The Crisis in Legal Education: Embracing Ethnographic Approaches to Law

Abstract

There is general consensus amongst many laws schools around the world that legal education is in crisis and needs to be reformed. This crisis is very evident in the United States where the cost of legal education and the concurrent decline in law firm employment has placed pressures both on law students and law schools. Some legal educators argue that legal education needs to teach vocational and technical skills applicable to the current job market. Others argue legal education should be more attentive to transnational legal processes and should be training global citizens. In this essay I argue that whatever particular reformist trajectory, an ethnographic approach underscores the connections between laws, skills and values that is said to be lacking in much legal education. Drawing primarily on the US legal system and an illustrative case study within it, I argue that all legal training, be it in family law or corporate law, and be it for practicing at local, national, regional, international or transnational levels, could benefit from a bottom-up grounded ethnographic approach. An ethnographic approach makes legal education more relevant and applicable in today’s complex world that involves, amongst other things, increasing multi-ethnic and multi-religious tensions and various forms of legal pluralism. I contend that ethnographic approaches provide one pedagogical strategy to better train and prepare young lawyers to deal with the pressing legal challenges of the 21st century that are manifesting in interconnected ways at home and abroad. I conclude with some recommendations for legal educators to think about in shaping a more inclusive, rich and relevant law school curriculum that also concurrently underscores the integrity of the legal profession and the democratic institutions and principles of social justice that lawyers supposedly uphold.

Keywords: legal education, ethnography, legal pluralism, globalization