何谓好的法律教育

What Constitutes a Good Legal Education?

首创于哈佛法学院的兰德尔教学法,在法律教育领域风行数十年,沾染了兰德尔本人的古怪个性,主张图书馆是法学院的心脏,主张法科师生必须全神贯注于馆藏书籍,忽视律师事务所的工作经历或者对于庭审活动的出席观摩。这种教学法对于一流法学院的人才培养产生了广泛的负面影响,令美国法律教育死气沉沉。庞德所谓"行动中的法律"不过是隔靴搔痒的漂亮说辞,哈佛法学院充其量是在关注图书馆里的"行动中的法律"。法学院应该类似于一种得到升华的律师事务所,应该转变为律师学院,应该直面律师生活的实情,应该关注近在咫尺的法律实验室亦即周围的法院,应该恢复古老的学徒制传统,应该要求法学教师具有一定年限的实务经验,以便培养出能够适应经济危机时代的职业法律人才。

The Langdellian system which arose from Harvard Law School and dominated American legal education for several decades,comes out of the peculiar personality of Langdell himself.It argues that library is the heart of a law school,that teachers and students therein must place primary emphasis on the books,that they may ignore the work in a lawyer’s office and the attendance upon the proceedings of courts.Such a system has produced extensive and blighting effects on the leading law schools in America.Pound’s so called "law in the action"is just a happy phrase,and Harvard at best is focusing on"law in the action"in the library.Our law school should resemble a sort of sublimated law office,should transform into lawyer school,should face directly the actualities of lawyer’s life,should pay attention to the near-by law laboratories(i.e.courts around us),should revive the old apprentice system,should have teachers with practical experience of no less than five years,in order to produce legal professionals meeting the current economic crisis.