Dangerous Leaders

Before we can ask whether there are too many lawyers we must answer several preliminary questions: whom do we consider lawyers, and what does and should influence their number? The term ‘lawyer’, w...

Legal Education, Globalization, and Cultures of Professional Practice

Today, law student safety is a serious but often missed objective in American law schools. According to a recent survey, the typical American family wants to know their law student is safe even more than they want their law student to acquire a first-rate legal academic experience. Despite the importance of law student mental health to student performance, and cultural objectives unique to legal education, law students are not only highly vulnerable to acquiring mental health challenges during law school but are prone to be overlooked, and perhaps blamed or condemned for their mental health challenges, albeit unintentionally. My work asserts that despite the chief objective of law schools being to educate knowledgeable, competent, legal professionals, and provide them with the necessary skills to resolve complex legal essentials for corporations and government, as well as advance social justice, and to promote equal treatment for all, inherent in the nature of legal education, is a seemingly widely accepted risk of compromising law student mental health. Relying on qualitative studies and journalistic reports, my work will demonstrate that law students experience high incidents of personal depression, anxiety, extreme sadness, loss of interest or desire, feelings of guilt or low self-esteem, disturbed sleep or appetite, low energy, poor concentration, and a myriad of other mental and physical calamities, all of which greatly exceeds that of the law faculty, and surpasses levels experienced by medical and graduate students at American schools of higher education. My work further acknowledges that law student anxiety and depression are inextricably linked to the rigorous academic demands of legal education. Still it argues and set forth that law student mental health is related to avoidable conditions and patterns in the law school environment that enable or fail to account for the law student’s inexperience with coping with intense stress, emotional uncertainty, geographical isolation from loved ones, strained financial resources, poor job prospects, family strife, drug or alcohol abuse, homelessness, or lack of a culturally responsive learning environment. Granted, the legal profession is not for everyone. My work argues that law schools cannot turn a blind eye to the plight of law students as if no degree of accountability and responsibility lies with the law school. Indeed, law schools, albeit unintentionally, may be some of the chief investors in patterns of conduct that compromise the physical, emotional, and mental safety of law students. Recognition of a law school’s duty to students, in my view, requires law schools to resist the rhetoric of self-exceptionalism. Law schools, have an obligation, reluctantly or not, to concretely curtail repeated patterns of professional abuse, neglect, dereliction of academic duties, social domination, and student exploitation, that are uniquely embedded in the culture of legal education. Simply put, law student safety needs, coupled with the intricacies and unforgiving consequences of today’s competitive legal job market and high cost of legal education, warrant that law schools resist the impulses that prioritize institutional-preservation and subordinate student mental health under the guise of teaching students the harsh realities of the legal profession and preparing them for legal practice. My work argues that student physical, emotional, mental and academic safety should, and must become a critical component of legal education.

Upon attaining independence in 1957, most judges and lawyers in Malaysia received legal education and legal training in the United Kingdom. University of Malaya was the only premier law school in Malaysia during that time. Gradually, the number of law schools increased and now legal education is available in a number of both private and public universities in Malaysia. The landscape of legal education differ post 2008 when new law schools from public universities were made subject to a review conducted by the Legal Profession Qualifying Board (LPQB) – failure to obtain full recognition will result in students from the universities concerned, having to sit for Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) examination. In the light of this development, legal education in Malaysia has become under strict scrutiny by the legal fraternity, and thus it is a question of what reasonable expectation should the country set on the legal education provided by universities. This article will address legal education from the point of view of universities, the relevance of the CLP examination and the level of skills and knowledge required to produce ‘practice-ready’ graduates. The discussion also considers the availability of the 9-months pupillage before admission to the Malaysian Bar and other criteria for education as provided for by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA). The whole paper will be based on the Legal Profession Act 1976, the MQA guidelines, the developments of legal education in Malaysia and the experience of laws schools under review by the LPQB and other stakeholders.

This study aimed to explore law students' perspectives on the intersection of legal education and social responsibility, focusing on how current educational practices align with the goals of fostering social awareness and responsibility among future legal professionals. Employing a qualitative research design, this study conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 law students from various law schools across the country. The participants were selected through purposive sampling to ensure a diverse range of experiences and viewpoints. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify key themes and subthemes related to students' perceptions of their legal education and its role in preparing them for socially responsible legal practice. Five main themes emerged from the data: Perceptions of Legal Education; Social Responsibility in the Legal Profession; Personal Development and Identity; Institutional Support and Resources; and Future Directions for Legal Education. These themes encompassed a range of categories and concepts, including the importance of interdisciplinary coursework, the role of creative and reflective practices in fostering ethical reasoning, the impact of legal education on personal and professional identity, the critical role of institutional support, and recommendations for integrating technology and promoting diversity within legal education. The study highlights law students' recognition of the importance of social responsibility within their profession and the need for legal education to more effectively foster this attribute. It suggests that by incorporating interdisciplinary content, encouraging reflective practices, and enhancing institutional support, legal education can better prepare students to meet the challenges of contemporary legal practice with a strong sense of ethical and social responsibility.

The Double Life of Law Schools

Reviewed by: Loyola University New Orleans College of Law: A History by Maria Isabel Medina Paul M. Pruitt Jr. Loyola University New Orleans College of Law: A History. By Maria Isabel Medina. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2016. Pp. xiv, 277. $45.00, ISBN 978-0-8071-6318-4.) In most states there is a stark hierarchy among law schools based on passage rates of the bar exam. Such rankings, however, often mask the excellence and usefulness of lower-ranked schools. Loyola University New Orleans, for example, is typically the third-ranked law school in Louisiana, behind Louisiana State University (LSU) and Tulane University. But as Maria Isabel Medina [End Page 458] shows in her centennial history of Loyola New Orleans, the school has been an important factor in leveling the professional playing fields. The law school was launched in 1914 as a natural appendage of the Jesuit-run university. The school's early history reads much like that of any upward-striving southern law school, with two exceptions. The first is that Jesuit professors and law school administrators shared a vision of human worth, one that slowly but surely transcended the Jim Crow limitations of local and regional culture. The second, less comprehensive exception flowed from the same source. Loyola's officials, conscious of the school's identity, felt free to resist certain pedagogical trends backed by the American Bar Association and the legal academy. Both strongly discouraged the continuation of night school law programs, a means by which a number of early-twentieth-century institutions had attracted office workers and others who wanted to better themselves. Loyola, founded as a blue-collar law school, had no interest in limiting access to the legal profession; thus, Loyola has kept its evening division to this day. An important component of Medina's work is her treatment of Loyola New Orleans's role in the racial integration of the legal profession—a small but telling chapter in the civil rights epic of the mid-twentieth century. The year 1942 saw the first attempt by an African American to gain admission to Loyola's law school. An administration fearful of the backlash from the white community rejected this application, but the attempt touched off more than a decade of internal debate. By the end of the 1940s a growing number of faculty—led initially by Dean Vernon Miller and later by Joseph H. Fichter and Louis J. Twomey—opposed excluding applicants on the basis of race. The issue was not merely a matter of academic principle. During these years a number of lawsuits challenged the region's separate-but-equal approach to legal education. Indeed in 1950 federal district judge James Skelly Wright, a Loyola graduate, authored an opinion ordering LSU "to admit qualified blacks to its law school" (p. 75). The next year the national legal academy entered the discussion when the convention of the Association of American Law Schools debated what came to be known as the Yale Resolution. The resolution would have excluded from membership any school that continued to discriminate among applicants on the basis of race. The Yale Resolution was subjected to various forms of parliamentary maneuver and delay before it was voted down in 1951. Delegates from Loyola New Orleans, unlike their counterparts from LSU and Tulane, voted for the Yale Resolution. After further study by a church-appointed commission, Loyola was ready to act on its principles. In August 1952 the school admitted Norman Francis, its first African American law student. In the course of this fine book, Medina handles other themes of interest—for example, the steady rise of women in the legal profession. Likewise, in setting out Loyola's response to issues of poverty law, especially where they intersect with the movement to provide law students with clinical experience, Medina illuminates a little-known aspect of law schools' commitment to pursue social justice. Finally, Medina's measured treatment of Hurricane Katrina—the bravery and persistence of Loyola's people and the generosity shown by officials of neighboring schools, especially the University of Houston Law [End Page 459] Center—cannot help but resonate with readers who have experienced any of the natural disasters...

This thesis explores the issue of supervision in the legal profession, with a focus on supervised practice. Supervised practice is a form of work-based training and acts as an important segue between formal university-based legal education and independent legal practice. Supervision is an important issue relevant to a number of contemporary legal education and legal profession debates including: the legal education framework; changes in the nature of legal practice driven by technology; and mental health and well-being. Despite this, the area remains very underdeveloped in the literature. There is some indirect empirical evidence that identifies supervision as important to the development and well-being of lawyers. However, a conceptual understanding of supervision, and the processes it includes, is absent in the literature. Specifically, there is no evidence that identifies the nature of supervision received during supervised practice, whether that supervision is effective and what the impact of that supervision is. This thesis will address this gap in the literature by asking and answering the following Central Research Question: “What are the implications of the legal profession’s current conception of, and approach to, supervision during supervised practice?” This gap in the literature will be addressed by developing an empirically supported theoretical understanding of supervision in legal practice, which surprisingly is yet to be done. The empirical dimension of this research is derived from comprehensive, supervision-specific survey data that provides a rich source of information on the perceptions and experiences of a broad cross section of practising lawyers in Queensland. This thesis relies on a mixed-methods approach to answer the central research question by developing a conceptual framework used to guide and inform the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. Developing the conceptual framework includes a review and analysis of aspects of the legal education, legal profession and legal practice management literature. This uncovers that supervision in legal practice is conceived primarily as a tool for risk management and profitability. The legal profession’s approach to supervision is myopic when contrasted with supervision in other professional disciplines. The supervision scholarship in other related endeavours has a stronger theoretical foundation and evidence base. In other professional disciplines, supervision is conceived as a multi-functional, relationship-based endeavour concerned with training and development in the workplace. Effective supervision is underpinned by a strong supervisory relationship supported by a range of mechanisms including regular and frequent meetings. When positioned against the literature in other professional disciplines, the legal profession’s conception of supervision can be described in terms of focussing on normative (management) functions with an emphasis on monitoring. This is a limited form of administrative supervision and deficient in its lack of focus on formative (training) and restorative (supportive) functions. The survey data provides evidence that current supervision practices are likely to be ineffective for several reasons including a failure to foster strong supervisory relationships. Supervisees completing supervised practice are significantly more likely than other supervisees to perceive their supervision as inappropriate given their lack of practice experience. There are number of reasons why this is the case. The main underlying reason is that supervision fails to act as a forum for training, development and support. In addition, the supervisory relationship is weakened by a failure to structure supervision around regular frequent meetings and create an environment where supervisees generally feel able to disagree with their supervisor. These factors together provide evidence that the impact of current supervision practices is that lawyers completing supervised practice are at a high risk of not receiving the training and development needed at this stage of their legal training. From this central finding, this thesis makes a number of recommendations directed at the legal profession (including law societies, admitting authorities and individual firms) about how to respond to this challenge. In addition, this thesis also identifies a series of prospects for further research to build on these base-line findings in an underdeveloped area of scholarship.

Legal education in Australia is constantly evolving to meet the needs of law students and to prepare many of them for roles in the legal profession. Examples include changes to law degree structures, optional elective units, and subjects aimed at preparing law students to be ‘workplace ready’. Law students face challenging academic requirements and law school culture that can result in greater levels of psychological distress compared to the general population. Promoting law student wellbeing and responding to high student levels of psychological distress is a key area of focus for Australian Law Schools. This article explores existing law student wellbeing studies in Australia and reports findings from an empirical exploratory study investigating the levels of depression, anxiety, and stress (DASS) using the DASS21 survey instrument in law students at a regional Australian university, James Cook University. The results from this study support earlier studies at Australian universities that show law students experience higher levels of psychological distress symptoms compared to the general population, and it is an area of concern that requires ongoing attention. Results include an exploration of the impact of factors including type of degree being studied, campus location, year of study, gender, and time spent at law school.

Beyond Learning Objectives: A Taxonomy to Maximize Outcomes

The legal profession has attracted and continues to attract numerous high school and college graduates who aspire to join the profession. This is primarily due to various reasons, which, among other things, relate to the fact that it is one of the courses that offers a multitude of career options, job security, respect, and financial stability. Despite the foregoing, the profession faces myriad challenges. For instance, high standards are set to excel in the profession and/or to accredit legal education service providers. Excessive competition among law schools for the dwindling pool of qualified prospective students, combined with inadequate funding, has adverse effects on staff recruitment, research, and institutional development. It is for these reasons that this paper, employing a doctrinal research method, endeavors to analyze the history of legal education and training, as well as the regulatory framework that facilitates it in Kenya, with a specific emphasis on the Bachelor of Laws and Advocates Training Programmes. Additionally, the paper examines the role, challenges, and prospects of the Council of Legal Education and the Commission for University Education in regulating and supervising legal education in Kenya, with a particular focus on promoting quality in legal education. Finally, in order to enhance quality in legal education in Kenya, the paper proposes two main recommendations: amendment of the Kenya School of Law Act 2012 and the Legal Education Act 2012 to cure the existing superiority contest between the Acts and designing law programmes taking into account the current and future market demands.

In legal education, the affective domain plays a vital role in shaping future lawyers’ professional identities, values and ethical decision-making capabilities. However, law schools in England and Wales face specific challenges in addressing the affective domain successfully in the context of cultural and institutional diversity. These include the predominant emphasis on doctrinal instruction and analytical thinking, neglecting emotional intelligence and ethical development and the emotional demands placed on law students. Law schools must also address implicit biases, combat discrimination and foster a supportive and inclusive environment. To overcome these challenges, law schools can integrate courses addressing the affective domain, offer opportunities for self-reflection, mentorship and peer support and invest in faculty development programmes. Collaboration with the legal profession can also bridge the theory–practice gap. By understanding and addressing these challenges, law schools can equip students with emotional intelligence, empathy and ethical foundations for successful legal careers.

The Day in Court: Legal Education as Sociolegal Research Practice in the Form of an Ethnographic Study

우리 법학교육은 전통적으로 일본과 독일의 영향을 많이 받았다. 1990년대 법학교육 개혁이 사회적 관심사가 되면서 법학교육에서 미국의 영향력이 급속히 커졌다. 2009년 3월 미국로스쿨을 모방한 법학전문대학원 제도를 도입할 즈음 미국 법학교육이 우리나라에 미친 영향력은 최고에 달하였다. 이 글은 미국의 법학교육이 우리 법학교육에 미친 영향을 법학전문대 학원 도입 이전, 도입 즈음, 그리고 도입 10년 후인 현재로 구분하여 검토한 후 마지막으로 향후 전망을 논하고 있다. 미국식 로스쿨을 지향하는 법학전문대학원의 근간은 앞으로도 상당기간 유지될 것으로 전망된다. 그동안 법학전문대학원을 운영하면서 적지 않은 문제가 드러났지만, 그렇다고 폐기해야 할 정도로 현행 제도에 결함이 있는 것은 아니다. 과거 제도에 대한 향수를 가지고 있는 사람도 많지만, 법학전문대학원의 틀이 고착되어 과거로 회귀하기에는 너무 멀리 왔다. 법학전문대학원 제도의 개선 논의는 앞으로도 계속 될 것이다. 주시해야 할 것은 예비시험제와 변호사자격 취득 후 실무연수 강화방안이다. 두 가지 모두 법학전문대학원 제도의 근간을 흔드는 것이어서 실현될 가능성은 크지 않다. 법학교육이 변호사시험에 예속된 상황에서 미국 법학교육이 한국에 미치는 영향은 아주 제한적이다. 새로운 법적 분쟁에 관한 미국 판례 및 학계 반응을 비교법적으로 검토하는 정도에 그칠 가능성이 크다. 교육방법 역시 당분간 지금의 틀을 그대로 유지할 것으로 전망된다. 변호사시험의 방법이 바뀌지 않는 한 교육방법은 바뀌기 어렵다. 미국 로스쿨의 법학교육방법중 소크라테스 방식이 우리나라에서 인기를 끌 가능성은 거의 없다. 리걸클리닉 교육에 대한 관심은 여전히 있겠지만, 변호사시험에 대한 부담감이 사라지지 않는 한 크게 활성화될 가능성은 없다.South Korean legal education was traditionally affected by those of Japan and Germany. As legal education reform became a social issue from the 1990s, the influence of U.S. legal education model has increased rapidly. The influence of the U.S. model reached its peak when the U.S.-influenced law school was instituted in March 2009. In this article, the influence of U.S. legal education model to Korean legal education system will be reviewed in three stages―before the adoption of U.S. legal education model, around the adoption, 10 years after the adoption―and the forecast of Korean legal education will be discussed. The foundation of the law school aiming for the American law school seems to be maintained for a long time. Not a few problems have come out during the operation of the law school, but it is not a big defect to shut down the current system. There are many people who have nostalgia for the past, but the law school framework has been stuck and it has been too far to return to the past. The discussion on improving the law school system will be continued. What should be considered important is a preliminary exam and a plan to strengthen the practical training after attaining a lawyer’s qualification. It is not likely to be realized because both of them will shake the basis of the law school system. The claim that the legal education of the law school should be liberated from the bar exam is strong, but it is not likely to happen. Because the traditional thinking of examining capability through the exam is dominating the Korean legal profession, the bar exam is likely to take the form of assessing legal knowledge in the future. In conclusion, the impact of U.S. legal education on Korea is very limited in the situation where legal education is subject to the bar exam. It is likely that the U.S. case and academic response to the new legal dispute will only be comparatively scrutinized. The education method is also expected to maintain the current framework for the time being. Unless the way of the bar exam changes, the education method is difficult to change. It is very unlikely that the Socratic method of American law school will become popular in Korea. Although there is still interest in legal clinic education, there is no possibility that it will be greatly activated unless the burden of the bar exam is gone.

The benefits to students of being given some form of clinical legal education are well documented. Research has been conducted in the area of legal education and emotion, emotional intelligence and clinical legal education. There have also been studies which explore emotional labour in the legal profession. However, there is currently no research into the role of clinical legal education in advancing law students’ understanding of emotional labour expectations in the legal profession. This Legal Education Research Network (LERN) funded project aims to fill that gap by examining the contribution law clinics make to the development of law students’ emotion management skills in preparation for entry into the legal profession. The project seeks to achieve this by considering the changes to law students’ perceptions of emotional labour expectations as a result of undertaking this type of clinical legal education. The paper offers insights into the types of emotional labour as well as the perceived drivers of emotional labour, which are regarded as necessary to fulfil the role of the solicitor. The paper will also analyse the potential consequences of performing emotional labour identified by participants.