Legal education in Nigeria: an evaluation of the recruitment practice for the teaching of law as a career

This article makes a critical assessment of legal education in Nigeria, focusing on the standard of hiring for the teaching of law as a career in the country. Legal academics are hired based upon an accreditation standard that requires a vocational qualification determined through a call to the Nigerian Bar. The article argues that making a vocational qualification a criterion for academic appointment – apart from other achievements demonstrated through higher law degrees – inhibits innovation in teaching and learning and needs to change. This change is premised on three reasons: the growth of interdisciplinary legal scholarship; the trend in the legal marketplace; and the correlation between a law faculty and a department of religion. And it concludes with some proposals to think about for a more scholarly approach towards the teaching of law within Nigerian academia. The aim of this article is to inform the essential dichotomy between legal scholarship and practice, and the transnational aspirations of legal academics, for those involved in the development of law teaching and study, as well as those concerned with educational policy and administration around the world.     

Law teaching at colleges of further education

Scholars have long agreed upon the interrelated rationales for a diverse law faculty, which include the recognition of the value of multi-perspective and multicultural education and scholarship, the promotion of non-discrimination and prevention of discrimination in the legal academy and legal community at large, and the benefits of minority mentors and role models for minority students. This article will make use of the United States Supreme Court’s 2003 landmark decision in Grutter v Bollinger to illuminate how its diversity rationale in the admission of law students should extend to the hiring of minority law faculty members. Further, it will argue that “racial minorities” should include not only African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans, but also Asian Americans. Finally, law schools should include foreign professors in their affirmative action hiring efforts in this era of globalisation. Although this article focuses more upon faculty hiring than student admission, to the extent that it appropriates the Grutter rationale to discuss affirmative action hiring, affirmative action admission will also be a significant part of the discussion. After all, a diverse law faculty and a diverse student body are inseparable components of a supportive and friendly law school environment.     

The Impact of Legal Education: An In-Depth Examination of Career-relevant Interests, Attitudes, and Personality Traits Among First-Year Law Students

This article examines in detail patterns of change in career-relevant interests, attitudes, and personality characteristics among first-year students in one law school. The data presented suggest that a single entering law school class can be viewed as a varied group in terms of career plans and potential behavioral styles. Moreover, immersion in the law school environment may accentuate this initial variability. Although some studies have suggested that, overall, first-year law students experience a drop in law interests, including interests in altruistic and "socially conscious" career activities, the methods of analysis used in this study suggest alternative interpretations of some aspects of such changes. In addition, the author believes these methods shed greater light on the overall process of professional development in law school.     

A review of rejected police candidates.

This paper reviews the activities of a Civil Service Medical Review Board which has reviewed the appeals of civil service applicants, particularly for police work, who have been rejected for psychiatric reasons by the hiring authority on the grounds of "mental unfitness." In a 1-1/2-year period, 98 cases have been reviewed. The Board has upheld the applicant in 65% of the cases and the hiring authority in 35% of the cases. Some of the factors resulting in the reversal of the decision of the hiring authority have been discussed. These include insufficient and superficial examination, inappropriate use of test material, attitudinal biases by the examiner, and inadequate reports which do not provide the adequate documentation required by law. It has been the hope of the Board that this review of professional judgment will ultimately impress both hiring authorities and examiners with the defects of the procedures utilized and will encourage them to provide higher quality screening which will be upheld on appeal. To a degree this has been accomplished. Hiring authorities were upheld in only 25% of the cases from September 1973 to March 1974 and 18% from March 1974 to September 1974. This changed radically in the September 1974 to December 1974 period, when hiring authorities were upheld in 60% of the appeals. As has been pointed out, such screening primarily involves review of personality disorders which, by their nature, require thoroughness of knowledge and delicacy of judgment for the formulation of a reasonable conclusion. It is hoped that these lessons will ultimately result in the selection of police officers likely to be successful at their tasks, without arbitrary rejection of those who reasonably merit a trial at work so essential to our society.     

从善秩到善治:乡村治理有效的法治逻辑

全面推进乡村振兴,治理有效是基础,而治理有效需要建立在良好的治理秩序基础之上.建构基于法治的乡村治理秩序,是从善秩到善治的关键,其取决于村内部治理秩序和村外部治理秩序的良性运转、协调与平衡.逻辑框架在于:村内部层面,村民依法自治、依法用权维权;村外部层面,政府依法行政,推进治理法治化;协调与平衡层面,良法善治、缘法而治...     

Predicting Lawyer Effectiveness: Broadening the Basis for Law School Admission Decisions

Law school admission decisions are heavily influenced by a student's undergraduate grade point average (UGPA) and Law School Admission Test (LSAT) score. These measures, although predictive of first‐year law school grades, make no effort to predict professional competence and, for the most part, they do not. These measures also create adverse impact on applicants from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. This article describes the rationale for and process by which we explored new tests to predict lawyer effectiveness rather than law school grades and reports results of a multiyear empirical study involving over 3,000 graduates from Berkeley Law School and Hastings College of the Law. Tests measuring personality constructs, interests, values, and judgment predicted lawyering competency but had little or no adverse impact on underrepresented minority applicants. Combined with the LSAT and UGPA, these broader tests could assess law applicants on the basis both of projected professional effectiveness and academic indicators.     

Privacy,CCTV, and School Surveillance in the Shadow of Imagined Law

How do managers make decisions that affect human rights of other people? The article examines one such case: the decision‐making process of Israeli school principals in installing Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) systems in schools. One unexpected source that principals relied on was that of imagined law: they wrongly assumed that there was a law that guided them in the matter. The deployment of CCTV systems in Israeli schools is relatively new and takes place at an accelerated pace. School principals are the ones that make the decision about introducing such systems into their schools. The study traced and explored this process. Based on semi‐structured interviews, the findings portray a picture of partial isomorphism among schools. We frame the findings within institutional theory, which differentiates between exogenous and endogenous sources of decision‐making. Most school principals relied on endogenous sources that were shaped by practical considerations and their own perceptions as to security, privacy, and education. Yet, the interviews indicate an additional and surprising source of organizational decision‐making: imagined law. Some of the principals assumed the existence of specific legal rules. The principals did not search for professional guidance, and did not consult others. Instead, they filled the imagined law with endogenous sources, namely, their own perceptions.     

‘A Lot of Them Thought I wouldn’t Last There’: African Women and Career Advancement in Academic Scientific Careers

This paper examines the relevance of cultural diversity in studies of women in scientific professions. It is based on a qualitative study of 18 African women in academic scientific careers and representing several English-speaking countries. I investigate how women who seek and gain entry into academic scientific careers are positioned in the academic hierarchy and whether their rate of progress is impeded by exclusionary practices in their professional fields. I also examine whether other interacting circumstances such as development issues, colonial legacies, and the influence of patriarchal states and cultures create somewhat different types of constraints and options for women in academic settings. I address these concerns by investigating the following issues: (1) early career experiences (academic, political, and economic concerns, (2) response from important others (professional colleagues, administrators, and students, (3) reflections on career barriers (faculty rank, research productivity, and perceptions of job satisfaction).JEL Classification: J16, J24     

Creating Peer Sexual Harassment: Mobilizing Schools to Throw the Book at Themselves

This paper describes how peer-to-peer sexual harassment rapidly was transformed from an unremarkable reality of secondary school life into a serious social and legal problem. First, it shows how organizations and professionals served as an entry point for social change and legal mobilization. I argue that schools were quick to address peer sexual harassment because activists framed it as a moral and pedagogical issue that resonated with educators' deeply held professional values. Second, the paper shows how law and organizations developed endogenously. Without any legal mandate, schools created and institutionalized harassment policies. Courts then looked to these organizational practices to determine the content and scope of Title IX. In this way, schools literally "enacted" the law through their practices. This finding goes beyond previous work on endogeneity in that school policies influenced law at the level of doctrine, not simply at the level of meaning, enforcement, or application.     

The Sustainability of University-Industry Research Collaboration: An Empirical Assessment

The concept of university-industry collaboration is an important social experiment in the nation's innovation system. This study examines the sustainability of this collaborative experience by focusing on the actual give-and-take outcomes between university faculty members and industrial firms. Based on two separate but similar surveys conducted in 1997, one for faculty members and another for industry technology managers, the study reports that participants in research collaboration appear to realize significant benefits, some expected and others unexpected. The most significant benefit realized by firms is an increased access to new university research and discoveries, and the most significant benefits by faculty members is complementing their own academic research by securing funds for graduate students and lab equipment, and by seeking insights into their own research. Reflecting on their collaborative experience, an overwhelming majority of these participants say that in the future they would expand or at least sustain the present level of collaboration.     

二十世纪中国法制成长模式论

回顾20世纪的风雨历程,中国法制的起步经历了三个步骤:一是学习日本法或者说通过日本学西方;二是学苏联,开始建设中国社会主义法;三是对英美法系依恋与模仿.新中国法制的历程经历了革命的法制、管理的法制--国家对经济干预的法制、并正在进入治理的法制.整个这一过程的法,我们称之为"混合法"."混合法"说明我国的职业法学家阶层没有形成,法律处于仿效与探索之中,法学教育与研究方法需要改进,法律人才需要交流,职业共同体的建立具有迫切性等.     

A Forked River Runs Through Law School: Toward Understanding Race, Gender, Age, and Related Gaps in Law School Performance and Bar Passage

Analyses of the National Longitudinal Bar Passage Study (N = 27,478), demonstrate that law schools enlarge entering academic differences across race, age, disability, and socioeconomic origins rather than reduce them, and that academic differences in turn impact bar passage. Such differences cannot be reduced to (1) academic preparation, effort, or distractions; (2) instructional or law school-type characteristics; (3) social class; or (4) acceptance of an elitist legal ethos. Rather, results suggest that (1) women, minorities, and other atypical law students confront stigmatization throughout legal education;(2) for women (entering law school in 1991), this stigmatization is new, rejected, and consequently unassociated with law school outcomes; (3) for minorities, this stigmatization is continuous with prior socialization, making resistance difficult and consequent impact sizable; and (4) for other atypical law students, this stigmatization varies with visibility of difference, as do resistance and impact. Implications for social stigma theory and legal education are discussed.     

Thinking like a lawyer/acting like a professional: communities of practice as a means of challenging orthodox legal education

Increasingly, there is pressure upon law schools, in Australia and elsewhere, to impress upon students the significance of the ethical and professional obligations of legal practice. The recent Carnegie Report explicitly looked to law schools “to initiate novice practitioners to think, to perform, and to conduct themselves (that is, to act morally and ethically) like professionals”. Many law students, however, have little appreciation of legal ethics and any concept they may have of professionalism tends to be envisaged as applying only after graduation. In this paper, we explore the idea of a “community of practice”. Lave and Wenger, who coined the phrase, contend that “learning is conceived as a trajectory in which learners move from legitimate peripheral participant to core participant of the community of practice”. We will argue that law students should appreciate that they are entering the legal profession's community of practice and that all aspects of their conduct relevant to professionalism – not only academic integrity, but matters such as time management, teamwork, relationships with peers and staff – relate to this transition into a legal professional community. Such an approach may not only serve to impress upon students the significance of “professionalism” and ethics, but inculcate in them a sense of belonging to a professional community.     

The legal status of clinical and ethics policies, codes, and guidelines in medical practice and research

This article examines the legal status of "soft law" in the fields of medicine and medical research. Many areas of clinical practice and research involve complex and rapidly changing issues for which the law provides no guidance. Instead, guidance for physicians and researchers comes from what has often been called "soft law"--non-legislative, non-regulatory sources, such as ethics policy statements, codes, and guidelines from professional or quasi-governmental bodies. This article traces the evolution of these "soft law" instruments: how they are created, how they are adopted within the professional community, and how they become accepted by the courts. It studies the relationship between soft law instruments and the courts. It includes an examination of the approaches to judicial analysis used by the courts in theory and in practice. The authors then examine the jurisprudence to see how courts will adopt professional norms as the legal standard of care in some circumstances and not others. They consider the legal concerns and ethical issues surrounding the weight attached to professional practices and norms in law. The authors demonstrate how practices and policies that guide professional conduct may ultimately bear weight as norms recognizable and enforceable within the legal sphere.     

The limits and benefits of international mobility: an empirical examination of the biographies of Australian legal academics

ABSTRACT

Academics are becoming increasingly internationally mobile, and yet there is still limited research into the nature, outcomes and limits of academic mobility. This paper examines the biographies of over 700 academics employed within Australian law schools. It identifies legal academics who hold academics qualifications have been employed outside of Australia. Almost a quarter of legal academics in our sample hold a first degree outside of Australia, over a third hold a non-Australian post-graduate degree. While it could be expected that possessing international experience would broaden an academic’s cultural experiences, we also found that the internationally mobile academics have typically studied and worked previously within an elite international law school, and are now employed within an elite Australian law school. In addition, experiences of international mobility are not equally distributed, and male legal academics are significantly more likely to have international experience than female legal academics.     

新《律师法》与《刑事诉讼法》的立法性冲突及化解路径——兼论我国法律适用规则的完善

新<律师法>与<刑事诉讼法>存在立法性冲突,导致新<律师法>施行后的执法性报复.学术界和实务界对新<律师法>的法律效力见解不一.根据<宪法>、<立法法>等规定,全国人大与其常委会的关系不能成为确定新<律师法>与<刑事诉讼法>法律位阶关系之根据.全国人大与其常委会不属于<立法法>中的同一机关,但"视为"同一机关具有现实合理性.全国人大常委会法制工作委员会对新<律师法>法律效力的答复存在形式上的不妥当性与内容上的不合法性.应通过个案解决的立法技术以及法律适用规则的完善,为新<律师法>与<刑事诉讼法>的立法性冲突提供解决对策,也为国内法律冲突提供制度化化解路径.     

How to Push an Elephant Through a Straw: Using Wireless Technology in a Web-enhanced Skills Program

The title of this article derives from the expression used by programmers and developers to explain problems of limited network bandwidth connection speeds. The ever-increasing demand by growing numbers of web users for bandwidth-intensive media is outstripping the Internet's capacity to deliver information. In this case, the 'Elephant' is the massive online information system, including text, graphics, audio, and video, and the 'Straw' is the low bandwidth through which only a fixed volume can move. Generally, compression of data is the way to push that elephant through the straw. Included among those users competing for bandwidth are law schools. In the last decade, technology has begun to occupy a more pivotal role in American legal education. As law firms increase their use of technology in response to client demand, they must hire associates who graduate from law school prepared for high-technology law practice. The resulting pressure on law schools to incorporate technology into class materials and instruction has arisen contemporaneously with pressure to increase the teaching of lawyering skills. A tension arises, however, between the obligation of legal educators to expose students to emerging technologies and the additional burdens thereby imposed upon law schools to add lawyering skills to the the existing curriculum without displacing needed doctrinal and analytical instruction. The authors are faculty members and administrators at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) Shepard Broad Law Center, which was named "Most Wired Law School" by National Jurist in 1998 and 2001. The centrepiece of legal education at NSU is a high technology Lawyering Skills and Values Program that employs wireless classrooms and web-enhanced education. Delivering a lawyering skills course through technology is not unlike pushing an elephant through a straw. The challenge is to accomplish pedagogical goals without compressing either the curriculum or the social processes of teaching and learning. This article describes and evaluates the authors' practical experiences planning, implementing, and teaching a Lawyering Skills course to first-year students in a wireless classroom environment.     

IT and Law,and Law Schools

If 'computing and law' as a discipline is to push forward and develop, it will do so best within the context of the law school rather than as a joint enterprise between law and other disciplines. It is in the law school that the understanding of the nature of law is at its height. Yet there are problems here-law schools have a strained relationship with technology and their concept of the breadth of 'legal scholarship' can be limited by conventional (or ideologically-biased) views of law and an undergraduate-oriented view of the law school's purpose. There are also problems arising from the nature of communications between lawyers and computer scientists. In this article, I highlight these problems and also argue for a more developed and extended view of legal scholarship which will be able to incorporate study and research of the impact of the computer upon legal society as well as the legal control of the unwanted elements arising from these new technologies. Most writings on IT and the law school concentrate upon its use as an educational tool. My interest here is not so much in this side of things, but in the research culture of the law school. Whilst there is sometimes a view that the linkage of law school and IT is purely related to the use of technology in legal education, the remit is wider and includes the understanding of the link between substantive law and the context of the new computerized world and also the impact of the computer in the practice of law. This latter aspect is becoming increasingly important with the Woolf reforms and computerization of the procedural elements of law, but also in substantive law: for example, administrative systems are becoming more and more mediated by technology, and administrative law must be reviewed and re-worked in this context.     

A New Paradigm for the Teaching of Business Law and Legal Environment Classes

There is a need to develop curriculum and materials on law-related topics better designed for business students planning a career in business. Except incidentally, business school legal faculty are not teaching future lawyers or paralegals. The world of the business practitioner is very different from that of the lawyer. For most business people the law and lawyers are a necessary nuisance. Furthermore, the legal world is changing. For example, methods of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) have become mainstream. Opportunities for "self-help law" have proliferated. These trends, and other opportunities considered in this article, offer substantial benefits to the business community. To meet the needs of today's business person, college business law and legal environment courses must stress economical, intelligent prevention of legal problems and resolution of conflict . This article is about empowering future business managers by utilizing their class time to educate them to more directly meet these goals. Topical coverage and pedagogical approaches for implementing a new paradigm in a business school introductory law course are detailed. Faculty members should not allow fear of change to deter a needed overhauling of the curriculum, as such procrastination could harm the profession's future standing.