THE SHAME OF AMERICAN
LEGAL EDUCATION
by Professor Alan Watson
The University of Georgia School of Law, Athens, GA
The title tells it all; American legal education is shamefully bad. Casebooks are endemic, especially in the first year, teaching by terror. Abridged cases are presented, shorn of context, with little support law. Students are to find legally appropriate responses, without being given the law, but professors are provided gratis with “Teachers’ Manuals,” that provide the acceptable answers! Tenure is granted mainly on two law review articles. The acceptable reviews are edited by students who have no expertise, and articles are almost always bloated, with any insight concealed. The articles, though, play almost no part in legal education. Much of importance is omitted from the standard curriculum: sources of law, relationship of law to society, and factors of legal development. Most law professors are plumbers, but they wish to be regarded as philosophers, hence, they are poor plumbers.
The longest chapter is devoted to the gross inadequacies of three celebrated professors. The aim, though, is to indicate the profound ignorance of their numerous devoted admirers.
The book’s aim is reform of American law schools.
About the Author:
Alan Watson was born in Scotland in 1933 and
educated at the University of Glasgow. In 1957 at the oral exam in
Advanced Civil Law the opening question put to him by the external
examiner, David Daube, was “Would you like a job in Oxford?” He became
a law lecturer at Wadham College, moving two years later, with tenure, to a
Fellowship at Oriel. In 1965, he returned to the University of Glasgow as
Douglas Professor of Civil Law, and moved three years later to the chair of
Civil Law at the University of Edinburgh. In 1979, he emigrated to the
University of Pennsylvania where he eventually became a University
Professor with his duties in his sole discretion. Partly for family reasons he
moved to the University of Georgia in 1989 where he is Ernest P. Rogers
Professor of Law and Distinguished Research Professor.
Alan Watson has published many books and articles on Roman law,
comparative law, Scottish, English and U.S. legal history, slave law in
ancient Rome and the Americas, and law in the Gospels.
He has been described in print as “the greatest man with texts since
Irnerius in the 11th century”, “probably the greatest living scholar of Roman
legal history,” and “the foremost scholar of comparative legal history in
North America.” His scholarly books have been translated into Italian,
Serbian and Chinese. A translation into Japanese of another book is in
progress.
His prime scholarly interest now is the creation of private law for
the European Union. He has several honorary doctorates from Universities
in Europe and South Africa most recently from the University of Stockholm
(September, 2005). Vandeplas Publishing 2006
ISBN 1-60042-004-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006925508
Soft Cover, 255 pages
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