Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Nuno Garoupa on the difference between US and European law schools

There are many differences between American and European law schools. In fact, so many people have written about this topic that there is hardly one difference that has not been identified by now. Having worked on both sides of the Atlantic, the main difference that never ceases to amaze me is how American elite law schools have been transformed into a micro-universe of social sciences. Most of my colleagues are economists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, psychologists, political scientists, anthropologists. Naturally this has significant implications for the type of research we do in the law school (where doctrinal work is less and less popular), for the type of professional norms we develop in the law school (with most faculty in residence throughout the day), and even for how the law is taught to students. Such environment cannot be reproduced in Europe (with some minor innovative projects here and there) because diversity and interdisciplinary dialogue are not appreciated. There are plenty of more or less sophisticated arguments in Europe to oppose such move. However, the obvious consequence is that European law schools cannot provide the intellectually stimulating environment that one finds in elite law schools in America. It is of no surprise that SJD degrees are now massively populated by Europeans who use that as an entry door into the job market of American law schools (something the Israelis have been doing for more than a decade). It is also of no surprise that Latin Americans and Asians now look to the elite law schools in America as the leading legal teaching and research institutions. The exponential increase of LLMs and SJDs from these areas of the world in the top American law schools is amazing. Unfortunately, most European law schools have been unable to react to change and competition. In many case they lack the resources, in most cases they lack the will.

8 comments:

  1. Following Nuno's insights, Israel may provide an interesting case study, where legal academia has been transformed over the past two decades from a traditional European-style environment significantly (if not fully) to resemble the US model. In fact, although the "social science" nature of Israeli law faculties is varied, the greatest effect by far has been that of law and economics. One interesting law and economics account of this phenomenon has been provided by Oren Gazal-Ayal in his (US Law Review...) article on "Economic Analysis of Law and Economics" (available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=901164).

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  2. There are, however, signs of change in the development of European law schools. I would like to draw your attention to the newly established International Max Planck Research School for Competition and Innovation (IMPRS-CI, www.imprs-ci.ip.mpg.de) the nature of which is truly interdisciplinary. The doctoral programme is intended to provide an environment that is competitive with U.S. law schools at postgraduate level in the area of IP and competition law.

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  3. I think Henrik is right, when he says that many European law schools lack the will to react to change. I have been arguing with regard to Law&Econ (together with my co-author Martin Gelter) that non-consequentionlist thinking is deeply embeded in the European legal methods going back at least to the early 19th century and Savigny`s historical school - http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1019437 [published as: The Transatlantic Divergence in Legal Thought, 31 Hastings International and Comparative Law Review 295-360 (2008)].

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  4. I am somewhat familiar with the British system. I think Nuno is probably right with respect to the social sciences. But I do not think this is a complete picture of the situation.

    British schools are more doctrinal than American schools but they have excellebnt theorists working in philosophy of law, political theory and in related areas such as law and culture.

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  5. You give us a great info about to the difference between US and European law schools.I think the body of rules and principles governing the affairs of a community and enforced by a political authority is a Europeans law.

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  6. Hi Nuno, would you like to write something on the difference between US and European law schools students?

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  7. I am amazed to see that a Law and economics professor, with no single degree in law to show, calls himself a Law professor. Law and economics is economics, not law. Or perhaps better: an auxiliary law science. But it is not law just as well as law – or forensic – medicine is not law. A medical Doctor teaching legal medicine is not a jurist or a law Professor. An economist teaching law and economics is not a law professor, even if someone, with a graduation and a PhD in Law, teaching law and economics can be a law professor. I have not seen a single paper, article or book written by the author of this blog that can, in my opinion, qualify him as someone having the slightest knowledge about law itself or about legal. I have so far seen nothing at all that allows to conclude Garoupa as the slightest education in Law. He certainly knows about economics and about law and economics but he does not show expertise or eduction on law it-self. As another fact, in the few articles in which the author of the blog enters in the discussion of strict legal matters – such as the one on liability – he shows serious lacks of understanding legal Doctrine and legal topics. He uses long surpassed terminology and concepts, discuses and tries to tumble opened doors and shows a complete lack of understanding of legal construction and doctrine. It is his lack of formation and education on law that makes understandable what he argues here. It is most probably because he knows nothing about the difference between roman and German-roman law (vulgarly called civil law) and common law that he argues the difference between US and European law schools when he does not understands that such a difference is due to the difference between the subject studied in American and European universities. Because he has no juridical foundations or education the author of the blog will perhaps not understand what I am going to say, but American Law – in fact common law – has, on a systematic approach, only an internal system. It has no external system. Roman and German-roman law orders have an internal and an external system. Furthermore – and once again Garoupa will probably not understand – Roman and German-roman legal orders are based on a legal Dogmatic (for does who do not know, the word as, in this context, nothing to do with inflexibility. It has instead to do with the fact that in this type of legal orders lawyers, professors and universities, work with scientific concepts and terminology based in a scientific knowledge). Therefore arguing that European universities cannot provide a stimulating environment is more than non sense: it is pure and simple rubbish. It is just the opposite. American Universities deal with in greater amount with auxiliary sciences than European because the lack of an external system of the law they teach does not favour doctrinaire work. There is nothing shameful in that. It is just the way things are. Common law certainly has many positive and aspects. But it simply is something different from what is, in a simplified way, called as civil law. It is also short seeing to imagine that Europeans Universities do not have students for all around the world and surely Latin Americans, Asians and Africans. It is also very simplistic to imagine all the students going to Americans Law schools do so because of an imaginary superiority of said schools. Many do so only because they want to learn English, or even because they want to be in, in the American economy, just as well as many do choose the European universities for the same reason. Continues in next post

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  8. There is no measurable way to say American Law schools are better than European ones. To suppose the opposite it is more than just childish rubbish. It is blunt and pure ignorance. And for the record: in European Law schools there are also historians, philosophers, science politics and sometimes even economist. They just do a different work than the one made by the one made by their colleagues overseas. They do doctrinaire work. And in those cases in which they try to copy another model it is in most of the cases because they just are not up to the task of doing doctrinaire work. So the point raised by the economist author of this blog seems to me something like arguing that the see is better than the land or that the nose is better than the eyes. There is simply no comparison possible. Of course someone with no legal education, such as Garoupa, is not obliged to know all of that even if he is concerned with topics linked to law. But when someone makes a claim he should know and study what he claims before starting to make foolish statements.

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