미국의 법학교육: 과거, 현재, 그리고 미래

Professional legal education at American law schools began in 1870, when Christopher Langdell initiated a legal educational reform at Harvard Law School. This change is coincided with the establishment of the New York City Bar, where a group of elite lawyers tried to limit the introduction of less qualified practitioners to the legal profession. The ideological alliance between the bar and the law school has accelerated widespread adoption of the Harvard model in American law schools: three-year postgraduate program with a case method as a distinctive pedagogic style. Since mid-20th century, American law schools have embraced interdisciplinary input from other academic disciplines to enrich the scope and perspective of legal scholarship. More recently, international aspects are increasingly being added to the law school curriculum. Korean legal educational reform, largely modeled after the American law school system, will benefit much from the American experience. The meaningful interaction between the academia and the bar is desperately needed for successful implementation of the new 'law school' system. Moreover, dogmatic legal scholarship in Korea must also embrace multi-disciplinary approaches to legal problems.