American Legal Education Abroad

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century, elite US law schools have been presented as sites of power, admiration, influence and envy. Robert Stevens, in the opening of his seminal 1983 work Law School, suggested that foreign lawyers looked wistfully at elite US law schools. At a time when US political institutions—and even law schools—seem to have lost much of their former global luster, this book investigates whether in reality the elite US models ever proved so attractive to foreigners. Collectively the contributions cast doubt on traditional narratives that point toward the globalization or homogenization of legal education. They challenge the idea that many educators beyond the United States believed that the adoption of American models would lead to better legal education and scholarship, better legal systems, better lawyers, and better governance. And they illuminate the cultural and political significance of attempts to transplant US models. The book consists of historical examinations of American contacts within legal education in fourteen countries: China, Japan, Israel, the Philippines, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, France, Brazil, Sweden, Estonia, England, Australia, and Canada. And it includes critical commentary from two leading American law professors, along with a founding chapter from Bruce Kimball, the leading historian of Harvard Law School.