The Evolution of Legal Education in the United States and the United Kingdom: How One System Became More Faculty-Oriented While the Other Became More Consumer-Oriented
International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, Vol. 6, p. 101, 2004
48 Pages Posted: 9 Aug 2006
Abstract
This paper explores how the approaches to preparing lawyers for practice in the United States and the United Kingdom became so different. It first traces the evolution of the systems for preparing lawyers for practice in the United Kingdom and the United States, and then examines the relative merits of our current situation. In British Commonwealth countries, law schools could reasonably claim that the beneficiaries of their services are their students, and to some extent, the legal profession. In the United States, law schools bear the entire burden of preparing students for practice; therefore, they should be striving to serve the interests of their students, their students' future employers, their students' future clients, and the public in general. The paper describes the key differences in the systems, major events in the histories of legal education in both countries, and new initiatives in that the United Kingdom and the United States that may improve legal education.
Keywords: legal education, united states, united kingdom, evolution, students, faculty
JEL Classification: K00
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation