Once a highly cosmopolitan profession, law was largely domesticated by the demands of the Westphalian state. But as the walls between sovereign states are lowered, law is globalizing in a way that is likely to change law, lawyering and legal education as much over the next 30 years – when the students entering law schools today reach the peak of their profession – as it has over the last 300. This book provides a sustained investigation of the theoretical and practical aspects of legal practice and education, synthesizing and developing nearly thirty years of Professor Sampford’s critical thought, analysis and academic leadership. The book features two major areas of investigation. First, it explains the significance of the ‘critical’, ‘theoretical’ and ‘ethical’ dimensions of legal education and legal practice in making more effective practitioners – placing ethics and values at the heart of the profession. Second, it explores the old/new challenges and opportunities for ethical lawyers. Challenges include those for lawyers working in large organisations dealing with issues from international tax minimisation to advising governments bent on war. Opportunities range from the capacity to give client’s ethical advice to playing a key role in the emergence of an international rule of law as they had to the ‘domestic’ rule of law. The book should stimulate great interest and occasional passion for legal practitioners, students, teachers and researchers of law, lawyering, legal practice and legal institutions. Its inter-disciplinary approaches should be of interest to those with interests in education theory, international relations, political science and government, professional ethics, sociology, public policy and governance studies.

This book discusses the opportunities and challenges facing legal education in the era of globalization. It identifies the knowledge and skills that law students will require in order to prepare for the practice of tomorrow, and explores pedagogical shifts legal education needs to make inside and outside of the classroom. With contributions from leading experts on legal education from various jurisdictions across the globe, the work combines theoretical depth with practical insights. Seeking to understand the changing landscape of legal education in the era of globalization, the contributions find that law schools can, and must, adopt educational strategies that at least present students with different understandings of what studying and practicing law is meant to be about. They find that law schools need to offer their students choices, a vision of practice that is not driven entirely by the demands of the marketplace or the needs of major international law firms. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, this book makes a significant contribution to the impact of globalization on legal education, and how students and law schools need to adapt for the future. It will be of great interest to academics and students of comparative legal studies and legal education, as well as policy-makers and practitioners.

The importance of the first-year experience is now well recognised. This collection of papers makes a fascinating and important contribution to our understanding of students' transition to higher education. This is a scholarly, engaging and illuminating text, that is relevant not only in the context of South Africa, but for anyone interested in student learning in the first year of university education. David Gosling, Plymouth University

Clinical legal education (CLE) is potentially the major disruptor of traditional law schools’ core functions. Good CLE challenges many central clichés of conventional learning in law—everything from case book method to the 50-minute lecture. And it can challenge a contemporary overemphasis on screen-based learning, particularly when those screens only provide information and require no interaction. Australian Clinical Legal Education comes out of a thorough research program and offers the essential guidebook for anyone seeking to design and redesign accountable legal education; that is, education that does not just transform the learner, but also inculcates in future lawyers a compassion for and service of those whom the law ought to serve. Established law teachers will come to grips with the power of clinical method. Law students struggling with overly dry conceptual content will experience the connections between skills, the law and real life. Regulators will look again at law curricula and ask law deans ‘when’?

First Published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Harvard Law School is the oldest and, arguably, the most influential law school in the nation. U.S. presidents, Supreme Court justices, and foreign heads of state, along with senators, congressional representatives, social critics, civil rights activists, university presidents, state and federal judges, military generals, novelists, spies, Olympians, film and TV producers, CEOs, and one First Lady have graduated from the school since its founding in 1817. During its first century, Harvard Law School pioneered revolutionary educational ideas, including professional legal education within a university, Socratic questioning and case analysis, and the admission and training of students based on academic merit. But the school struggled to navigate its way through the many political, social, economic, and legal crises of the century, and it earned both scars and plaudits as a result. On the Battlefield of Merit offers a candid, critical, definitive account of a unique legal institution during its first century of influence. Daniel R. Coquillette and Bruce A. Kimball examine the school’s ties with institutional slavery, its buffeting between Federalists and Republicans, its deep involvement in the Civil War, its reluctance to admit minorities and women, its anti-Catholicism, and its financial missteps at the turn of the twentieth century. On the Battlefield of Merit brings the story of Harvard Law School up to 1909—a time when hard-earned accomplishment led to self-satisfaction and vulnerabilities that would ultimately challenge its position as the leading law school in the nation. A second volume will continue this history through the twentieth century.

This collection brings together a distinguished group of researchers to examine the power relations which are played out in university law schools as a result of the different pressures exerted upon them by a range of different 'stakeholders'. From students to governments, from lawyers to universities, a host of institutions and actors believe that law schools should take account of a vast number of (often conflicting) considerations when teaching their students, designing curricula, carrying out research and so on. How do law schools deal with these pressures? What should their response be to the 'stakeholders' who urge them to follow agendas emanating from outside the law school itself? To what extent should some of these agendas play a greater role in the thinking of law schools?

This accessible text explains how Russian law works in all its principal areas. It elucidates the main concepts and frameworks behind Russian law, and uses original legal sources and case law to explain how it operates in practice. The contributors, all of whom are leading experts on Russian law, employ original research to further knowledge of the Russian legal profession, legal culture, judiciary and court systems, providing a scholarly and practical account of Russian law for students and scholars alike. It is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the subject.

There remains an urgent need for a deeper discussion of the theoretical, political and federal dimensions of the European codification project. While much valuable work has already been undertaken, the chapters in this volume take as their starting point the proposition that further reflection and critical thought will enhance the quality and efficacy of the on-going work of the various codification bodies. The volume contains chapters by representatives of the Common Frame of Reference, the Study Group and the Acquis Group as well as by those who have not been involved in particular projects but who have previously commented more distantly on their work - for instance those belonging to the Trento Group, and the Social Justice Group. The chapters between them represent the most comprehensive attempt so far to survey the state of the codification project, its theoretical, political and federal foundations and the future prospects for enforcement and compliance.