Monti on "Interdisciplinary" Legal Studies and the Emergence of New Academic Teachings: A Research Project on Law Courses in 19th-20th Century Italy

Annamaria Monti, Bocconi University Department of Law, has published 'Interdisciplinary' Legal Studies and the Emergence of New Academic Teachings: A Research Project on Law Courses in 19th-20th Century Italy (Estudios Legales 'Interdisciplinares' y la Aparición de Nuevas Enseñanzas Académicas: Un Proyecto de Investigación Sobre los Cursos de Derecho en Italia en los Siglos XIX y XX) at 19 CIAN: Revista de Historia de las Universidades 91 (2016). Here is the abstract.

English Abstract: The profound change in thinking about the law experienced by European jurists at the turning of the 20th century is well known: they renewed their methods, also through the influence of German legal thought and the impact of new social sciences. Focusing on the Italian experience, the research intends to investigate how this innovative change was linked to the teaching of law. Most certainly, new courses were introduced. Concerning the contents of the teachings, another point to investigate are the connections with the legal thought circulating at a transnational level in those times.

Spanish Abstract: El cambio profundo en la manera en la que se pensaba el derecho que experimentaron los juristas europeos a principios del siglo XX es bien conocido: renovaron sus métodos, en parte bajo la influencia del pensamiento jurídico alemán y el impacto de nuevas ciencias sociales. Nuestra investigación, que se centra en la experiencia italiana busca determinar el modo en que aquella innovación estuvo vinculada a la enseñanza del derecho. Seguramente se introdujeron nuevas asignaturas. En cuanto al contenido de aquella enseñanza, otro aspecto a investigar consiste en su conexión con el pensamiento jurídico que circulaba en aquel entonces a nivel transnacional.

Download the article from SSRN at the link. 

Adams on Crossing Borders and Searching for Purpose in North American Legal Education, 1930-1950

Eric M. Adams, University of Alberta Faculty of Law, is publishing The Dean Who Went to Law School: Crossing Borders and Searching for Purpose in North American Legal Education, 1930-1950 in the Alberta Law Review. Here is the abstract.

This article is about the making of modern legal education in North America. It does so with a case study of the lives of two law schools, the University of Alberta, Faculty of Law and the University of Minnesota Law School, and their respective deans, Wilbur Bowker and Everett Fraser, in the decades surrounding the Second World War. The article follows Bowker’s unorthodox route to Alberta’s deanship via his graduate training under the experimental “Minnesota Plan” – Fraser’s long forgotten effort to place public service at the centre of American legal education. In detailing an overlooked moment of transition and soul searching in North American legal education, this article underlines the personalities, ideologies, circumstances, and practices that combined to forge the still dominant model of university-based legal education across the continent. Highlighting the movement of people and ideas, this study corrects a tendency to understand the history of law schools as the story of single institutions and isolated visionaries. It also reveals the dynamic ways in which law schools absorbed and refracted the period’s ideological and political concerns into teaching practices and institutional arrangements. In bold experiment and innate conservatism, personal ambition and institutional constraints, and, above all else, faith in the power of law and lawyers, the postwar law school was born.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Influence of the French Bar on the Development of the Russian Legal Profession

Elizaveta Blagodeteleva, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow), has published The French Bar and the Emerging Legal Profession in Russia as Higher School of Economics Research Paper No. WP BRP 110/HUM/2015. Here is the abstract.

The complex and seemingly inconsistent use of the social vocabulary has been on the research agenda of those who study the Russian Empire for quite some time. Historians have long believed that the indiscriminate use of such terms as "estate" ("soslovie") and "corporation" reflected Russian backwardness and eventually impeded further social and economic development, especially when it came to professional groups. The paper examines this assumption by focusing on the terminology deployed for the designation of Russian lawyers, in comparison to their French counterparts. Therefore, it dwells at length on the references to the French Bar in the bureaucratic discussion and in current press at the time of drafting the basic principles of the future Bar organization in Russia between 1857 and 1864. The comparison of the two sets of references provided plenty of evidence that the French notion of the estate (l'ordre des avocats) had a dramatic impact on the interpretation of Russian soslovie of legal practitioners. The French model seemed to spur social imagination and eventually helped Russian political and intellectual elites envisage a new type of social organization encompassing free, well-educated and politically engaged men.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Legal Research and Doctrinal Analysis In a Legal Studies Program

Vincent Kazmierski, Carleton University Department of Law, has published How Much 'Law' in Legal Studies? Approaches to Teaching Legal Research and Doctrinal Analysis in a Legal Studies Program at 29 Canadian Journal of Law and Society/Revue Canadienne Droit et Société (2013). Here is the abstract.

This article addresses the teaching of legal research methods and doctrinal analysis within a legal studies program. I argue that learning about legal research and doctrinal analysis is an important element of legal education outside professional law schools. I start by considering the ongoing debate concerning the role of legal education both inside and outside professional law schools. I then describe the way in which the research methods courses offered by the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University attempt to reconcile the tension between “law” and legal studies. In particular, I focus on how the second-year research methods course introduces students to “traditional” legal research and doctrinal analysis within a legal studies context by deploying a number of pedagogical strategies. In so doing, the course provides students with an important foundation that allows them to embrace the multiple roles of legal education outside professional law schools.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.