Lawyer Education
The educational
prerequisites to becoming a lawyer vary greatly from country to country. In
some countries, law is taught by a faculty of law, which is a department of a
university's general undergraduate college.[1]
Law students in those countries pursue a Master or Bachelor of Laws degree. In
some countries it is common or even required for students to earn another
bachelor's degree at the same time. Nor is the LL.B the sole obstacle; it is
often followed by a series of advanced examinations, apprenticeships, and additional
coursework at special government institutes.[2]
In other
countries, particularly the United States, law is primarily taught at law schools.
In the United States[3]
and countries following the American model, (such as Canada[4]
with the exception of the province of Quebec) law schools are
graduate/professional schools where a bachelor's degree is a prerequisite for
admission. Most law schools are part of universities but a few are independent
institutions. Law schools in the United States (and a few in Canada, where an
LL.B or LL.M degree is much more common, and elsewhere) award graduating
students a J.D. (Juris Doctor/Doctor of Jurisprudence) (as opposed to the
Bachelor of Laws) as the practitioner's law degree. Many schools also offer
post-doctoral law degrees such as the LL.M (Legum Magister/Master of Laws), or
the S.J.D. (Scientiae Juridicae Doctor/Doctor of Juridical Science) for
students interested in advancing their research knowledge and credentials in a
specific area of law.[5]
The methods
and quality of legal education vary widely. Some countries require extensive
clinical training in the form of apprenticeships or special clinical courses.[6]
Others, like Venezuela, do not.[7] A
few countries prefer to teach through assigned readings of judicial opinions
(the casebook method) followed by intense in-class cross-examination by the
professor (the Socratic method).[8]
Many others have only lectures on highly abstract legal doctrines, which forces
young lawyers to figure out how to actually think and write like a lawyer at
their first apprenticeship (or job).[9]
Depending upon the country, a typical class size could range from five students
in a seminar to five hundred in a giant lecture room. In the United States, law
schools maintain small class sizes, and as such, grant admissions on a more limited
and competitive basis.[10]
Some
countries, particularly industrialized ones, have a traditional preference for
full-time law programs,[11]
while in developing countries, students often work full- or part-time to pay
the tuition and fees of their part-time law programs.[12]
Law schools
in developing countries share several common problems, such as an overreliance
on practicing judges and lawyers who treat teaching as a part-time hobby (and a
concomitant scarcity of full-time law professors);[13]
incompetent faculty with questionable credentials;[14]
and textbooks that lag behind the current state of the law by two or three
decades.[15]
Admission to practice law
Some
jurisdictions grant a "diploma privilege" to certain institutions, so
that merely earning a degree or credential from those institutions is the
primary qualification for practicing law.[16] Some
countries allow anyone with a law degree to practice law.[17] However,
in a large number of countries, a law student must pass a bar examination (or a
series of such examinations) before receiving a license to practice.[18]
In a handful of U.S. states, one may become an attorney (a so-called country
lawyer) by simply "reading law" and passing the bar examination,
without having to attend law school first (although very few people actually
become lawyers that way).[19]
In other states, the bar examination can be very challenging, such as in
California where only 42.3% of applicants passed the examination administered
in February 2011.[20]
Some
countries require a formal apprenticeship with an experienced practitioner,
while others do not.[21]
For example, a few jurisdictions still allow an apprenticeship in place of any
kind of formal legal education (though the number of persons who actually
become lawyers that way is increasingly rare).[22]
[1] Lawrence M.
Friedman and Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo, "Latin Legal Cultures in the Age of
Globalization," in Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization: Latin
America and Latin Europe, eds. Lawrence M. Friedman and Rogelio
Pérez-Perdomo, 1-19 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 6.
[2] Abel, England
and Wales, 45-59; Rokumoto, 165; and Schuyt, 204.
[3] Wayne L. Anderson
and Marilyn J. Headrick, The Legal Profession: Is it for you?
(Cincinnati: Thomson Executive Press, 1996), 52-53.
[4] Anonymous,
"Careers in the legal profession offer a variety of opportunities: While
we may not think about it often, the legal system affects us every day," The Telegram, 14 April 2004, D8.
[5] Christen
Civiletto Carey and Kristen David Adams, The Practice of Law School: Getting
In and Making the Most of Your Legal Education (New York: ALM Publishing,
2003), 525.
[6] Hazard, 127-129;
Merryman, 103; and Olgiati, 345.
[7] Pérez-Perdomo,
"Venezuelan Legal Profession," 384.
[8] Robert H. Miller,
Law School Confidential: A Complete Guide to the Law School Experience, By
Students, for Students (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2000), 25-27.
[9] Blankenburg, 132;
Friedman and Pérez-Perdomo, 6; Hazard, 124-128; and Olgiati, 345; Sergio
Lopez-Ayllon and Hector Fix-Figaro, " 'Faraway, So Close!' The Rule of Law
and Legal Change in Mexico: 1970-2000," in Legal Culture in the Age of
Globalization: Latin America and Latin Europe, eds. Lawrence M. Friedman
and Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo, 285-351 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003),
324; see also Herbert Hausmaninger, "Austrian Legal Education," 43 S. Tex. L. Rev. 387, 388 and 400 (2002).
[10] Miller, 42-60.
[11] Abel, American
Lawyers, 57; Miller, 25; and Murray, 337.
[12] J.S. Gandhi,
"Past and Present: A Sociological Portrait of the Indian Legal
Profession," in Lawyers in Society: The Common Law World, vol. 1,
eds. Richard L. Abel and Philip S.C. Lewis, 369-382 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1988), 375.
[13] Eliane Botelho
Junqueira, "Brazil: The Road of Conflict Bound for Total Justice," in
Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization: Latin America and Latin Europe,
eds. Lawrence M. Friedman and Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo, 64-107 (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2003), 89.
[14] Junqueira, 89.
[15] Rogelio
Pérez-Perdomo, "Venezuela, 1958-1999: The Legal System in an Impaired Democracy,"
in Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization: Latin America and Latin Europe,
eds. Lawrence M. Friedman and Rogelio Perez-Perdomo, 414-478 (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2003), 459. For example, a 1997 study found that not
a single law school in Venezuela had bothered to integrate any part of the
Convention on Children's Rights into its curriculum, even though Venezuela had
signed the treaty in 1990 and subsequently modified its domestic laws to bring
them into compliance. Rather than embark on curriculum reform, Venezuelan law
schools now offer special postgraduate courses so that recent graduates can
bring their legal knowledge up-to-date with current law.
[16] Abel, American
Lawyers, 62.
[17] Lopez-Ayllon,
330.
[18] Alan A. Paterson,
"The Legal Profession in Scotland: An Endangered Species or a Problem Case
for Market Theory?" in Lawyers in Society: The Common Law World,
vol. 1, eds. Richard L. Abel and Philip S.C. Lewis, 76-122 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1988), 89.
[19] G. Jeffrey MacDonald,
"The self-made lawyer: Not every attorney goes to law school," The
Christian Science Monitor, 3 June 2003, 13.
[21] Hazard, 129 &
133.
[22] Weisbrot, 266.
No comments:
Post a Comment