Building the World Community through Legal Education

The author argues that a continued focus by the US legal education establishment on standard courses that remain inextricably attached to an autonomous domestic system is inadequate to prepare lawyers for the new interconnected world reality. All legal issues now have both international and domestic features, in the sense that they influence or are influenced by developments in both the domestic and international arenas. In the author’s proposed model, new skills would be identified, social change and awareness would be emphasized, and a cross-cultural perspective would be sought. This can be done by establishing links between the study of domestic and international law through weaving international law concepts into courses considered domestic; by focusing on the different types of legal systems and cultures--common law, civil law, religious law, and customary law--that exist around the world; and by incorporating into the academic agenda an understanding of how culture affects the action of individuals and their relationship with a legal system. By shifting emphasis in these ways the law school curriculum would create a more open and forward-looking legal education that truly participates in the wider world in which law graduates will have to engage.https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_bk_contributions/1089/thumbnail.jp