On Philosophy of Legal Education. An Analytical Sketch
On Philosophy of Legal Education. An Analytical Sketch

Summary/Abstract: This essay offers a philosophical reflection about the role and objectives of legal education, with special attention given to the role that comparative law, legal theory and legal history could play in legal education.The author argues that legal education should concentrate on transmitting not only the knowledge about the currently binding law, but most of all skills necessary for legal profession. He distinguishes between vocational and academic skills, and further argues that it is a mistake to believe that practitioners need only the previous, while scholars only the latter. On the contrary, academic skills, encompassing inter alia skills of explanation, systematization and of critical assessment, can be very valuable for practicing lawyers, both from their own, as well as societal point of view.Within those skills, methods of comparative law and legal history play a pivotal role. Comparative law enables lawyers to understand that a legal system could be constructed in another way, to understand characteristics of one’s own legal system better, and with the help of legal history explain why the law is the way it is. That, in consequence, proves valuable both in the global context of harmonization and approximation of laws, as well as national context of legal reform and reflection about law’s underlying values.

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