LEGAL EDUCATION

preparation for the practice of law. Schools of law are of comparatively recent origin. The ancient Romans had schools of rhetoric that provided training useful to someone planning a career as an advocate, but there was no systematic study of the law. During the 3rd century BC, Tiberius Coruncanius, the first plebeian pontifex maximus (chief of the priestly officials), gave public legal instruction, and a class of nonpriests (jurisprudentes) who acted as legal consultants emerged. A student, in addition to reading the few lawbooks that were available, might attach himself to a particular jurisprudens and learn the law by attending consultations and by discussing points with his master. Over the ensuing centuries a body of legal literature developed, and some jurisprudentes set themselves up as regular law teachers. In the medieval universities of Europe, including England, it was possible to study canon law and Roman law but not the local or customary legal system. The study of national laws at universities is in most European countries a development that began in the 18th century; the study of Swedish law at Uppsala dates from the early 17th century. On the continent of Europe the transition to the study of national law was facilitated by the fact that modern legal systems grew mostly from Roman law. In England, on the other hand, the national law, known as the common law, was indigenous. In medieval times education in the common law was provided for legal practitioners by the Inns of Court through reading and practical exercises. These methods fell into a decline in the late 16th century, mainly because students came to rely on printed books, and after the middle of the 17th century there was virtually no organized education in English law until the introduction of apprenticeship for solicitors in 1729. The famous jurist Sir William Blackstone lectured on English law at Oxford in the 1750s, but university teaching of the common law did not develop significantly until the 19th century. The Council of Legal Education for barristers was established in 1852. In the United States systematic legal education began with the founding of the Harvard Law School in 1817. Lionel Astor Sheridan Additional reading For England and Wales, much interesting information may be found in the Great Britain, Committee on Legal Education, Report (1971), which also contains a survey of legal education in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States. In Great Britain the journal Legal Studies (three times a year) publishes articles on legal education, chiefly but not exclusively relating to the United Kingdom; a similar periodical in the United States is the Journal of Legal Education (quarterly). Robert Stevens, Law School: Legal Education in America from the 1850s to the 1980s (1983), is a comprehensive treatment of the subject. Legal education in parts of Asia is discussed in Regional Conference on Legal Education, 1962, Singapore, Report, ed. by S.P. Khetarpal (1964); Hakaru Abe, Education of the Legal Profession in Japan, in Arthur T. von Mehren (ed.), op. cit.; and Jay Murphy, Legal Education in a Developing Nation: The Korea Experience (1967). For Africa, see John S. Bainbridge, The Study and Teaching of Law in Africa (1972).