Law, Universities, and the Challenge of Moving a Graveyard

Against this dark narrative genre, Carel Stolker‘s new book, Rethinking the Law School, stands in sharp contrast. Having been both a law school dean and university president at Leiden University in The Netherlands, Stolker brings the perspective of a dean who has sought to innovate, and of a university president who has dealt with the political, academic, financial, and managerial complications of a modern university. The book offers a broad look at legal education around the world, along with a thoughtful exposition of the challenges facing law schools and law deans. Stolker is no cheerleader for the current state of legal education, but recognizing that ―the nature, content and quality of legal education is a subject that flares up frequently and dies down again, The approaches the issues without the shrillness and anger that characterize some of the current commentary. He also leavens his realism with some welcomed humor, noting, for ex- ample that ―changing a university is like moving a graveyard, you get no help from the people inside