Cownie, F --- "Legal Academics: Cultures and Identities" [2004] LegEdDig 45; (2004) 13(1) Legal Education Digest 18

Review Article: Legal Academics: Cultures and Identities, F Cownie, Hart Publishing, 2004, 227pp

Dr John Nelson

[2004] LegEdDig 45; (2004) 13(1) Legal Education Digest 18

In her introductory chapter, Fiona Cownie states that the purpose of this book is to provide an extended analysis of the ‘lived experience’ of legal academics teaching and researching law in English universities (p.1). She claims that by this purpose she means examining the everyday professional lives of legal academics in order to uncover the culture of academic law as it is found in university law schools, as well as the professional identities of those who research and teach it (p.1).

Needless to say, this is quite a considerable undertaking in a qualitative study yielding interview data which she can in no way claim to be representative of the entire population of legal academics, nor in fact does she make this assertion but specifically disavows it. Instead, she is content to illuminate the experiences of a relatively small group of academics in only seven institutions, although it must be said that the tacit justification for this sort of research design must be that to some extent the findings are presented as generalisable.

The study is based upon semi-structured interviews over a period of 18 months with a sample of 54 legal academics. Cownie claims that this research design involves a method of data generation which is sufficiently sensitive to the social contact involved to produce ‘meaningful results’ (p.14). Her approach was to obtain written permission from the heads of the departments she had selected before contacting individual academics to obtain their consents to be interviewed. Of the 67 English universities offering qualifying law degrees, Cownie selected seven law departments, four from ‘old’ and three from ‘new’ universities. Varying attributes of institutional diversity were chosen in order to increase the validity of the data obtained. All of the interview subjects were full-time academics (33 from the old; 21 from the new universities), with varying levels of status and experience incorporated in her sample and an attempt made to ensure that the gender balance among legal academics was taken into account in selecting the sample.

In chapter 2 Cownie endeavours to situate her study within the ‘specialism’ of legal education, drawing upon the wide range of research and writing throwing light on various facets of the legal academy in the UK and providing different insights into the ‘private life‘ of the law school. She attempts to outline some of the main ways in which these writings can help us uncover aspects of the culture of academic lawyers and their identities, as well as revealing the gap in our knowledge which her study seeks to fill.

Chapter 2 looks at what the different approaches which legal academics adopt when analysing law and legal phenomena reveal about the culture of academic law. The alternative paradigms upon which Cownie focuses are socio-legal studies, feminism and critical legal studies. She concludes that doctrinal law is not what it used to be, with the majority of black-letter lawyers regarding the introduction of various policy-related matters as crucial to their analysis of legal phenomena.

Cownie aims, in chapter 4, to throw light on the culture of legal academia and the professional identities of legal academics by examining various aspects of their careers. These stretch from the initial decision to study law at university to the qualities and skills which contemporary legal academics think are necessary to become a good academic. One vexed question which she tackles is whether her respondents had perceived their decision to become law teachers as a second-best career choice to becoming a legal practitioner.

The focus of chapter 5 is upon the way in which the respondents view their occupation as legal academics. This includes the nature of their shared attitudes and assumptions about pursuing this occupation, whether they are proud to be a legal academic, whether they gain job satisfaction from it and how much effect does belonging to this cultural group have on their private lives. Cownie finds that legal academics are very positive about their career choice, proud to be doing the job and satisfied that it is a worthwhile way to spend their lives.

The place of teaching and research in the culture of academic law and the construction of the professional identities of legal academics is the subject of chapter 6. This study concludes that academic lawyers enjoy teaching and indeed its importance as part of their professional identity is reflected in the fact that their desire to be good teachers appears to be independent of the value place on teaching by the institutions in which they work. Likewise there is a corresponding emphasis on research in the construction of the professional identity of the majority of academic lawyers, although this was found to vary somewhat between those working in old and new universities.

Chapter 7 looks at the impact on the life of a legal academic, at the domestic level, of administration as the ‘housework’ of academic life. It then explores the effects of such outside concerns as networking within the wider academic community and the influence of the legal profession on academic identities, as well as increased pressures in contemporary law schools, including student demands and the impact of higher education policy on academic life.

In the final chapter (8) before the author’s conclusions are drawn from the study, Cownie examines the consequences for culture and identity of the personal characteristics of the members of the academic profession, which she regards as crucial for a proper understanding of the lived experience of being an academic lawyer. The characteristics which she has chosen to explore are gender, race, class, sexual orientation and dress. She points out that law school culture privileges the white, the heterosexual and the male and that those possessing alternative identities have to manage their performances as legal academics differently.

Cownie aims, in chapter 9, to draw together the insights that have emerged out of the findings from her research project to paint a more detailed picture of the culture and identities of legal academics and their lived experiences. She concludes that she has found considerable evidence of the enduring nature of certain core aspects of the culture of academic law, which suggest that the professional identities of legal academics may be more resistant to pressure than other commentators may have surmised. The overall picture which emerges from her study is one about which she finds it possible to be cautiously optimistic, leading to the upbeat conclusion that overall, the culture of academic law and the professional identities constructed within it display a great deal of resilience, both retaining a fundamentally academic orientation (p.206). Cownie’s book is a useful contribution to the small but growing body of research into the self-perceptions of professional identity of the members of different academic tribes.