Abstract
Legal education in the US, and its internationalisation, is largely affected and shaped by the larger legal system within which is exists. The US is a federal jurisdiction which has an unusually large amount of separate sovereign state jurisdictions within it, which are large and very diverse. Further, the American legal profession is radically unified (in that there is little separation between the various tracks of the profession) but at the same time, all branches of the profession are deeply enmeshed in partisan politics. These factors, as well as the size and diversity of American legal education means that the extent to which there is, and will be, IOLE in the US varies greatly across states, law schools, and students. The most prominent issues in current legal education debates pertain to the cost and the degree to which the typical law school prepares its students to practice more or less immediately after graduation. Neither of these issues will encourage further internationalisation, but the high degree of internationalisation of American society means that the ability to be a global lawyer, with sensitivity to the possibility of trans-border issues, would enhance most lawyers’ practice.
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- 1.
California can serve as an illustration, but should not be considered as ‘typical’ since the variety is too great to be represented by a single jurisdiction. The justices of the state Supreme Court are appointed by the Governor, confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments, then re-confirmed by the public in the next general election, and then again confirmed by the public at the end of each 12 year term. Judges on the intermediate court, known as the Court of Appeal, are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments, and judges on the trial courts, known as the Superior Courts, are elected for 6 year terms on a nonpartisan ballot at a general election. For more information, see Administrative Office of the Courts, Fact Sheet California Judicial Branch, http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/Calif_Judicial_Branch.pdf (last visited Sept. 10, 2013).
- 2.
In Texas, for example, appellate court judges must be members of the bar, but judges of the 254 County Courts must only be ‘well informed in the law of the State’ and most are not licensed to practice law. The justices of the peace below the County Courts are rarely lawyers.
- 3.
The staffs of Attorneys General and District Attorneys, on the other hand, are chosen by the chief prosecutors. For more information and a listing of the American Attorneys Generals, see http://www.naag.org/current-attorneys-general.php
- 4.
For example, the prototypical characteristic of postwar Japanese employment known as permanent employment is regularly attributed to Japanese culture, but it was created by an early postwar Supreme Court decision.
- 5.
For more information, see How Educated Are State Legislators? The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 12, 2011), http://chronicle.com/article/How-Educated-Is-Your/127845/; Lawyers losing grip on state legislators, Cal. Bar J., (April, 1999), http://archive.calbar.ca.gov/calbar/2cbj/99apr/page1-2.htm
- 6.
For more information, see the Comprehensive Guide to Bar Admission Requirements 2013, http://www.ncbex.org/assets/media_files/Comp-Guide/CompGuide.pdf
- 7.
For more information, see The State Bar of California., http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Education/LegalEducation/LawSchools.aspx (last visited Sept. 22, 2013). The rules for the registration of unaccredited law schools can be found at http://rules.calbar.ca.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=5LAwXeKsh6U%3d&tabid=1227
- 8.
For more information, see University of Honolulu School of Law, http://www.universityofhonoluluschooloflaw.net/General.html. I chose UHSL from the 23 unaccredited California law schools because I was captivated by the idea of a University of Honolulu in inland California.
- 9.
For a description of the bursting of the law school enrolment “bubble,” see Steven J. Harper, Pop Goes the Law, The Chron. of Higher Educ. (September 15, 2013), http://chronicle.com/article/Pop-Goes-the-Law/137717/
- 10.
See Adam Liptak, Keep the Briefs Brief, Literary Justices Advise, N.Y. Times, (May 21, 2011) (“What the academy is doing, as far as I can tell, is largely of not use or interest to people who actually practice law.”). The Chief Justice’s comments are just the most conspicuous of a stream of criticism that dates from former (and present - now adjunct professor at NYU) legal academic Judge Harry T. Edwards’ initial article. See Harry T. Edwards, The Growing Disjunction between Legal Education and the Legal Profession, 91 Mich. L. Rev. 34, 38 (1992).
- 11.
See Ethan Bronner, A Call for Drastic Changes in Educating New Lawyers, N.Y. Times, Feb. 10, 2013.
- 12.
See sources in Horwitz and Bronner and the list of the 22 law schools with the highest level of student debt in Tamanaha at 110. One of the remarkable aspects of this list is the mix of elite and decidedly non-elite law schools represented. Tamanaha explains the reasons for this phenomenon at pp. 107–126.
- 13.
For an insightful review, see Paul Horwitz, What Ails the Law Schools? 111 Mich. L.R. 955, 958 (2013) (Horwitz distinguishes the two books as representing cultural and economic approaches). The Tamanaha book is an entertaining and insightful description of the factors facing American legal education and is decidedly less polemical than Olson.
- 14.
The perceptive reader may note a fundamental inconsistency between the great diversity of American law schools and both authors’ focus on the unsustainability of the elite research model. Neither author seems aware or, perhaps more accurate, to take seriously the existence of schools like the University of Honolulu School of Law. Their argument applies primarily to the 200+ law schools between Stanford and UHSL, which they argue try too uniformly to be the former.
- 15.
See Law Prof. Ifill Challenges Chief Justice Roberts’ Take on Academic Scholarship, A. Const. Soc’y
(July 5, 2011), http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/law-prof-ifill-challenges-chief-justice-roberts %E2%80%99-take-on-academic-scholarship
- 16.
The AALS has 177 member schools and 23 ‘Fee-Paid’ schools. For more information, see http://www.aals.org/about_memberschools.php (last visited Sept. 13, 2013).
- 17.
Several schools already allow graduation within two calendar years, but they do so by providing the opportunity to continue to attend classes during the summer and generally without any reduction in credit requirements or tuition.
- 18.
Notaries comprise an entirely separate profession and do not play the central role in the American legal system that they do in many civil law legal systems. The typical notary is the secretary in a law firm or other legal office.
- 19.
For Michigan, see U. of Mich. L., http://web.law.umich.edu/CurriculumInterestAreas/ (last visited Sept. 10, 2013). For NYU, see N.Y.U., http://www.law.nyu.edu/global/abouthauser (last visited Sept. 10, 2013). Harvard Law School also recently revised its first year curriculum to require either international or comparative law of every student. See http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/degrees/jd/
- 20.
For more information, see University of Michigan Law, http://www.law.umich.edu/mlawglobal/curriculum/japaneselegalstudies/Pages/default.aspx (last visited Sept. 10, 2013).
- 21.
For more information, see J.D./LL.M. London Program, Colum. L. Sch., http://web.law.columbia.edu/international-programs/study-abroad-programs/foreign-dual-degree-programs/jd-llm-london-program (last visited Sept. 10, 2013). Cornell Law School has a similar program with Paris I (see http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/international/study_abroad/international_dual_degrees/index.cfm (visited Sept. 13, 2013)). For more informational generally, see David Tobenkin, Legal Minds: Internationalization is expanding rapidly at law schools, Int’l Edu., Jan.–Feb. 2009, at 37.
- 22.
For more information on the NUS program, see N.Y.U. Sch. Of L., http://www.law.nyu.edu/admissions/jdadmissions/dualdegreeprograms/nationaluniversityofsingapore (last visited Sept. 13, 2013).
- 23.
This explanation is the author’s own guess, but it is a guess educated by personal experience. When the author was Faculty Director of NYU Global Law School Program, I proposed eliminating the vast majority of NYU’s exchange programs (and replacing them with independent study abroad programs) on the ground that they were academically undemanding. The head of admissions strongly opposed the move arguing that the chance to go abroad was a huge selling point to applicants deciding between law schools. He then reassured me about the academic aspect by saying, ‘don’t worry. Once they get here, they won’t go.’ His view is confirmed by Ferguson’s statistics. A complementary explanation would stress the attractiveness of summer programs in attractive locations – London again is a prime example – to faculty.
- 24.
For a brief description of the Japanese Legal Studies program that sponsored the course at Michigan, see U. of Mich., http://www.law.umich.edu/mlawglobal/curriculum/japaneselegalstudies/Pages/default.aspx (last visited Sept. 10, 2013).
- 25.
See, e.g., the JD/MA programs with the French Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Studies programs at NYU available at http://www.law.nyu.edu/jddualdegreeprograms
- 26.
For more information, see the Comprehensive Guide to Bar Admission, Chart 4 Eligibility to Take the Bar Examination: Foreign Law School Graduates, http://www.ncbex.org/assets/media_files/Comp-Guide/CompGuide.pdf (last visited Sept. 7, 2013).
- 27.
United Nations, Department of Social and Economic Affairs, Measures for the Economic Development of Underdeveloped Nations, 1951, quoted in Arturo Escobar, The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton U. Press), page 3.
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Upham, F.K. (2016). IOLE in the United States: The Relationship Between a Country’s Legal System and Its Legal Education. In: Jamin, C., van Caenegem, W. (eds) The Internationalisation of Legal Education. Ius Comparatum - Global Studies in Comparative Law, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29125-3_20
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