Legal Education in the Corporate University

Abstract

State disinvestment in higher education has been a notable characteristic of neoliberalism all over the world, and the corporatization of universities has been the typical response. It has led to a proliferation of law schools with students paying high fees. Corporatization has also engendered a culture of relentless competition between universities, which manifests itself in league tables and rankings. The pursuit of prestige has compelled law schools to prioritize research over teaching, which poses a dilemma for what is taught and how it is taught. The contradictions of the corporatization thesis are graphically illustrated by the experiences of Australia, which might be described as the canary in the mine shaft. Although corporatization plays out differently in decentralized regimes with a substantial private sector, such as the United States, its impact on the legal academy in those places has been similarly profound. It is apparent that the dilemmas posed by corporatization for the legal academy require considered scholarly attention.