By RafaelBoisset? - 29 Apr 2009

While doing a research for a paper I was drafting in order to obtain my LLM writing credit I faced a very particular situation. It was a debate between a professor of law and a partner of a very prominent New York office. My research was related to shareholders empowerment in publicly-held corporations in the U.S. The professor was defending the shareholders empowerment, while the partner was defending the status quo of the regulations. The professor based his position in what he believes could be better for the corporate governance of public companies, using economic behavior theories to support his position. On the other hand, the corporate lawyer based his position in what he said to be thirty years of experience dealing with decision makers of the market, crisis, bubbles, and big corporate cases among others.

The fight was so interesting that I started digging around similar debates, professors of corporate law versus corporate lawyers. The results were always the same; professors based their arguments in legal and economic theories mostly accepted among scholars, while the corporate lawyers based their positions on what is really going on in live. Such dichotomy made me think about the role of the professors in teaching. Should transmitting what they learned in books enough or experience in real live is a necessary complement?

In a course such as ours (i.e. Law and Contemporary Society) and other likely philosophical courses tying literature with the professor’s experience is essential. The literature we read is always full of life and complemented with both the professor’s and the student’s experience what we learn not only makes sense per se, but also it is ascertainable. I was thinking if the same could happen if the professors of corporate law (to continue with my example) were real lawyers.

I studied law in Peru, where we have a completely different academic culture, not necessarily better or worse but different. For instance, it is rare to find full time professors, may be because the law teaching career is not lucrative at all. Most professors or at least the best professors are professional lawyers that teach in their free time. Hence, in class we learn not only from what we read, but also from what they have lived in real live and are willing to tell in a class. Their assumptions are based on experience, and not on collected evidence from books and articles. That is how I learned law, and actually I could say that what I learned had really helped me in my career as corporate lawyer.

I do not want to argue that one is better than the other. I believe academics and reality are sometimes to far away from each other and it should not be like that. Academics are a fundamental part of law teaching, as it helps to reflect, think, and argue. But reality and experience are as necessary as the former. Professors are being paid to do research, contribute with articles and opinions and to teach what they know. My fear is that professors limit their research to books and other general written sources and lack of talking and interviewing with the people who are in deed living the experience, lawyers, business men, and judges among others. How is worth proposing a shift in a current regulation that gives more power to the shareholders of a public company as it is suppose to add value to the corporation without even asking the shareholders (or at least the activist shareholders as pension funds) if they want to have more power? Is like invading a country to “restore” freedom and democracy without asking first to their habitants if they really wanted to live in a democracy.

These issues made think about what should be the purpose of attending a law school. Prepare yourself to pass a bar exam? Learn as many regulations and cases as possible to be a wise legal advisor? Do research and learn scientific methods in order to apply them after school?

On the other hand what should be the purpose of a law school in its teaching goal? Prepare practitioners, judges, professors? Give the students enough tools so they can trace their own career while in law school?

I believe all the abovementioned options are similarly valid. In a world with such a variety of options of a legal path after school, the more options available to students that best will be for them. As well, the more the students experience while in law school the better will be for them. They will be prepared (or at least pre-prepared) to face different situations in their lives and successfully outcome from them.

Consequently, I believe professors are note better teachers than lawyers and vice versa. I do believe professors should go out and learn from what is really happening, as I believe lawyers should not left the academics aside. And finally, law schools should always have to offer as many options as possible in the benefit of the legal community.