Welcome to Peking Law School
As if China hasn't done well enough riding out lead-painted coattails. The ABA will been asked to grant accreditation to a new law school. No, not the one planned for beautiful downtown Rochester as an urban renewal project. Oh no. This is going to change everything.
A new law school in China has announced its intent to seek accreditation from the American Bar Association, so graduates could potentially practice law in the U.S. (States commonly require a degree from an ABA-accredited law school as a prerequisite for taking the bar exam.)Maybe I'm feeling a little protectionist. Maybe I'm of the view that we have too many lawyers already for our own good. Maybe I'm just afraid that this is the worst idea for any hope of maintaining professionalism in the law I've ever heard. But I think this is absolutely horrible.
Peking University School of Transnational Law, the first 55-student class of which will start this fall, will teach classes on American law in English, reports the National Law Journal. The law school's dean is Jeffrey Lehman, a former dean of the University of Michigan Law School, who plans to use the Socratic method. The school says it will award juris doctor degrees after three years of successful study.
This vision of seven billion Chinese lawyers swarming the hallways of American courthouses is just too much to take. Will they offer a joint program with the University of Bombay next, because I'm sure that there are many hard-working Indians who would be happy to seek a fine American legal education? The Chinese, Indians and others are smart, hard-working and fully prepared to sacrifice for a better future.
Kinda sounds like the way Americans used to be before we decided we're too good to work hard anymore.
The flat world isn't helping the United States very much. We produce nothing and churn our revenues in a circle of services until the money finally finds its way to our ports and the next boat out. If anything, we should close down half the law schools in the United States. All those would-be lawyers can then spend their days building something of actual use of society.
But Peking Law School? What a nightmare.
Hey, us software developers have been competing with foreign workers for decades. And thanks to the miracle of the internet, they don't even have to come here to do our jobs.
Welcome to the party, pal!
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Reposting a comment I made on Law Professor blogs:
I wonder how Peking Law will teach the American approach to "zealous advocacy" and the "right to counsel," especially in light of today's news about the 2 Chinese lawyers facing disbarment for representing Tibetan pro-independence clients:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/world/asia/04tibet.html
Then again, if demand is being fueled by Anglo-US BigLaw more interested in corporate work than criminal defense, civil rights, or plaintiffs' torts, I shouldn't be surprised if this new crop of lawyers kowtows to Beijing's awful human rights policies just like everyone else.
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I had posted about the two Chinese lawyers a few days ago, and that certainly bodes poorly for any potential that they will have a meaningful understanding of what it means to practice law in the United States. There's a long list of cultural distinctions that will make "teaching" them mean less than their comprehension of our system of justice.
I suspect that they will be trained for the purpose of representing Chinese business in American courts, though ABA accreditation will require the regular panolply of courses. But there are so many problems that I can foresee that it makes the whole concept incredible.
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On the other hand, required courses on U.S. Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure could contribute to the beginnings of a new era for China.
I agree that a flood of Chinese attorneys licensed in U.S. courtrooms would be unwelcome, but I don't believe it would come to that.
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It might be worth it if this was the dawn of a new era for China, but I can't imagine the government letting that happen. As for a flood. not at first. It will start as a trickle, but if it works, there will be more. Then other countries. Every journey starts with a single step.
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Can this school train and graduate a large number of lawyers dedicated to fighting for the rights of the Chinese people? I mean the rights to freedoms such as religious freedom, to free speech and those that are meaningful to human beings in any society? If so, then we need to support it; but, if not we are looking at nothing more than an eventual detriment to our own society.
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