The Law School Industry - US Based International and Comparative Law

I have attached a link to an excel study of every US based law professor that teaches a class related to international law (broadly conceived), along with every other class they teach, a link to their profile, and their email contact, organized by state and school alphabetically. There are a few omissions.* The study, however, is by and large complete, and part of a much larger empirical based analysis of the law school industry. The motivation is to provide data and encourage new networks and communication among administrators and scholars within the legal academy, with the hope that these directions contribute towards better understanding of the law school market.

In this attached study, certain statistics and trends may be of interest. To a certain extent, international law remains potentially gendered: women make up only about a third of professors teaching classes related to the subject and over-represent the male colleagues when it comes to teaching ‘lawyering’ or courses on ‘gender’ or ‘children’. States average about 8 international law professors, with the highest number of professors per school in Connecticut and Washington, D.C., followed closely by Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Wisconsin, and at the lower end, states such as Rhode Island, North Dakota and Alabama – all in all, nothing surprising, though more evaluation could look into things like the ratio of ‘private’ / ‘public’ international law oriented classes. A word search of what most popularly shows up as the course title in a curriculum, words topping the list included, human rights (296), comparative (271), constitutional (251), and business (235), followed by words such as environment (121), intellectual property (109), international criminal law (91), and less common terms, such as religion (16) and critical race/legal studies (10). A relatively small percentage of professors teach first year courses (contracts: 161, criminal: 126, civil procedure: 102, property: 93, torts: 91), while certain courses (administrative law: 79) and words (transnational: 52, global: 73) seem to be trending upward. Further analysis could look into how courses are paired or the educational backgrounds and degrees of the community.

A copy of the study is available here (downloadable in excel): https://www.academia.edu/19792301/Law_School_Industry_-_US_Based_International_and_Comparative_Law

* Omissions, such as, the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, prolific international legal scholars such as Larry Cata Backer, and classes by law professors such as Justin Desautels-Stein.

Comments

[Anon]

Is there a reason for the omissions you noted?

[john]

Hi Anon,

The excel sheet is a work in progress, and just received from comments from colleagues on these omissions over last day. It will be reworked in, but thought could just give specific examples of types of things where had omissions and might be additional ones. But will be amending with these and other revisions as review/develop.

Warm regards,
john

[[M][a][c][K]]

Antitrust law outside the US is typically called "competition law" and many antitrust practitioners need to understand basic EU competition law.

[[M][@][c][K]]

My earlier post was short because of limited time.

What I was going to point out is that there are certain areas of law - and hence legal education - that often have international aspects. Indeed, I'd say that international issues intrude often enough that pretty well every practitioner will run into them and that they should therefore be covered to at least a limited degree in a course in these subjects. Area where you see regularly see international issues (a limited list) are:

Antitrust law (and its synonym Competition Law)
Data Law (because of the EU data directive and equivalents)
Intellectual Property Law (most applicants for patents seek them internationally, copyright are internationally created under Berne)
Family Law (it can come up in custody cases)
Corporate Taxation
Admiralty
Telecoms law

[Sy Ablelman]

I don't see ETHICS on that list! You professors and deans are doing a terrible job teaching these newbie desperate, struggling, frazzled, brainless no business being Solos, ETHICS. Look at any list of bar suspensions and on line complaints from any jurisdiction and you will see kids stealing paltry sums from their clients. They are blowing 200K for a couple thousand in Earnest money deposit theft and not paying their clients PI settlements. Or stealing their bond slip money. Shameful. You guys should have weeded them out. Instead, you took their tuition money.

[[M][@][c][K]]

Sy, I'm neither a professor nor a dean.

So please, stop preaching at me.

[Sy Ablelman]

Brackets, thank god you are neither a professor nor a dean. There is hope for humanity. Maybe not if Trump gets the nomination. Anyway, I am relieved....I enjoy you banter with Anon. Got to admit, these professors and deans did not say anything about Ethics in the original post.

[[M][a][c][K]]

Sh,

Legal ethics rules are decidedly non-international. Perhaps no area of legal education involves international aspects less than the ethics rules - and I'm admitted in multiple countries - I know this....

[Sy Ablelman]

Brackets,

Ethics are Universal. Just ask all these professors on this blog that taught us about Aristotle and Locke. Stealing is stealing, client funds are client funds whether you are in Illinois (mile after magnificent mile) or the Democratic Republic of Madagascar. Let me ask this: What would happen to a newbie solo lawyer if he took his client's bond money in Indonesia? A one suspension and restitution? Didn't think so.

[john]

Hi Mack,

Good point; agreed.

The 'international' pops up regularly, and there is a certain interdisciplinarity to it, that I think is part of what is being captured with words like 'transnational' and 'global' for classes/journals/centers.

The study here is more narrow, but if you have any suggestions of a course(s) you'd like to see a mapping of and if any particular reasons/trends, would be keen to make sure to have it in the mix ([email protected]). Right now, working on two news studies, one for veteran oriented clinics and one concerning lawyers teaching administrative law.

Warm regards over the holidays.
john