2010 joint winner

How might a legal education enable students to contribute to the improvement of society?

Liz Williams (Christ Church College, University of Oxford)

Learning to live

It is still occasionally rumoured that legal education is the preserve of those who want to practise law: would-be solicitors preparing for a starring role in the next City merger with clients listed in every corner of every continent, or persuasive personalities armed with ingenuity and perseverance in their pursuit of the Bar and beyond. Nevertheless, such assertions are increasingly questionable in view of the popularity of law conversion courses offering access to the law professions to those from other academic backgrounds. It could be argued that the three or four year law degree is becoming obsolete, rendered insignificant beyond the confines of the academic community, relevant only to those who wish to teach or tutor. Such cataclysmic predictions may be dismissed as far-fetched, but they can also be criticised as inaccurate – failing to take into account the multi-faceted benefits of studying law, both for individuals and society.

As a veteran approaching the end of a four year undergraduate degree, the question of what my education has equipped me for is at the forefront of my mind. On a basic level, legal education can be seen as preparation for the role of advisor and, its next-of-kin, advocate. Across the spectrum of core subjects, case after case and principle after principle is learned off-by-heart, applied to problem questions, picked apart in essays and argued over in classes. The accumulation of this exposure to “what the law is” marks the beginning of the divergence: lawyer and lay-man parting ways; the former qualified to instruct and guide the latter past the pitfalls of the law’s unruly terrain, or to attempt a rescue where difficulties have not been averted. Legal education, on this understanding, is about acquiring a body of information and the ability to utilise it for the protection and advancement of others. And what a vast body of information it is: “the law” pervades each and every aspect of life – from the intimate spheres of gender recognition to the regulation of property and commerce, the law extends across such an almost inscrutable breadth of elements that to attempt to exhaustively list its ambit is futile. Similarly, any amount of time spent considering “what the law is” invariably spawns more questions than it solves. On the one hand, statements about the content of the law may be controversial where the subject matter is quickly evolving, as in an area such as Intellectual Property Law where technology overtakes technology at a rapid rate. Controversy may also stem from the opposite source, as where it is argued that the law is being used to engineer social changes that are felt to be inappropriate by some quarters, such as the smoking ban or liberalisation of abortion laws. The controversy here is not from lack of clarity as to what the law states, but rather disagreement over what it should be stating. On the other hand, statements of the nature of law itself have been controversial enough to generate a whole body of academia over the centuries in the form of Jurisprudence: the philosophy of law.

The social need for advisors and advocates is indisputable when the sheer pervasiveness of legal regulation is considered. We need help to navigate the vast regulatory frameworks affecting every aspect of our lives. However, those same expansive and pervasive features of the law make it painfully obvious that these roles, in themselves, are not enough. Even if legal education churns out thousands of highly qualified experts able to state what the law says on any given point in question, our living environment is so diverse and dynamic that all attempts to merely describe and apply information will ultimately fall foul of change. As pressing as the need for interpretation of the laws of our society is, given their potential fluidity, an arguably greater social need is for thoughtfulness in the on-going evolution. “Thoughtfulness” is a woolly word but, as such, is capable of encompassing a range of characteristics essential to facing the challenges of the 21st century. Never before have we been exposed to so much information; never before have we had the potential to be so interconnected as individuals and as nations; never before have we had the capacity to create for ourselves or inflict on others such disparate life experiences. In light of these changes, our need for social structures that protect the ideals of justice and dignity and regulate the impact of individual and group behaviour has arguably never been greater. Such ideals remain rhetoric without “thoughtfulness”.

Thoughtfulness is the capacity for comparative analysis: the weighing up of arguments and the dissection of complex questions. It includes intellectual tenacity: the refusal to resort to stereotypes and lazy prejudice to justify holding a particular viewpoint. Above all, it is the capacity for emotional intelligence: the ability to recognise the fundamental importance of engaging with issues that are contentious and morally complex, tolerance towards the existence of opposing viewpoints, the patience to accept criticism. Legal education is arguably unique in its potential to galvanise such thoughtfulness given the range of topics it touches on. From the supranational details in Public International Law, to horizontal concerns such as the fairness of a contractual term between private parties, through to philosophical ideas about the nature of authority and reasons why people obey the law, legal education is unique in the diversity of ideas it exposes the student to. The best legal education is one which provokes a response to this exposure, leaving the student with both an enduring capacity to mentally grapple with social issues in a principled and articulate manner, and also the motivation to act in considered and conscientious ways as an individual, employee and a citizen.

Set against this criterion, it is not necessarily problematic that law professionals may come from a different academic background: studying something else can be seen to provide an opportunity to broaden their intellectual horizons. Equally, a legal education that cultivates the criterion of thoughtfulness means that those who engage in pursuits outside the law profession do so with the kind of analytical rigour and perception that leads to good decision-making and better outcomes in whatever their chosen sphere of engagement. Having declined the traditional post-graduate avenues of solicitor and barrister on grounds of personal preference, the options open to me inevitably involve an element of detour. Nevertheless, in exploring where my degree might take me, I have realised that whatever form my contribution to society takes, the substance of it will be shaped by the qualities legal education has developed in me: lessons in life, for life.

Last Modified: 14 October 2010