Dual legal education: teaching and learning in law with French law degrees

In her paper Marie-Luce Paris (University College Dublin) presented a case study on the integration of French legal education into a degree on Irish/English law.

Marie-Luce’s slides are embedded below, and you can also download her full paper (RTF file, 18 pages, 312 KB) at the bottom of the page. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the European Law Faculties Association’s 2008 Annual Conference.

Coincidentally, a total of four papers at the Learning in Law Annual Conference 2009 explored the implications of the differences between the French and UK/Irish legal education systems – see the other papers by Audrey Guinchard, Ruth Sefton-Green and Chloë Wallace. In her report on Ruth and Audrey’s papers Chloë noted that “the cultural leap is significant and possibly not as well understood as it could be, with an important impact on mobility and on quality assurance”.

The paper presents a case study on the challenges posed by the integration of French legal education into the common law environment. It explores particular teaching and learning issues, including difficulties in programme and curriculum design and the appropriateness of teaching methods, and then looks at more ‘existential’ questions relating to the benefits of diversifying the experience of legal education.

The demands of globalisation have increased pressure to internationalise the curriculum in order to prepare students and future lawyers for global citizenship. This is particularly relevant in the context of the EU, where Erasmus and other exchange programmes have been successful in transforming the mindset of students and academics towards legal studies and giving the law curriculum a truly European dimension.

Joint law degrees, broadly defined as degrees awarded on the basis of completion of a study programme established and provided jointly by two or more higher education institutions, normally located in different countries, are also potentially useful in helping the further internationalisation of European higher education and making the European Higher Education Area a reality.

A range of policy initiatives taken by EU institutions and other actors, most notably in the Lisbon Strategy (March 2000), show a clear concern for diversity and ‘multiculturalism’ in the provision of legal education. Apart from the imperative to reach excellence in teaching and learning, two other aspects are significant in this regard – first, the necessity, especially in terms of the diversity of programmes, to learn languages, and, secondly, the importance of learning about other legal systems.

Although there is allegedly a cultural hegemony, leading to a ‘commonisation’ of European law in favour of the common law system with English the lingua franca of the lawyer, English and Irish universities (still) offer law degree programmes which include the study of another cultural background – either by offering the opportunity to learn another language or to learn another legal system and language. French and the French civil law system are the most studied in this context.

Sara Chandler (College of Law) reports:

Marie-Luce Paris described how Irish and French students study in the same class. A partnership has built up between the two universities, although there are some difficulties – in Ireland the varying requirements of the regulatory bodies (the Law Society, the Bar and the Institute) mean there is little flexibility, whereas in the French system students do not cover enormous amounts of knowledge, with the course more focused on skills.
 
From the students’ perspective the benefits include comparative discussion and different approaches to teaching and learning, plus greater career prospects, although there has been low take up of Erasmus scholarships enabling students and young lawyers to work in European jurisdictions.
 
For the university the justification is that the students get two degrees for the price of one – good marketing, so the curriculum gets stuffed with more knowledge. However, two very different degrees for the price of one is complicated, and in fact the amount of work in organising and administering means two degrees rather than one joint degree! Two departments have to work as one, involving meetings, negotiations etc.
 
Concerns were raised about language support for the students when they are in France – there are some withdrawals because of language difficulties. There is a perception that when students go abroad they pick up the language they need, but they need legal French as well as conversational French. Arrangements have been made for supplementary language classes, with the students paying 50% of the cost.

About Marie-Luce

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Marie-Luce Paris-Dobozy is a lecturer in the School of Law at University College Dublin, where she is director of two degrees (the Bachelor of Civil Law with French Law and the Bachelor of Civil Law/Maîtrise).

Marie-Luce studied law at Université Panthéon Assas, Paris. Her research interests are in EU constitutional and institutional law, comparative constitutional law and human rights law, as well as in legal education. She was recently awarded the UCD Graduate Diploma in University Teaching & Learning.

She is member of several associations, including the new Irish Society of Comparative Law (ISCL), and is the School of Law representative for the International Association of Law Schools (IALS) and the European Law Faculties Association (ELFA).

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Last Modified: 9 July 2010