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ALTA Law Research Series |
Last Updated: 23 September 2011
THE DEMISE OF DIVERSITY IN LEGAL EDUCATION: GLOBALISATION AND THE NEW KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY[*]
(2001) 8(1) International Journal of the Legal Profession
37-56
(Prepublication Version)
Margaret Thornton
Professor of Law & Legal
Studies
La Trobe University
Abstract:
This paper considers the impact on the law curriculum of
globalisation within a neoliberal climate. While globalisation has connotations
of diversity and difference, its economic manifestation may have a homogenising
effect.The backdrop to the study is the marked shift
to the right that has
occurred in Australian politics, emulating the global trend, which has resulted
in neo-liberalism supplanting
social liberalism as the dominant ideology.
Neo-liberalism necessarily locates its subjects within the market where they are
expected
to vie with one another for survival and success. Globalisation is one
manifestation of neo-liberal competition policy, which, along
with
corporatisation and privatisation, displays little interest in diversity
politics, other than as a means of enhancing market
image. The feminine, for
example, is constructed as incompatible with corporatisation and competition.
Just as the political shift
to the right has witnessed a dilution, if not a
complete disbandonment, of formal social justice measures, there has been a
tendency
to dismantle feminist legal studies subjects, as well as to contract
critical and theoretical subjects of all types within the law
curriculum because
they are deemed to have little use value. In contrast, subjects such as
international business law are expanding
rapidly because of their assumed value
to the neo-liberal state.
--------o0o-------
Apologue
Just when it appeared that legal education was becoming more critical, more humane and more diverse, the ground beneath our feet began to move. The earth opened up and the positive developments of two decades or more began to slip and slide inexorably towards a gaping abyss. Our efforts to intervene were of little avail. Some initiatives disappeared into the blackness and were never seen again. Others teetered on the edge. We tried to look but were overcome by vertigo. We fell into a stupor. Some of our colleagues had a dream in which a Midas-like figure appeared, crying out: ‘The market is the way, the truth and the light. All who follow it faithfully and spread its message throughout the world shall experience eternal prosperity. Forsake all thought of justice and the life of the mind if thou hopest to partake of its rewards.’ And they did.
Introduction: The Neoliberal Turn
This paper will consider how the twin phenomena of
globalisation and neoliberalism are impacting on legal education to mould it so
that it may better serve the new knowledge economy. My analysis draws mainly on
the Australian example, where the propulsion in favour
of neoliberalism has been
dramatic,[1] although it
has followed a similar trajectory in the United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, the
United States and other parts of the world.
Neoliberalism has supplanted
social liberalism as the dominant political philosophy of our time. It has
sloughed off the notion of
common good associated with the welfare state of the
Twentieth Century in favour of an arrant individualism which is relentlessly
pursued through the market. The state has supported this change by forming an
intimate liaison with the market at the expense of
civil society. The market has
become the quintessential sphere of freedom, even though it is incapable of
producing a civic
culture.[2] The
pro-market role of the neoliberal state is clearly manifest through its policies
of privatisation and de-regulation. Neoliberals
believe that the world will get
along best if markets are allowed to function with little or no
interference.[3] The
adulation of the market is not merely a Western aberration, but a seemingly
unstoppable global phenomenon. Indeed, neoliberalism
itself is a globalising
theory because it involves the application of the same theory at world level
that guides local
involvement.[4]
Not
only are neoliberalism and globalisation thoroughly imbricated with each other,
but the crucial role of law as the traditional
handmaiden of capitalism cannot
be overlooked. Always deferential to the dominant political values in society,
law tolerated social
liberalism, but globalisation has given it an adrenalin
shot in the arm. The prospect of unprecedented financial rewards outweighs
any
quibble that might be raised about the ethical ramifications of globalisation:
‘Compassion and philanthropy aren’t
part of the “global”
agenda.’[5]
At
the same time as marketising changes are being wrought, neoliberal governments
are seeking to harness knowledge
production.[6] As
Lyotard first recognised, knowledge has become a commodity as a consequence of
industrialisation and society’s entry into
the post-modern age. Government
policy is quite explicitly directed towards the new knowledge economy in which
it is the role of
universities to train new knowledge workers to serve nation
states in order to make them globally competitive. Law is a key area,
along with
business, informatics and biotechnology. Accordingly, there is pressure on law
schools to produce new knowledge workers
because of the high premium attached to
legal knowledge. New knowledge is gauged solely in terms of its use value.
Hence, legal education
is valued in terms of its ability to generate profits as
a commodity in its own right, as well as to facilitate the market in a global
setting. Those dimensions of legal scholarship lacking use value are expendable.
This is the crux of the diversity dilemma but, first,
a word about globalisation
and its impact on legal practice.The Global Stage
Globalisation has become
the paradigmatic (fin de siècle) buzzword of our time. It
epitomises chaos and instability in its disregard for borders and its perpetual
need to re-invent the corporate
self through restructuring and downsizing.
Despite the fluidity of the term, the signs of the market remain clearly
discernible —
competition, insecurity and short-term relationships —
all of which are corrosive of loyalty and
commitment.[7]
Globalisation is driven by a voracious need to find new markets and ever-cheaper
sources of labour in order to maximise profits.
The undeniable leitmotif
of globalisation is that the market is the measure of all things.
An uneasy
relationship exists between internationalisation and globalisation. The
literature seeks to draw a distinction between
them,[8] suggesting that
internationalisation refers to relations between nation states, while
globalisation refers to relationships, practices
and money flows that transcend
national borders. Perhaps of most significance is the way globalisation
challenges traditional understandings
of governance and legality, whereas
internationalisation endeavours to hold onto the sovereign
state.[9]
Globalisation refuses to be corralled by borders, semiotic or otherwise. In the
manner of a corporate takeover, it evinces a desire
to swallow the nation state
and become the generic term. The realpolitik of globalisation, however, is that
it is based on a society
of nation states of unequal power. The elusiveness of
globalisation arises in part from the manner in which it flits between the
universal of the global and the specificity of the nation state, filching
whatever takes its fancy, and restlessly moving on. Globalisation’s
imperialistic propensity is contingent on identification with specific nation
states, as can be seen from its ubiquitous Anglocentricity,
illustrated by the
fact that the preponderance of electronically coded information is in English.
Similarly, the preponderance of
identifiable corporate symbols are associated
with the United
States.1[0]
Some
examples of economic globalisation, such as the establishment of branches of a
company all over the world, are very
familiar.1[1] More
recent manifestations include cross-border mergers, such as that which occurred
between the United States company, Chrysler,
and the German company, Daimler
Benz, to create a super firm valued at between $US35b and $US39b, billed as the
largest cross-border
merger in
history.1[2] The new
super firm would be neither German nor American, thereby exemplifying the
anarchic character of globalisation. Mergers of
this kind also reveal the
magnitude of the financial operations, which exceed the gross national product
of many nation states, as
well as signifying the impossibility of containing and
limiting global appetites. The corporate users of new knowledge may be located
anywhere in the world: they may inhabit several places simultaneously or float
free without a fixed place of abode altogether. How
are these corporations to be
reined in, and by whom, when there is no system of global governance and the
concept of good corporate
citizenship rings hollow? Their magnitude threatens
the viability of the nation
state.1[3] There is
little point in looking to law for guidance, despite its metonymical association
with good order and legitimacy. Like other
institutions under neoliberalism,
including universities, law has been seduced by the market and the lure of
global business.
Auxiliaries of Globalisation
As the primary facilitator of
business within Western democratic capitalism, law ‘oils the wheels of
capitalism’ and
underpins the workings of the global economy. The
globalisation of business is dependent on lawyers who have knowledge of the
local
scene, either through their jurisdictional or their cross-border
expertise.1[4]
Despite
the alacrity with which law has attached itself to globalisation, there is, as
John Flood rather drily points out, ‘hardly
any global law for global
business to operate
within’.1[5] In
other words, transnational corporations must rely upon the law of particular
nation states, which tend to be those where lawyers
have been most
entrepreneurial. Unsurprisingly, they are predominantly American (New York) and
English (London), like the most powerful
transnational corporations. Hence,
legal practice is still wedded to specific jurisdictions; it falls far short of
the global descriptor.
Baker and McKenzie, with offices in 35 countries has been
described as the only truly global law
firm.1[6] However,
many United States law firms have a long tradition of maintaining foreign
offices for the convenience of their corporate
clients.1[7] The
insecurities of globalisation mean that client defection is always on the
agenda, which requires special efforts to be made to
anticipate client needs.
‘Global seamless service’ or ‘one-stop shopping’ is one
example, whereby law firms
are now joining with other professionals, such as
accountants and financial
advisers.1[8]
Despite
a core business of servicing clients, corporate law firms want to be the biggest
and the best in the world. Their ‘brand
names’ endow them with an
edge in a competitive market in the same way as benefits their leading
clients.1[9] The
mega-firms which resulted from national mergers a few years ago now aspire to be
transnational firms. Thus, cross-border mergers
have been effected between law
firms in order to consolidate their position within the international market.
The United States, with
its aggressive corporate culture, together with its
domination of investment banks and financial services, has taken the running
in
constituting the concept of international
lawyering.2[0] As a
counter-move, five of Europe’s leading commercial law firms have combined
to create Europe’s largest law practice
in order to compete against
American firms.2[1]
These firms push for deregulation on their own behalf as well as that of
clients. Hence, lawyers can no longer be termed merely the
‘bag carriers
of the business
world’,2[2] but
major drivers of global change. Anti-competitive barriers to legal practice are
being dismantled as practitioners argue for the
further liberalisation of trade
in legal services.2[3]
For the leading Australian firms, the rewards at the international level
dwarf those at the national level. Mallesons Stephen Jaques,
with three out of
eight offices located overseas, was involved in global acquisitions work worth
approximately $A140b in 1998, compared
with $A17b in mergers and acquisitions
work within
Australia.2[4] These
global players represent a new caste, whose very existence constitutes a
tantalising lure to young lawyers. Law schools, too,
are magnetically drawn to
the wealthy firms and their perceived needs in the design of their curricula.
The liaison between government
and market is also illustrated by the way law
firms are assisted by government bodies set up for the express purpose of
promoting
and exporting their legal
expertise.2[5]
In
developing new capital relations, we see the inventiveness of lawyers as they
create new roles for
themselves.2[6]
Nevertheless, in the course of facilitating billion dollar transactions, the
broader, socio-economic, political and cultural impact
of the activities of the
multinational law firms eludes scrutiny. While international protests signify
awareness of the potentially
devastating impact of marketising policies in Third
World countries, I know of no demonstration conducted against corporate law
firms,
multinational or otherwise, despite their key roles in effecting the
business of corporations, which may involve child labour, or
other dubious
practices. Lawyers are very adroit in taking refuge behind the principle of
agency, the technocratic veneer of legal
doctrine and the language of the
universal so as to denude their handiwork of moral content, while fashioning
courses of action that
evade or effect minimal compliance with local laws. Such
strategies conduce to what Peter Fitzpatrick percipiently the ‘innocence
of
law’.2[7]
Law
is thoroughly imbricated with global business in a number of sites other than
multinational law firms. The role of in-house corporate
counsel has increased in
importance in satisfying the corporate need for international law expertise,
which has served to enhance
the role of lawyers as managers and policy makers
within corporations. In addition, there has been a significant increase in the
number of chief executives of leading companies holding law
degrees.2[8] Senior
managers also rate law highly as a core business
subject.2[9] The
incarnation of law that is favoured tends to be that of the technocratic
facilitator of business: the ‘how to’ of
contract and commercial
law, and the protector of intellectual property. The homologous relationship
between law and business privileges
the technocratic and facilitative
imperatives so that the possibility of critical and reflexive voices are
quelled.
Western law firms are not only playing key roles in facilitating
global business in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Pacific,
but they are
also instrumental in importing Western political systems in order to write new
constitutions for former totalitarian
and communist regimes, as well as for
developing
countries.3[0] These
constitutions tend to be devised along Western liberal legal lines, the approach
thought to be most effective for economic
liberalisation. Because the ethnic
groups favoured by the market are frequently different from the ethnic groups
favoured by majority
rule, the market and democracy may not be mutually
reinforcing.3[1] The
imperialism and paternalism of Western lawyers’ intervention, effected
within the rubric of globalisation, is sometimes
blatant:
Since the United States alone cannot provide all the world’s
enforcement and adjudication, our foreign assistance program has
been called on
to help improve the legal systems of developing countries so that laws and
contracts are enforced. The overall objective
of U.S. foreign aid is to help
poorer countries develop so that they can become better partners with us and
play a role in world
affairs.3[2]
The
fragmentation induced by corporatisation and globalisation has numbed ethical
sensibilities. If corporate colleagues are gone
tomorrow, or one finds oneself
suddenly in a new job, new city, or new country, relationships and workplace
norms become ephemeral.
If people are treated as disposable, there is little
connection between risk and reward, workplaces are created which ‘brutally
diminish the sense of mattering as a
person’.3[3]
This fragmentation and indifference is fostered by global lawyering with its
focus on a ‘“fly-in, fly-out” method
of service delivery which
is cost-effective particularly for smaller law firms or new
markets’.3[4]
In a culture committed to economic rationality and billable hours, lawyers are
not supposed to worry about the long-term ramifications
of their actions, other
than in regard to the functional relationship to business? Globalisation may
induce a sense of powerlessness
so that associate lawyers become engulfed by
indifference, or they leave. Legal positivism endeavours to mask the dilemmas of
practice
by drawing a line of demarcation between law and
morality.3[5] In the
context of globalised law, clients are likely to be multinational corporations,
not workers in the forced labour trade, which
makes reversion to positivist
paradigms, with their bland exterior, more appealing to the proponents of the
new knowledge economy.
Legal practice becomes bearable if it can be
conceptualised as no more than a series of rules, game plays or set pieces. The
technocratic
has always been a nifty mechanism for occluding the violence of
law, a project in which a doctrinally oriented legal education has
been
complicit. It is ironic that just at the very moment legal education was
becoming more questioning and more diverse, neoliberalism
and its globalising
imperative has sought to rein it in.
Legal Education
(i) Responding to the Siren Call
As a result of the social justice
orientation of the 1970s, the high point of social liberalism, legal education
began to blossom,
providing the impetus to break out of the sterile technocratic
straitjacket that accompanied and facilitated post-War expansion.
The yoke of
the profession assumed a less overt role in the new law schools of the 1960s and
1970s. A swag of subjects appeared,
which problematised the nexus between law
and justice. The novelty of concerns pertaining to poverty, sexism and racism
mirrored
the prevailing political philosophy of social liberalism. Law reform
commissions were established by progressive governments and
clinical programmes
emerged as a dimension of the social justice imperative. Legal education also
became more sophisticated as law
struggled for acceptance as an intellectual
discipline within the academy.3[6] A
predetermined epistemological standpoint, which included deference to the legal
profession and legal hierarchy, had persisted in
getting in the way of
independent scholarship.3[7] The concept of
research as something other than doctrinal exegesis emerged from the
interrogation of legal epistemology, spurred
on by the appointment of highly
qualified academics. Law took on board interdisciplinary critiques and a range
of theoretical perspectives,
including feminist legal theory, critical race and
Queer studies. Poststructuralism also had an effect on the legal academy, in
both
destabilising legal positivism and influencing the emergence of
interdisciplinary fields of inquiry, such as law and literature,
and law and
popular culture.
Despite the intellectual vibrancy, however, the new scholarship remained
marginal to the primary purpose of the law school, that is,
the training of
legal professionals. Thomasset and Laperrière suggest that nothing short
of a revolution would be required
to overcome what they describe as the existing
feudal order in which law schools defer to the
profession.3[8] Such a
revolution has become virtually unimaginable in a climate in which nation states
are obsessed with the creation of the knowledge
economy.3[9] The
struggle for the control over information has supplanted past battles for the
control over territory and raw
materials.4[0]
In
terms of university research, the change of direction has involved targeting
applied rather than basic research. The pursuit of
knowledge driven by
curiosity, that is, knowledge for its own sake, is no longer regarded as
valuable because it does not contribute
to wealth
creation.4[1]
Knowledge must be prioritised. Hence, linkages with industry are key mechanisms
for harnessing research for the ‘national good’.
With industry as
the driver, academic research can be assured of possessing use value. To capture
the manner in which academics have
become state-subsidised entrepreneurs,
Slaughter and Leslie have coined the evocative phrase ‘academic
capitalism’ to
capture fully the idea of the encroachment of the profit
motive on the
academy.4[2]
Law
is perceived to fall on the applied side of the research equation. Universities
now generally evince little patience with basic
or theoretical research, despite
the desire on the part of some law schools to alter their ‘trade
school’ image within
the academy. As the only credible goal of research is
power, not truth,4[3]
the humanist goals of social liberalism are regarded as effete. Some notable and
lucrative liaisons have been effected between legal
academics and industry
partners in the patenting of intellectual property regimes, but the discipline
of law is generally regarded
as weak in terms of research productivity, compared
with, say, biotechnology. In lieu of research, the main focus of the applied
prescript in regard to law is directed to the training of undergraduates as
facilitators of the new economy. However, it is only
those elements of the
curriculum which have use value in relation to the market that are considered to
be worth retaining and defending.
The ‘massification’ of legal
education, whereby universities have had to cater for large numbers of
school-leavers to
satisfy the demands of the new economy, has helped shift the
orientation and purpose of universities generally from intellectual
inquiry to
instrumentalism and vocationalism. There has been a dramatic increase in both
the creation of new law schools and in undergraduate
enrolments in law in
Australia since 1988 (when the binary system of higher education came to an
end).4[4] Even though
massification itself has meant that the vastly increased numbers of law
graduates cannot all find positions as practising
lawyers,4[5] the
institutional aspiration that they will, remains a powerful determinant of
market-oriented courses. Jobs with transnational firms
are taken as evidence of
a law school’s ‘success’ in the legal labour market. Desirable
law firm destinations for
graduates are ranked in terms of ‘brand
name’, size and wealth. The prestige and power of the large corporate
firms has
grown out of all proportion to their
number.4[6] An
international dimension adds an extra cachet to the status of the corporate
firm. The mere possibility that one such firm might
employ a graduate justifies
the inclusion of a corporatised market-oriented curriculum for everyone.
The
homologous relationship between business and law is
ubiquitous.4[7] The
compulsory core of the law degree has traditionally emphasised property and
contract, as well as tort and criminal law. With
the expansion and
diversification of legal education, a plethora of business electives, taught in
utilitarian ‘how-to’
vein, including intellectual property, taxation
and trade practices, appeared to supplement the core. More recently, a raft of
cognate
subjects specifically geared towards global business, such as
international trade law, Asian legal systems, comparative business
law, and so
on have appeared. Socially progressive and theoretically oriented electives have
been cut back, just as the humanities
and the social sciences have been
decentred within the university. Teachers of socio-legal subjects may be made
redundant, or moved
into more utilitarian areas. In one instance, a specialist
in sexuality studies, was told to teach banking law, or her full-time
status
would be jeopardised. Through direct pressure on staff, underpinned by
restructuring mechanisms, university managers can effect
a rapid transition from
an ostensibly progressive law school culture to one that is geared towards the
market and academic
capitalism.4[8]
Insecurity and uncertainty in the workplace, whether it be academic, public
sector corporate, are very effective mechanisms for inducing
acquiescence.
Students, about to confront the insecurities of the neoliberal labour
market, similarly cannot help but imbibe the insistent message
that the market
is the measure of all things. Thus, the more market-oriented subjects and
practical skills they have on their CVs,
the more attractive they believe they
will be to prospective law firms. Reflecting the general mood of resiling from
social liberalism,
students have become ‘increasingly impatient with
“humane professionalism”’ and ‘purely academic’
offerings.4[9] The
populist message of neo-liberalism is that one should not waste time on
knowledge which lacks use value, although it may be that
students find mooting
more exciting than
research.5[0]
It
is notable that so-called private law subjects have received a boost within the
international law cluster where public international
law has traditionally been
privileged. Economic globalisation has allowed the private values of
international commercial law to achieve
‘an invigorated ascendancy over
the public fairness values of the UN Charter
system’.5[1]
Accordingly, there is pressure on graduates to opt for private, rather than
public, law, as the public sphere contracts and becomes
impoverished under the
neoliberal pressure to privatise and commodify. Despite the changed emphasis,
however, the recurring refrain
is that law students are not being appropriately
trained for an international
vocation.5[2] Legal
education is thought to lag behind business education on the ‘global
playing
field’.5[3] The
gist of the complaint would seem to be that there is insufficient international
business law.5[4] The
sub-text is that there is never enough; global business should constitute the
entirety of the degree. Indeed, degree courses
focussing exclusively on
globalisation and the law are beginning to make an
appearance.5[5]
Predictably, they appear to be of an exclusively functional nature. Alternative
voices pleading for the retention of critical and
theoretical spaces within
legal education are no match for the magnetic power of élites.
The
autonomy that law schools secured from the dominance of the profession under
social liberalism is evaporating under neoliberalism,
but the process is a
subtle one.5[6]
Scholars may not be overtly prevented from engaging in critical scholarship that
lacks obvious use value, but they are less likely
to secure grant income and the
approbation of the university if they pursue pure rather than applied research
directions. The amalgamation
of business and law faculties, the identification
of business-related ‘priority research areas’ and the promotion of
linkage grants with industry, signifies how the shift is presently occurring
within Australian law schools. The contemporary adulation
of entrepreneurship in
the academy mirrors that accorded corporate entrepreneurship. Thus, generating
money from external grants
is more highly valued than the research actually
achieved.5[7]
Perhaps even more compelling in terms of the pressure on law schools to
defer to and serve the legal profession is the fear that commercial
higher
education providers will enter a deregulated
market,5[8] and
‘cherry pick’ the profitable areas of higher
education.5[9] The
implicit message for legal education is that if universities are not consciously
wooing law firms, they should not be critiquing
what they do. The profession
could take umbrage and set up its own legal education providers, as well as
decline to support law schools
in other ways, such as by not employing their
graduates. If the legal profession thought that law schools were no longer
teaching
‘law’, understood as ‘hard’ technocratic,
market-oriented law, as opposed to ‘soft’ critical,
contextual and
theoretical law, they could well look to commercial
providers.6[0] This
implied threat looms like a Damoclean sword above the heads of law schools in a
quasi-deregulated education market in which
public universities are starved of
funds, a factor that
operates to revive the practice-centred focus of legal
education.
Reverting to a practice-oriented approach to legal education
appears, on its face, to be a regressive step but it accords with government
policy causing universities to turn away from liberal education and basic
research in favour of vocationalism and academic capitalism.
This policy has
reified the privileged status of the ‘creeping
core’6[1] of the
law degree, designed to facilitate market activity.
(ii) Containing Diversity in the Law Curriculum
Law has traditionally been able to disguise its political predilections very effectively by means of the technocratic approach to law. As Marcuse argued, the technical is highly political.6[2] Theorising and critiquing social justice necessarily involves taking a position which is not easily disguised, whereas focus on the technical enables law to present itself as neutral, apolitical and innocent. The means-end calculus embedded in globalisation’s relentless push for profits and power is effectively occluded by the technocratic and scientific veneer in such a way that it stifles dissent.6[3] This mechanism legitimises the separation between law and justice. In addition to depoliticising and decontextualising legal knowledge, it is always concerned to slough off the unruliness of the social.6[4]
The pressure to contain diversity in the law school agenda has been ongoing;
it is not merely a product of neoliberalism, but a corollary
of the fact that
elites always possess the power to drive social agendas. Hence, the compulsory
‘core’, which is necessary
for admission to practice, has
prioritised those subjects dealing with property and profits. Law firms are not
interested in addressing
policy debates or the hard reflexive questions which
may expose the adverse effect of the actions of their potential corporate
clients
on local communities. While critical thought is arguably of more
relevance now than ever before as global capitalism becomes more
voracious and
brutal, the conjunction of globalisation and marketisation has induced
indifference.
While there may be a frisson of the novel associated with
Taiwanese business law or Asian legal systems for Western students, such
courses
also tend to be taught in a way that is descriptive and uncritical. Questioning
and critique are sloughed off, ostensibly
in order to allow more space for
global business of the functional and facilitative kind. By means of
technocentrism — the
centripetal pull of the technical — law
insistently seeks to mask injustice.
Calling for a renewed ethical
sensibility in the age of the corporatised academy, with its trend towards the
McDonalds’ Law
degree, sounds like whistling in the wind. We are moving
relentlessly towards a lowest common denominator product, with a few Ronald
McDonald baubles tossed in to tantalise our customers so that they will part
with their money. Of course, we know that law and justice
are not synonymous,
but will our students know it? If all they learn is law for practice, that is
all they will ever know, a point
percipiently made by Blackstone 250 years
ago.6[5] If the focus
of legal education is singelmindedly confined to the ‘is’ of law,
with scant regard to the ‘ought’,
is it incumbent of them to
envisage unaided ‘the spirit of the laws and the natural foundations of
justice’?6[6]
The
technocratic approach quickly desensitises law students so that they become
morally neutered.6[7]
They accept knowledge as legal form, denuded of substance. The pedagogical shift
from dialogic teaching methods to the one-way transmission
of known knowledge
through lectures also contributes to the dehumanisation and objectification of
knowledge. The current neoliberal
and economically rationalist higher education
funding policies are thereby complicit in the production of technocratic
knowledge.
In addition, such teaching practices contribute to the production of
docile and compliant new knowledge workers who have no space
in which to
question the impact of globalising policies.
Under social liberalism,
combined degree programmes for law became the norm. An understanding of the
social context in which law operates
required the study of law to be combined
with an Arts, Science or other distinctive degree programme. It is notable that
a number
of law schools have reverted to the ‘straight’ law degree
of the past. The approach sloughs off context again in conformity
with the
minimalis approach. Again, we see how the market narrows and delimits legal
education to maximise its use value.
The skills focus currently in vogue also
operates to induce a lowest common denominator approach. Changes in pedagogical
methods —
including the moves from small interactive seminar groups to
large lectures, as well as from essays to exams — accede to market
pressures by cutting costs. Again, such mechanisms operate to delimit the
parameters of legal knowledge, for they allow less space
for reflexivity and
critique. Academic capitalism means that academics have to expend more time on
activities other than teaching.
The inference is that a decline in teaching
standards is occurring, if it has not already done
so.6[8] In legal
education, this encourages a focus on what Freire terms the banking method, in
which knowledge is deposited and recalled
at
will.6[9] Perforce, it
also encourages an almost exclusive focus on technocratic knowledge, Not only is
this the only type of legal knowledge
considered to have use value, it is the
type of knowledge which most effectively protects law’s innocence in light
of the depredations
wreaked by global markets.
(iii) Marketing Legal Education
Under neo-liberalism, the privatising imperative is
to treat higher education is a commodity rather than a public good, so that
students
become customers purchasing a product. The use value of education is
therefore gauged in terms of the market in three ways: vocationalism
for the
‘customers’ in the labour market once they are credentialled;
professional knowledge and expertise for the corporate
purchasers of labour; and
the enhancement of wealth creation for the nation state in a global setting. The
shift in the academic
world to a more commercial perspective is changing
academic institutions
worldwide.7[0]
For
universities to survive, university managers have accepted that they must enter
the market. The movement in favour of academic
capitalism has occurred with
remarkable rapidity in the UK and Australia, as a corollary of neoliberalism,
although the phenomenon
is notable in the United States and
elsewhere.7[1]
Universities, like other players in the global marketplace, must have a product
packaged under a brand name that is going to be attractive
to consumers. If not,
the consumers will exercise their prerogative of market choice and go elsewhere.
Nevertheless, rather than
focus on a distinctive product, competitition policy
encourages provision of the same product. To effect comparisons with
competitors, the same criteria tend to be invoked:
To do this they might need to install American-style standardised tests, and
a curriculum to match. This also illustrates the point
that when national
systems focus on performance as measured in the common comparison, a
homogenising logic is installed. Over time
all systems tend to become the same.
In the 1990s, this kind of homogenising logic entered university evaluation and
quality assurance
around the
world.7[2]
To
assess ‘quality’ and ‘excellence’, the focus is on the
performative, the quantitative and the measurable.
As Marginson and Mollis point
out, quantitative scores especially lend themselves to sameness rather than
difference:
A ‘7' from Norway looks the same as a ‘7' from Malaysia
regardless of the circumstances in which each ‘7' was produced.
Indeed,
even in qualitative studies designed to prepare a content-rich and context-rich
description of each national case, there
is a moment of abstraction which
occludes at least some elements particular to each
nation.7[3]
This
flattening effect of the market contributes to the conservatising imperative
within legal education by sloughing off difference
and diversity, rather than
enhancing it. Twining has referred to the ‘football league syndrome’
in which (American) law
schools tend to behave ‘as if they are all playing
exactly the same game in a single hierarchically organized
league’.7[4]
Thus, there is already a propensity towards homogeneity in legal education,
which is exacerbated by subjecting legal education to
the vagaries of the
market. This phenomenon is discernible whether one looks at domestic or
off-shore offerings. Thus, international
business law figures prominently in
postgraduate courses, just as for undergraduate courses. The same
business-oriented cluster is
deemed to be equally attractive to students,
whether they are in Manchester, Moscow or Missouri. Offerings in other areas,
such as
international human rights or comparative legal history, may make brief
appearances, but they are exceptional. While non-market-related
courses may be
commodified, they are, like the humanities and social sciences generally,
thought not to be viable in a competitive
market. The overwhelming assumption is
that international business law, whether offered in a domestic or a global
education setting,
whether at the undergraduate or the postgraduate level, is
gauged by providers and consumers alike as having the greatest use value.
What
is more, the marketing of the same legal education courses means that the
same uncritical acceptance of existing hierarchies
isexported.7[5]
The
almost exclusive focus on international business law publicly emits the message
that market facilitation in the interests of the
dominant is the only legitimate
role of law. The possibilities of the legal imaginary then wither or are
consigned to the status
of a disabled Other. While the Other may possess a
certain discursive power with which to direct salvoes at the law and business
homology, its position is necessarily very much confined to the margins.
Homogeneity as Moral Conservatism
Finally, I would like to
say something briefly about the neoliberal antipathy towards diversity.
In
addition to conservative economic policies, which accord maximum freedom to the
market and contain the ambit of government, neoliberals
are socially
conservative, as revealed in attitudes towards the family, crime, abortion and
drugs. Neoliberals favour benchmark masculinity
which is white, Anglo-Celtic,
heterosexual, able-bodied and middle class. They tend to be antipathetic towards
difference, diversity
and the Other. Ultra-conservatives may argue for the
eviction of women from the workforce, particularly in time of economic downturn.
Most typically, they will oppose special programmes designed to effect equality,
such as maternity leave, on the ground that such
initiatives interfere with
employer prerogative which should be accorded free rein in the interests of the
market. Because it is
the masculinist model which is overwhelmingly favoured by
global business. Benchmark Men are invariably appointed to positions of
authority, a predilection that can by no means be dismissed as a Third World
aberration. For example, the percentage of men at a
University of Michigan
program for senior managers was 89 per cent in 1992 and 97 per cent in
1999.7[6] Similarly,
neoliberals oppose gay rights and rights for Aboriginal people. The model of
equality acceptable to neoliberals is that
of EEO in its meritocratic sense.
That is, if one has the ability or the wealth to give one a boost in life which
is immediately
going to produce inequality of outcome, this is of no
consequence, providing that the starting points are the same for everyone.
EEO
instantiates the classic liberal position of procedural equality, not
substantive equality or equality of outcome. .
Conservatives have sought to
pit equity against efficiency. They have sought to argue that organisations
would be less efficient if
women or blacks were appointed. In the United States
context, clients are quoted as saying, ‘Diversity is fine, but I’m
concerned with shareholder
value!’7[7] As a
result, there has been an attempt to shift the ‘diversity machine’
away from what is dismissively referred to as
the moralists’
preoccupation with race and
gender.7[8]
Globalisation presents a veneer of diversity, or corporate multiculturalism, as
a market leitmotif to add a touch of the exotic:
We are now allegedly installed in a fully globalized, post-racial,
post-racist, post-sexist, post-ideological, post-civil rights era,
and anyone
who thinks otherwise is clearly out of touch with the
times.7[9]
The idea
of equality has been an important underpinning of social liberalism and its
antinomy - inequality - has been the raison d’etre
for redistributive
justice policies. The modus operandi of an unregulated globalised market, is
inequality of wealth and power. Indeed,
once everyone has been reduced to the
status of a consumer exercising choice within the market, the welfare state
becomes irrelevant:
In a world populated by consumers there is no room for a welfare state; that
venerable legacy of industrial society looks suddenly
much like a ‘nanny
state’, pampering the slothful, coddling the wicked, abetting the
corrupt.8[0]
Social
liberalism accepted, albeit somewhat reluctantly, that while equality for all is
a norm, women, blacks, NESB people, gays and
lesbians, people with disabilities
have suffered as a result of having been historically excluded or confined to
the margins of the
community of equals. In light of the limitations of
individual complaint-based mechanisms of anti-discrimination legislation,
affirmative
action programmes for women and blacks were introduced by employers
to help overcome the historic animus against them in non-traditional
areas of
work, and positions of authority. These programmes are now being widely
dismantled under neoliberalism, because they averredly
constitute an
‘impost on business’.
In the United States, there has been a
dramatic decline in the number of blacks in law schools since affirmative action
programmes
were
disbanded.8[1] A
massive backlash against affirmative action emerged from conservative forces
which were joined by members of the affluent Afro-American
middle class, who did
not want to be reminded that they themselves had been beneficiaries of
affirmative action:
Those who have reached the top no longer need the state-provided ladder and
are eager to send it to the scrap yard. Those who climbed
it first are the first
to declare it useless and to complain of the iniquitous, degrading shadow it
casts on the
users.8[2]
Successful blacks are comforted by the construction of a line between them
which allows them to identify with the white middle class
and those tagged as
unsuccessful Others. These ‘unsuccessful blacks’ and poor whites
thereby become the ‘impotent,
indolent players’ who are to be kept
on the outside.8[3]
They are an ever-present reminder of the good of credentialism, competition and
survival of the fittest within the market; they act
as a necessary counterpoint
to the message of ‘success’ emitted by the corporate barons.
In
Australia, the language of diversity has been deployed by neoliberals to replace
AA, EEO and social
justice.8[4]
‘Diversity’ has a post-modern ring to it, which suggests
inclusiveness, the very quality that corporatism lacks. The
rhetoric of
diversity also appeals to managers in multicultural and global settings as it
can be exploited for business
ends.8[5] The Other
has a use value in the market which can be selectively exploited. I have argued
elsewhere that the language of AA and EEO
provides an antinomy, a notion of
injustice and inequality that is missing from
diversity.8[6] But an
amoral market, committed to inequality of outcome, remains unmoved.
Conclusion
In drawing attention to the
impact of global marketisation on legal education, I do not wish to suggest that
resistance to the onslaught
of neo-liberalism is completely out of the
question.8[7] The
history of political movements suggests a pendulum effect. As Foucault has
compellingly shown, power can always be productive
in the way that it produces
resistance so that change is possible. Understanding what is occurring around
one is the first step in
the resistance movement. However, the material of
effect of neolibalism on the academy is less easily turned around. The change
from
the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake to the pursuit of knowledge for
its use value has been dramatic and destabilising, not
unlike the rollercoaster
of globalisation itself. Furthermore, academics themselves have been suprisingly
quiescent in the face of
what amounts to a paradigm shift has occurred in
academic life,8[8].
Undoubtedly, the shift from collegial to corporate governance has been
instrumental in the facilitation of academic capitalism.
New structures and
forms of control are designed to steer the constituent parts of the university
in order to maximise their use
value. A focus on performativity as a means of
ensuring accountability, linked to the rewards system, including promotion, has
hastened
the change in
culture.8[9]
Legal
education was late in coming to the idea of law as a liberal art. Even then, the
idea was inchoate because of the prevailing
orthodoxy of deference to the
profession. Now that the liberal arts role of the university has moved from
centre to margin as a result
of the new knowledge turn, it is only those law
subjects which facilitate the market and the global economy that are considered
worth
retaining because they possess use value. Subjects that deliberately set
out to explore diverse identities, such as feminist legal
theory and critical
race theory are expendable. Not only do such subjects lack use value, but they
destabilise neoliberal norms.
However, unless confronted with a highly
interventionist university administration, we probably can pursue those projects
we think
are worthwhile, so long as we do not delude ourselves that such work
retains the same social significance that it once
had.9[0] Despite the
temptations for students to become corporate apprentices, some of them long for
an intellectual experience at law school,
even if they know it is likely to be
fleeting. They need to envision the world as other than a global marketplace.
Furthermore, if
we dwell in the ruins of the university, we must do what we can,
as Readings reminds
us.9[1]
For a
decade or so, there was an attempt to make the law degree a generalist degree
which would replace the
BA.9[2] A liberal
legal education, it was thought, would be the ideal way to produce good citizens
who would also be equipped for a range
of occupations, including legal practice.
However, these disparate ends produced uncertainty because the legal profession
had been
decentred; legal education had lost its
way.9[3]
Globalisation has served to reaffirm the legitimacy of the technocratic, practice-oriented approach to legal education — regardless as to what percentage of law graduates become legal practitioners. The impoverishment of the civic public has corroded commitment to the values of critical inquiry and diversity, once the epicentre of the academy. Legal practice has traditionally been more responsive to the market than the liberal arts because of its role in facilitating business and, by and large, it seems to have suffered less discomfort as a result at the loss of critical inquiry. The unexamined legal life comports with the cultivation of indifference through globalisation. There was a high political moment when legal education appeared to be bold and flamboyant, flirting with difference and diversity, Foucault and Derrida, reflexivity and critique. But appearances are deceptive. The first puff of globalisation revealed the modern legal academy to be built of straw. Criticality was blown away and an unquestioning commitment to the service of corporate legal practice was all that was left remaining. Now, it is to market, to market, with government as the driver.
[*]Warm thanks are extended to Avrom Sherr, David Sugarman and Wes Pue for their encouragement, and to Jo Bagust for research assistance.
[1]Marginson and Considine suggest that it may be that countries such as Australia and New Zealand, because of their peripheral location and vulnerability to global responses, have been fashioned as zones of neoliberal experiment. See Simon Marginson and Mark Considine, The Enterprise University: Power, Governance and Reinvention in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, p 55.
[2]Anthony Giddens, Runaway World: How Globalisation is Reshaping our Lives, Profile Books, London, 1999, p 77.
[3]Anthony Giddens, The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998, p 14.
[4]Giddens, The Third Way, p 14.
[5]Guillermo Gomez-Pena, ‘Somewhere between Corporate Multiculturalism and the Mainstream Bizarre (a border perspective)’ (2001) 45(1) TDR (Cambridge, Mass) 7 <http://web1.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw> 3.
[6]Jean Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1984.
[7]For an excellent study of the devastating effect of the disappearance of careers and commitment in the contemporary corporatised world, see Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, WW Norton, New York & London, 1999.
[8]Eg, Philip G Altbach, ‘Universities and Globalization: Critical Perspectives & the Globalization of Higher Education’ (book review) (2001) 72(2) Journal of Higher Education 254; Simon Marginson, ‘Living with the Other: Higher Education in the Global Era’ (1999/2000) 12/13 Australian Universities Review 5; Graham Pratt and David Poole, ‘Global Corporations “R” Us? The Impacts of Globalisation on Australian Universities’ (1999/2000) 12/13 Australian Universities Review 16.
[9]For further
discussion, see Adelle Blackett, ‘Globalization and its Ambiguities:
Implications for Law School Curricular Reform’
(1998) 37 Columbia
Journal of Transnational Law 57.
1[0]Some
commentators use ‘Americanisation’ as a synonym for globalisation.
Eg, Bill
Readings, The University in Ruins, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass & Lond, 1996, p 2 et passim.
[1]1The chief executive of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu is described as managing 85,000 staff in 132 countries, producing revenues of $US11b in one year. See 'Strength in Numbers’ 353(8146) The Economist (US), 20 November 1999, p 86.
1[2]Elizabeth Howard, ‘Can Business cross the Cultural Divide?’ 15(9) Communication World, Oct-Nov 1998 <http://web1.infotrac.galegroup.com> 1.
1[3]Cf Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, p 5.
1[4]Tung-Lung S Chang, Cheng-Min Chuang, Wen-Shiung Jan, ‘International Collaboration of Law Firms: Modes, Motives and Advantages’ (1998) 33(3) Journal of World Business 24; <http://web1.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw>
1[5]John Flood, ‘Legal Education, Globalization, and the New Imperialism’ in Fiona Cownie (ed), The Law School: Global Issues, Local Questions, Dartmouth/Ashgate, Aldershot, UK & Brookfield, Vt, 1999, p 128.
1[6]'The Battle of the Atlantic’, 354(8159) Economist (US), 26 Feb 2000, 79.
1[7]For a detailed account of firms and dates, see Carole Silver, ‘Globalization and the US market in legal services - shifting identities’ (2000) 31(4) Law and Policy in International Business 1093; <http://web4.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw> p 5ff.
1[8]'Strength in Numbers’. New South Wales is in the process of enacting legislation to enable multidisciplinary practices to be allowed to operate.
1[9]Chang et al, ‘International Collaboration of Law Firms’, p 5.
2[0]For an excellent study of the role of United States lawyers, see Silver, ‘Globalization and the US Market in Legal Services’.
2[1]Howard, ‘Can Business cross the Cultural Divide?’, p 2.
[2]2'The Battle of the Atlantic’.
2[3]Eg, Christopher Pyne MP, ‘Legal Practice in a Global Jurisdiction’, Bulletin, March 2000, p 29.
2[4]Eugene Clark and Sam Blay, ‘The Internationalisation of Legal Practice and Education’ (1999) 73(11) Australian Law Journal 791, 792.
2[5]In Australia, this function is performed by the International Legal Services Advisory Council (ILSAC).
2[6]Lawyers, as the ‘par excellence institutional inventors’, are paid to be creative in circumventing regulatory requirements. See Maureen Cain, ‘The Symbol Traders’ in Maureen Cain and Christine B Harrington (eds), Lawyers in a Postmodern World: Translation and Transgression, Open University Press, Buckingham, 1994.
2[7]Peter Fitzpatrick, ‘Racism and the Innocence of Law’ in Peter Fitzpatrick and Alan Hunt (eds), Critical Legal Studies, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1987.
2[8]Mary C Daly, ‘The Cultural, Ethical, and Legal Challenges in Lawyering for a Global Organization: The Role of the General Counsel’ (1997) 46(3) Emory Law Journal 1057, 1077.
2[9]George J Siedel, ‘Six Forces and the Legal Environment of Business: the Relative Value of Business Law among Business School Core Courses’ (2000) 37(4) American Business Law Journal 717. While the significance of litigation and regulation is well established, the four forces that gained momentum from the end of the 20th century are globalisation, entrepreneurship, technology and compliance.
3[0]Sir Anthony Mason, ‘Sharing Expertise with the Developing World’ [2001] AltLawJl 3; (2001) 26(1) Alternative Law Journal 7.
3[1]Amy L Chua, ‘Markets, Democracy and Ethnicity: Toward a New Paradigm for Law and Development’ (1998) Yale Law Journal 1 <http://web1.infotrac.galegroup.com> . Chua argues that the twin globalising imperatives of marketisation and democratisation can interact to catalyse ethnic tensions.
3[2]J Brady Anderson, ‘Promoting the rule of law around the World’ (2000) 36(12) Trial 84. Other commentators have questioned the cultural imperialism flowing from the global business imperative. See, for example, Howard, ‘Can Business cross the Cultural Divide?’
[3]3Sennett, The Corrosion of Character, p 146.
3[4]International Legal Services Advisory Council (ILSAC), Australian Legal Services Export Development Strategy Outline 1999-2002, Canberra, 1999 <http://law.gov.au/aghome/advisory/ilsac/exportreport/export/report.htm> p 11.
3[5]H A L Hart, The Concept of Law, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1961, n 181, p 253.
3[6]Australian legal education as liberal education received a boost with the publication of the Pearce Report in 1987. See Dennis Pearce, Enid Campbell and Don Harding, Australian Law Schools: A Discipline Assessment for the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1987. The Arthurs’ Report in Canada had similarly stressed ‘humane professionalism’. See Harry Arthurs, Law and Learning: Report to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada by the Consultative Group on research and Education in Law, SSHRC, Ottawa, 1983. More recently, the ACLEC Report in the UK followed a similar approach. See Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct, First Report on Legal Education and Training, Lord Chancellor’s Department, London, 1996. For analysis and comparison of these reports, see Andrew Goldsmith, ‘Standing at the Crossroads: Law Schools, Universities, Markets and the Future of Legal Scholarship’ in Cownie, The Law School.
3[7]Kahn conceptualises the problem as a collapsing of the distinction between the subject studying law and the object of study, the legal practice. See Paul W Kahn, The Cultural Study of Law: Reconstructing Legal Scholarship, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1999.
3[8]Claude Thomasset and René Laperrière, ‘Faculties under Influence: The Infeudation of Law Schools to the Legal Professions’ in Cownie, The Law School, p 217.
3[9]Eg, Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Commonwealth of Australia, Learning for Life: Review of Higher Education, Financing and Policy (West Report), Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1998.
4[0]Lyotard, The University in Ruins, p 5.
4[1]The dramatic resiling from socio-legal scholarship to a commercially oriented law degree at La Trobe has been addressed elsewhere. See Duncanson, ‘The Ends of Legal Studies’; Thornton, ‘Law as Business in the Corporatised University’.
4[2]Sheila Slaughter and Larry L Leslie, Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University, John Hopkins, Baltimore, 1997, p 9.
4[3]Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, p 46.
[4]4Craig McInnis and Simon Marginson, Australian Law Schools after the 1987 Pearce Report, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, AGPS, Canberra, 1994; Duncanson, ‘The Ends of Legal Studies’.
4[5]Sherr suggests that the UK figure was about 42% of graduates in 1995. Avrom Sherr, ‘Legal Education, Legal Competence and Little Bo Peep’ (1998) 32 Law Teacher 37; <http://ials.sas.ac.uk/themat/inaugpub.htm>
4[6]A T Kronman, The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession, Belknap, Cambridge, Mass, 1993, p 273; Alan Freeman, ‘A Critical Look at Corporate Practice’ (1987) 37 Journal of Legal Education 315.
4[7]Margaret Thornton, ‘Law as Business in the Corporatised University’ (2000) 25(6) Alternative Law Journal 269; Thornton, ‘Among the Ruins’.
4[8]Thornton, ‘Law as Business’.
4[9]Arthurs, ‘The Political Economy of Canadian Legal Education’ 36. Cf Thomasset and Laperrière, ‘Faculties under Influence’, pp 193-99.
5[0]Thomasset and Laperrière, ‘Faculties under Influence’, p 194.
5[1]Dianne Otto, ‘Handmaidens, Hierarchies and Crossing the Public-Private Divide in the Teaching of International Law’ (2000) 1 Melbourne Journal of International Law 35, 47-48.
5[2]Clark and Blay, ‘The Internationalisation of Legal Practice and Education’. Cf Richard Haigh, ‘Of Law, Lawyers, Globalisation and Millennia’ (1999-2000) 4(2) Deakin Law Review 93. Haigh pleads for a broader legal education, which includes areas such as trade law, public law, finance and labour law - all with an international focus (at 100).
5[3]Blackett, ‘Globalization and its Ambiguities’ 59. Cf John B Attanasio, ‘The Globalization of the American Law School’ (1996) 46 Journal of Legal Education 311.
5[4]A survey of curricular offerings by Australian law schools within the international law field by Dianne Otto in 2000 showed that free market globalisation had led to rapid growth in courses in international business law and in Asian and Pacific law, which also appeared to privilege the marketised and privatised facet of international law. See Otto, ‘Handmaidens, Hierarchies’. Otto also notes the results of United States surveys which revealed that 91 per cent of law schools offered international business law by 1996, p 57.
[5]5The Bachelor of Laws (International Studies) at the University of Technology, Sydney, includes a foreign language and a one-year ‘in country’ study. New York University Law School is one of the few to market a ‘global law school program’, thereby developing a ‘“super-niche” through co-opting globalization as its motif’. See Flood, ‘Legal Education’, p 143.
5[6]Thomasset and Laperrière, ‘Faculties under Influence’, p 190.
5[7]Marginson and Considine, The Enterprise University, p 135.
5[8]Corporate universities, such as those run by McDonalds, Sears and Mastercard, have become widespread in the United States. See Stuart Cunningham et al, The Business of Borderless Education, Evaluation and Investigations Programme, Higher Education Division, Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Canberra, 2000. Some public universities, such as Deakin Australia and Melbourne University Private, are running courses for corporate clients through their private arms. In this way, the private is leaching into the public, and the market into civil society.
5[9]Cunningham, The Business of Borderless Education, p 150.
6[0]There have been several notable examples in the history of legal education of pressure being placed on law schools which were engaged in innovative approaches to law to justify that they were in fact teaching law. Notable examples include both Yale and Columbia Law Schools and the critical approaches of the Legal Realists in the 1920s and 1930s.
6[1]
6[2]Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society, Beacon, Boston, 1964, pp xvi, 168.
6[3]Wendy Brown, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995, p 33.
6[4]Margaret Thornton, ‘Technocentrism in the Law School: Why the Gender and Colour of Law remain the same’ (1998) 36(2) Osgoode Hall Law Journal 369.
6[5]Jones p 22, 1973.
[6]6Cf Julian Webb, ‘Post-Fordism and the Reformation of Liberal Legal education’ in Cownie, The Law School, p 247.
6[7]W Bachman, Law v Life: What Lawyers are Afraid to Say About the Legal Profession, Four Directions, Rhinebeck, NY, 1995, p 57; Cf Charles Derber, ‘Managing Professionals: Ideological Proletarianization and Mental Labour’ in Charles Derber (ed), Professionals as Workers: Mental Labour in Advanced Capitalism, GK Hall, Boston, 1982, p 182.
6[8]Slaughter & Leslie, Academic Capitalism, p 234.
6[9]Freire
7[0]Melissa S Anderson, ‘The Complex Relations between the Academy and Industry’ (2001) 72(2) Journal of Higher Education 226.
7[1]Slaughter & Leslie, Academic Capitalism, p 13.
7[2]Simon Marginson and Marcela Mollis, ‘Comparing National Education Systems in the Global Era’ (1999/2000) 12/13 Australian Universities Review 53.
7[3]Marginson and Mollis, ‘Comparing National Education Systems in the Global Era’ 54.
7[4]William Twining, ‘Rethinking Law Schools’ (1996) 21 Law and Social Inquiry 1007, 1012.
7[5]Otto, ‘Handmaidens, Hierarchies’ 62.
7[6]Siedel, ‘Six Forces and the Legal Environment of Business’.
[7]7Frederick R Lynch, The Diversity Machine, Transaction Publishers, 1997 (excerpt) (1997) 34(5) Society 32; <http://web4.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw> , p 6.
7[8]Lynch, The Diversity Machine, p 9.
7[9]Gomez-Pena, ‘Somewhere between Corporate Multiculturalism and the Mainstream Bizarre’, p 5.
8[0]Zygmunt Bauman, Work, Consumerism and the New Poor, Open University Press, Buckingham & Philadelphia, 1998, p 91.
8[1]At Boalt Hall, University of California, minority enrolments declined from 33 per cent in 1996 to 20 per cent in 1997, following a referendum banning affirmative action in admissions. See Margaret Graham Tebo, ‘The Right Mix: Conference honoring James White addresses Diversity’ [June 2000] ABA Journal 102.
8[2]Bauman, Work, Consumerism and the New Poor, p 60.
8[3]Bauman, Work, Consumerism and the New Poor, p 75.
8[4]See, for example, B Cope and Mary Kalantzis, Productive Diversity, Pluto Press, 1998.
8[5]Eg, Santina Bertone and Mary Leahy, Business Benefits of Productive Diversity: Case Studies, Report to Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Canberra, Australia, 2000.
8[6]Margaret Thornton, ‘EEO in a Neo-Liberal Climate’ (2001) Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (forthcoming).
8[7]Efforts are being made all over the place to resist the homogenising effects of recent trends. See, for example, Ellen Dannin, ‘Toward Promoting Diversity in Legal Education: A Model Program for At-Risk High School Students’ (1999) 49(2) Journal of Legal Education 292; Jon C Dubin, ‘Faculty Diversity as a Clinical Legal Education Imperative’ (1999-2000) 51 Hastings Law Journal 445.
[8]8Slaughter & Leslie, Academic Capitalism, p 227.
8[9]Thornton, ‘Among the Ruins:
9[0]Readings, The University in Ruins, p 169.
9[1]Readings, The University in Ruins, p 176.
9[2]Pierce; Cf ACLEC, 1996, p 57.
9[3]Sherr, ‘Legal Education’.
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