Law and Learning in an Era of Globalization

Abstract

The optimists amongst us assume that human hands — our hands — shape legal education, that legal education shapes the law, and that law shapes the world. The pessimists contend that the process works in reverse, that the forces of political economy ultimately have their way with law as a system of social ordering, as a cultural phenomenon and an intellectual enterprise, and as the subject or object of study in law schools. I am a pessimist by nature, so I will begin on a pessimistic note. However, I am trying to overcome my nature, so I will end on what, for me, is an optimistic one.