The Other Side of A Legal Education (Part 1)

A Little Background

   The year was 2005.

 Senior members of Ethiopia’s legal community got together to design a plan of action. One that was to be implemented the following year. Its goals were clear and its aspirations were admirable, for they wanted to improve our legal education.

 They wanted to strengthen those institutions that shape some of the most influential members of any society. Those that mold, as Dr. Girma W. Selassie would put it, tomorrow's lawmakers, judges, and government officials.

   And so, the presidents of the federal and regional Supreme Courts, the deans of all the law schools, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Education, Addis Ababa University’s Faculty of Education, the Ethiopian Bar Association, and the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association got together and got to work. For they believed Ethiopia needed:

“Competent legal professionals that would work for the advancement of tolerance, equality and social justice.”

   They called this program of theirs the “Legal Education Reform Program” and accompanied it with all the bells and whistles that are befitting of such an ambitious effort. From its well-staffed technical committee to the well-experienced members of its steering committee. From the thorough baseline study that informed this initiative to the robust monitoring and evaluation standards that aimed to implement its lofty goals.

   To put it bluntly, they threw the kitchen sink at what they thought was a major problem in Ethiopia’s legal profession. A problem that they, in all their years of experience, considered to be pervasive and dangerous. And that problem was this: Ethiopian lawyers were not overly concerned about social justice.

   This was the hard truth that all of these accomplished educators, judges, ministers and legal experts wanted to address. As they believed that the core values of tolerance, pluralism and equality were not at the center of either the daily lives or the professional aspirations of our legal practitioners.

A Rude Awakening

   But, for all their goals, aspirations and preparedness, they failed. The program did very little to improve the social consciousness of its target audience. As one researcher put it:

“The quality and standards in legal education seem to have generally regressed behind the levels that existed during the take-off years of the Reform Program.” 

   So, how should we understand this so-called failure? Why did such a progressive and well-developed policy, one that was also backed by some of the most powerful institutions in the country, fail to make our legal graduates more socially conscious? Do the tired explanations of lack of government funding and overt political interference fully explain this failure? Or is there more to this than meets the eye?

   It is these questions that we will try to answer in our very first Living Law article.

   And I hope reading this piece will make you more acquainted with what Marc Galanter describes as “the other side of the legal world”. A perspective that raises some interesting and relevant questions. Particularly when it comes to this Reform Program and some of its lofty goals.

   Let’s get into it.

Our Ambitious Aspirations

   So, let’s begin by discussing one of the more ambitious aspirations of our legal institutions. A goal that is hard to miss and, as a consequence, even harder to dismiss. You will find it in many shapes and sizes. You will find it in the mission statements and curriculums of most law schools. You may also find it in the writings and ruminations of Ethiopian legal scholars.

  But this is a piece about the Legal Education Reform Program. And so, I bring you a quote from this very same document. Where this lofty goal is articulated as being the main objective of all the law schools in our country:  

“Law schools shall work for the advancement of the intellectual and social conditions of the people of Ethiopia by… preparing competent and responsible members of the legal profession who actively contribute towards social justice, equality and tolerance.”

   This sentiment, one that expects those working in our legal system to be active, objective and influential changemakers in society, is a very high standard. It is a standard that can lead, in some instances, to overestimating the role of legal professionals in society. Especially in conservative ones like ours.

  And whilst such mission statements should inform the services and daily lives of those working in our justice system, expecting them to be trailblazers in matters of social equity and tackling systemic inequalities is not only an ambitious aspiration. It is also a failed one.

  Whether it is the inadequate emphasis on social justice and other constitutional values, the lack of interest in analyzing the socio-economic policies that inform laws or the gaps in gender sensitivity on the part of students, each of these failures point to a larger truth. A truth that shouldn’t be explained away by ill-considered and speculative claims like “our educators are failing our students”.

A Fresh Perspective

  Instead, we should heed the calls of researchers like Elias Stebek and ask why this Reform Program took a back seat. We should re-examine the fundamental assumptions that gave rise to the lofty idea that legal professionals are objective and influential changemakers.

 In other words, we need to ask fundamental questions about the relationship between legal graduates and the society they serve. Questions like: is a truly effective legal education one that results in social change? Can the law or its practitioners, be they law students or those working in the halls of government, successfully challenge some of our most entrenched social norms?

  Answering these questions may appear daunting at first, but daunting tasks sometimes require a different frame of reference.

  And so, I want to introduce you to an area of legal research that might shed light on this relationship between legal institutions, legal professionals and the society at large. A school of thought that has a long history of analyzing the type of social inequity we see in Ethiopia. 

  Although it has been severely overlooked by the type of mainstream debate we see in our legal community, this understanding of the law has since been incorporated into Ethiopia’s National Revised Curriculum of the LL. B Program. It is, to paraphrase noted legal researcher and professor, David Nelken:   

“An attempt to investigate the relationship between the law and social norms. Where we go further and ask about the social origins of such norms and the ways in which they are reproduced.”

   Welcome to the Sociology of Law.

Click Here For Part 2 of “The Other Side of A Legal Education”