perhaps, has been said and written
throughout the ages. Every practitioner
of
the
art
of
legal educa:
tion moves in
a
landscape which has already been mapped by his
predecessors, but
it
is almost impossible for him not
to
hit upon
a trail here
or
an
obstacle there which others had not noticed before
him. What
I
should like to place before you are some thoughts
on
legal education which are entirely the result
of
almost thirty years
of teaching
in
this School. They are conditioned by my personal
experience and limitations, and they are
no
more than
a
modest
contribution to the never ending debate
on
legal education, and
to
its reform which is itself
a
perpetual process of adaptation to the
ever changing needs of society.
My remarks will therefore be confined to legal education in the
universities, and
I
shall make
no
attempt to emuIate the magnificent
Inaugural Lecture
on
English Legal Training
in
general which
Professor Gower gave in this room more than fifteen years ago and
which was subsequently published in
a
much enlarged form in the
pages
of
the
Modern
Law
Review.2
I
intend
to
say
a
few
words
about academic legal education and its objectives, and about certain
conclusions which in my opinion should be drawn from these
objectives
as
regards examinations, teaching methods and curricula.
I
must therefore crave your indulgence if once more
I
ask
the
question which has been asked
so
often: What is the purpose
of,
and what is the justification
for,
teaching
law
in
a
university?
I
shall presently submit to you that there is
a
very strong case
against teaching law and especially
English
law in
a
university, and
an
even stronger case in favour of
it,
but the first matter
to
which
I
must address myself is that famous false antithesis of professional
1
A
Special University Lecture given at the
London
School
of
Economics
and
2
L.
C.
B.
Qower,
Englieh Legal Treining.
A
Oritical
Survey
''
(1960)
121
Political Science
on
py
11, 1985.
13
M.L.R.
137.
VOL.
29
6
122
THE
MODERN
LAW
REVIEW
VOL.
29
versus liberal education which has bedevilled the discussion over
so
many years.
In
this respect as in many others
it
is extremely
instructive to re-read the foundation document which marks the
beginning of the academic teaching of English law, the Inaugural
Lecture which Blackstone delivered at Oxford
on
October
25,
175&
an astonishingly topical piece of writing.* The gist of the lecture,
as everyone knows, was that some knowledge of the law of his own
country was part of the necessary culture, the
fornation
or
Bizdung
’’
of a gentleman and of a noblcman, and even of
persons of inferior rank, especially those of the learned profes-
sions.”‘ But at
no
point
is
the case put solely
or
even predomin-
antly in terms of law as a method of
(‘
training the mind
”:
on
the contrary: the gentleman needs some legal knowledge
in
his
capacity
as
a
juryman and as
a
magistrate, and the nobleman in
his capacity as
a
landowner, and both in their capacities
as
legisla-
tors. At the same time however Blackstone extols the value
an
academic legal education has for the practising barrister
O:
If
practice be the whole he
is
taught, practice must .also be the whole
he
will
ever know;
if
he be uninstructed
in
the elements and first
principles upon which the rule of practice is founded, the least
variation from established precedents
will
totally distract and
bewilder
him’:
ita
lem
scripta
eat
is
the utmost his howledge will
arrive at; he must never aspire to form and seldom to comprehend,
any arguments drawn,
a
priori,
from the spirit of the laws and the
natural foundations of justice.”
It
is interesting and important to compare Blackstone’s views
on
academic legal education with those of
his
successor in the
Vinerian Chair
A.
V.
Dicey, expressed in
his
Inaugural Lecture
given in
1888.0
Here the emphasis has shifted: what for Black-
stone was merely the by-product of the enterprise became for Dicey
its
principal objective, the coping stone had become the corner-
stone of the
edifice.
Much the larger part
of
Dicey’s lecture is
devoted to a demonstration that an academic legal education is for
a
practising barrister a useful and almost necessary foundation for
the training he is
to
receive in chambers. Solicitors are
no
more
considered by Dicey in
1888
than attorneys
or
solicitors had been
considered by Blackstone
in
1758. The difference in attitude
between the two celebrated law teachers reflects the change in
English society which had occurred in that century and
a
quarter:
the incrcased importance of the professions, the displacement of
IIonoratiorenverwdtung
in Max Weber’s sense by state adminis-
tration.
No
less instructive than the difference between the two
8
Thin lecture appears under the title
On
the Study
of
Law
’*
an
the firet
eection
of
the Introduction
to
the
Firet
Volume
of
the
Commentoriea
on
the
Law8
of
Emland.
4
let
ed.,’p.
16;
16th (1895)
ed.,
p.
la.
8
let ed.,
p.
89;
16th ed.,
0
A.
V.
Dicey,
Can
Bnglisk
Law
be
Taught
at
the Uniaersitiea?
1888.
7
Max
Weber,
Wirtsohaft
und
Oesellsohaft,
Part
I,
Chbp.
III,
para.
20.
82.

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