I have put a new paper on SSRN on legal education--"Legal Education in the Global Context: Challenges from Globalization, Technology and Changes in Government Regulation".
The abstract reads
Legal education is going through profound changes around the world because of globalization, technology, and government changes in the organization of legal services. English lawyers have traditionally enjoyed high standing in the world but the question arises will changes introduced by the Legal Services Act 2007 and potential changes arising from the Solicitors Regulation Authority Bar Standards Board Institute of Legal Executives review of legal education damage that reputation? The paper examines legal education in a number of dimensions taking into account the developments in the global field of legal education. Keywords: professions, globalization, technology, lawyers, education, regulation.I welcome any comments.
The argument of the paper is that from an empirical point of view there is an inexorable move in the world towards the Americanization of legal education, in the form of the widespread adoption of the JD degree over the LLB. This is occurring as much in Commonwealth countries--Canada, India, Australia--as it is in others more conventionally aligned with US interests, such as China and Japan. Much of this drive comes from a need of the legal industry to have fully-trained personnel ready with "day one" competences, whatever those actually mean.
Comments