The French Legal Studies Curriculum:
Its History and Relevance as a Model for Reform
Thomas E. Carbonneau*
I.
Introduction
Much like a fine wine of precious vintage, the legal studies
curriculum in France took centuries to reach its point of maturity.
By and large, it is a product of careful molding and enlightened
experimentation, although some disparity exists between its theo-
retical promise and its actual implementation within the French
university system. Moreover, its history is not without its share
of ill-conceived hopes and retrogressive thinking. This article at-
tempts to describe and analyze those events which fostered the
historical metamorphosis of the French legal studies curriculum.
The predominance of a broad academic -approach to law and
the concomitant absence of a narrow “trade sohool” mentality in
the French law schools might be attributed to the general organi-
zation of higher education in France.1 The basic law degrees, the
licence and the maitrise en droit, are undergraduate degrees; stu-
dents enter the university law program at the age of eighteen or
nineteen after having obtained the baccalaurdat (the French high
school diploma). 2 A liberal arts approach to the study of -law,
consisting of a general introduction to the basic principles of
*Dipl6me supdrieur d’Etudes frangaises 3e degr6, University of Poitiers
(1971); A.B. Bowdein College
(1975); J.D.
University of Virginia (1978); M.A. Oxford University (1979); M.A. University
of Virginia (1979); LL.M. Columbia University (1979). The author is a Jervey
Fellow at the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law and is currently
doing research in France.
(1972); B.A. Oxford University
1 For a brilliant comparative discussion of French and U.S. legal education,
see Dedk, French Legal Education and Some Reflections on Legal Education
in the United States [1939] Wisc. L. Rev. 473. It is the basic thesis of the late
Professor Dedk’s article that U.S. legal education, with its obsessive con-
centration on preparing practitioners, could be modified on the basis of
the French example. In his view, U.S. law schools place too little emphasis
upon the lawyer’s mission as a social engineer, and, as a result, produce
highly skilled technicians rather than educated jurists: ibid., 474, 479-80.
2 For a general description of the French educational process as it relates
to law studies, see, e.g., Herzog, Civil Procedure in France (1967), 68-73, re-
printed in Schlesinger, Comparative Law 3d ed. (1970), 95. Professor Herzog’s
discussion is valid as a description of the process before 1954.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
juridical science with the choice of specialty -deferred to the final
two years of study, is more suitable for students who are relatively
inexperienced and who lack prior university training. It also should
be mentioned that since the end of the nineteenth century, legal
education in France has been viewed as a general preparation for
a career in fields other than law. In fact, only a very small propor-
tion of French law graduates enter the legal profession, and those
who do are given practical training by way of either an apprentice-
ship program or further study in a specialized school 4 The method
of recruiting law professors and other teaching personnel -is another
factor contributing to a more academic
legal education. As a
general rule, educators -have had little or no contact with ‘the legal
practitioner’s world; they are selected by means of a aigorous and
extremely competitive national examination after they have com-
pleted (or while they are completing) their doctoral research.5
One of the primary contentions of this article is that the funda-
mental character of French legal education, which emphasizes the
educating of jurists as opposed to the training of lawyers, is the
product of a set of factors which are deeply rooted in French
history and are -part of the basic intellectual assumptions of French
culture. The Facultd de droit never was -independent of the general
university structure –
it was one of the four constituting faculties
of the university. Also, the original substance of the law curriculum
was exclusively scholarly in character. Practical legal training was a
post-university phenomenon, obtained by means of an apprentice-
3 Professor deVries estimates that only some 20% of law students enter
the legal profession, while the remaining 80% go into government service or
business positions: deVries, Foreign Law and The American Lawyer: An
Introduction to Civil Law Method and Language (1969), 75, n. 21.
4 Those who do enter the legal profession either go into private practice
as an avocat, avoug, or notaire, or enter the magistrature to work as judges
or prosecutors. To enter the magistrature, a candidate must pass a very com-
petitive examination. If successful, he enters the Centre nationale d’Etudes
judiciaires for a three-year course of intensive study which is more narrow
and technical in orientation than the basic legal studies program. To become
an avocat, the law graduate must study for an additional year, pass the
bar examination, and undergo a three- to five-year apprenticeship program.
For an extensive discussion of this system, see Szladits, European Legal
Systems (1976), 278 et seq. See also Tunc, Modern Developments in the Pre-
paration for the Bar in France (1949-50) 2 J. Legal Educ. 71. For a description
of recent changes in the legal profession, see (Herzog & Herzog, The Reform
of the Legal Professions and of Legal Aid in France (1973) 22 Int’l & Comp.
L.Q. 462.
8 See, e.g., deVries, supra, note 3, 76-77.
19803
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
ship program. The traditional academic character of French legal
education was altered considerably by the deterioration of the law
faculties in the eighteenth century and by the utilitarian orientation
of the Napoleonic reforms. The twentieth century law faculties
represent a reassertion of the early university character of the
Facultd de droit as it has been redefined by new intellectual currents.
Tt is the basic thesis of this paper that the French legal studies pro-
gram provides a model for the long-overdue reform of North
American legal education.
II. The medieval law faculties
During the Middle Ages, the law faculties in France were known
as Facultds de droit civil et canonique.e Despite their disparate
historical origins, these university institutions proffered a uniform
program of instruction consisting of lectures (given in Latin) on
Roman civil -law and canon law.7 The case of the Facultd de droit
of Paris, the most prestigious law faculty of the time, is illustrative:
from the early thirteenth century until well into the seventeenth
century, its curriculum was devoted entirely to instruction in the
principles of canon law.8
A complex set of legal, political, and cultural -factors militated
against the establishment of a single legal system in France at this
time9 As a consequence, national legislation was disunified and
frequently disregarded.
At the close of the Middle Ages, the -system of legal education
in general began to fall into discredit. 0 Although some universities
continued to offer the traditional program,” many abandoned law
teaching altogether.2 In those institutions in which some sort of
legal instruction was maintained, .the quality of the teaching de-
0 See Bonnecase, Qu’est-ce qu’une Facultd de Droit? (1929), 52.
7 See Allems, The System of Legal Education in France [1929] J. Soc.
Pub. Teachers L. 36. See also Bonnecase, supra, note 6, 41-54.
8 See Bonnecase, supra, note 6, 55. The law faculty at the University of
Paris was a faculty of canon law from November 16, 1219, date of the Bull
of Pope Honorius II, until the issuance of the 1679 Edict.
9The monarchy had yet to triumph over the feudal structure, the Church
and ecclesiastic courts were an obstacle to the application of a national law,
and the country was divided into two different legal regions. See generally
Bonnecase, supra, note 6, 41-56.
‘OSee Allem6s, supra, note 7, 36.
“Most notably the universities of Paris, Orlans, Bourges, Poitiers, and
Rheims: ibid.
12 Ibid.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
teriorated considerably –
lectures.13
professors often failed to appear for
A quiet movement towards change in the legal system and in
legal education eventually became apparent at several institutional
levels. During the sixteenth century, a number of distinguished
French legal scholars initiated a trend (at least a tacit one) favoring
the integration of the national law into the law school curriculum. 14
The increasing power of the Royal Administration, which entailed
the growing secularization of the State, augured well not only for
French political and cultural unity but also for a unitary system
of national law.15 Progress in the legal area was being achieved and
the mutation of historical forces was leading inevitably to the
assertion of a political and legal system with -a distinctively French
personality. Such a development unquestionably required a revi-
talization and restructuring of legal education.
III. Louis XIV’s reform of legal education
Under Louis XIV, French legal education reached the first stage
of its modern development. As an absolute monarch preoccupied
with the centralization of all political power within his own hands,
he invested the French legal system with sufficient force to give it
a truly national dimension. From 1667 to 1673, the Royal Administra-
tion issued a series of ordinances dealing with, inter alia, French
civil and criminal procedure and commercial law.’, This new role of
national French law brought about a renewed interest in the
Facultis de droit.
In April 1679, a landmark date for French legal education, the
King issued the celebrated Edict of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. 7 The
13 Ibid., 36-37.
‘4 During the Middle Ages, some legal scholars already had written works
on French law (most notably Pierre Defontaines, Philippe de Beaumanoir,
and Jean Bouteiller). In the sixteenth century, the work on French law was
led by Dumoulin with the help of Charondas, Loisel, and Guy-Coquille. It
also should be noted that the couturnes eventually were recorded, which
helped to strengthen the trend toward a unified legal system. For a detailed
discussion of these points, see Bonnecase, supra, note 6, 63-67.
15 Ibid., 65.
16 The dates and subject matter of the ordinances are as follows: civil
procedure (1667); forests and water (1669); criminal procedure (1670); and
land commerce (1673). For a general discussion of this legislation, see Bon-
necase, ibid.
17L’Edit de Saint-Germain-en-Laye d’avril 1679, reprinted in Bonnecase,
ibid., 41-46. For a general discussion of the substance of the 1679 Edict, see
also Allem~s, supra, note 7, 36-37.
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
chief accomplishment of this document and two supplementary
Declarations, enacted in 16821′ and 1690,19 was to institute the
teaching of French law in the Facultds de droit. The preamble of the
1679 Edict attributed the poor quality of judicial decisions and legal
work generally to the insufficiency of legal instruction, and proposed
to remedy the problem by regulating the principal components of
legal education: the curriculum, the degree requirements, and the
institutional status of students and professorsm 0
Regarding the curriculum, all universities with law faculties
were required to reinstate the course offerings in both Roman civil
law and canon law.2′ Those institutions which had abandoned law
teaching entirely were ordered to re-establish their law faculties 2
Moreover,
afin de ne rien omettre de ce qui peut servir h la parfaite instruction
de ceux qui entreront dans les chargers de judicature, nous voulons
que le droit frangois, contenu dans nos ordonnances et dans les cou-
tumes, soit publiquement enseign6; et h cet effet, nous nommerons des
professeurs qui expliqueront les principes de la jurisprudence frangoise
et qui en feront des legons publiques, apr~s que nous aurons donn6 les
ordres n6cessaires pour le rtablissement des Facult6s de droit canoni-
que et civil ….
Under the provisions of the Edict, legal education consisted of
three stages, each of which culminated in the conferral of a degree
(the bachelier, licence and doctorat).24 The Edict also contained
stringent administrative requirements to assure that the degrees
actually were earned by knowledgeable recipients. For exanple, the
licence program, the basic law program, required three years of
study.25 During this period of time, the aspiring candidate had to
attend at least two different classes each day and satisfy all the
written work demanded of him by his professors 0
To ensure compliance with these standards, students underwent
two separate registration procedures: a formal personal registration
procedure four times a year and a less formal registration procedure
every three months.2 Moreover, favorable professorial recommenda-
18 D6claration du 6 aoait 1682, reprinted in Bonnecase, ibid., 46-50.
19 D6claration du 17 novembre 1690, reprinted in Bonnecase, ibid., 50-52, n. 1.
25Supra, note 17.
21 Ibid., arts. 1 and 2.
22 Ibid., art. 2.
23Ibid., art. 14.
24 Ibid., arts. 7 and 8.
2 5 Ibid., art. 6.
2 Ibid.
27 Ibid., art. 15.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
tions were indispensable for graduation.28 At -the end of the third
year, the candidate for the licence would sit a written examination,
defend a thesis publicly, and pass a three-hour oral examination on
both Roman civil law and canon law?9 Upon successfully completing
the examination process, furnishing evidence of his unfailing at-
tendance at lectures, and with satisfactory testimonial letters in
hand, the student would be awarded the licence en droit 0
As was mentioned earlier, the conduct of the law professors
also had contributed to the degeneration of legal education. To
guarantee a minimum level of quality law teaching, the 1679 Edict
mandated that professors give their lectures in conformity with
established schedules and be duly present at examination sessions.8 1
Anyone giving a law lecture who was not bona fide a professor of
law would be fined and stripped of all past and future degrees.
Those persons taking lessons from unaccredited
teachers also
would be sanctioned s Finally, law professors who excused students
from established degree requirements or -furnished them with false
letters of reference would be dismissed and the students involved
would lose their diplomas and would be unable to acquire any
other degree.3
The two subsequent Declarations -provided for the practical im-
plementation of the 1679 Edict. As a result of the recommendations
made by the Facultds de droit of several universities, the Ddclara-
tions contained a number of additions to the original reorganization
program. For instance, they provided for the appointment of doc-
teurs agrggds to help the law professors cope with their increased
workload, laid down guidelines by which these assistants would be
selected, and defined the scope of their responsibilities. 4The most
28 Ibid., art. 6.
– Ibid., art. 7.
S3 For a description of the requirements for the initial and terminal de-
grees, see ibid., arts. 7 and 8.
31 Ibid., arts. 10 and 11.
U Ibid., art. 5.
33 Ibid., art. 12.
34 Supra, note 18, arts. 2-8. Four criteria were established for the appoint-
ment to the position of docteur agrdgd. The candidate had to be at least
thirty years of age, hold a doctorate in law, receive two-thirds of the vote
of the faculty, and be chosen from among aspiring teachers of law, avocats,
or judges: ibid., art. 9. It is worth noting that highly qualified auxiliary per-
sonnel continue to be used in contemporary law faculties. For a discussion
of the modern practice, see Eisenmann, The University Teaching of Social
Sciences: Law (1973), 74. Under art. 19 of the 1682 Ddclaration, the position
of professor of law could be obtained only by way of a formal competition
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
significant part of the Ddclarations pertained to the newly created
position of professeur royal de droit frangais. While it was clear
from the substance of the 1679 Edict that the Royal Administration
attached substantial importance to the teaching of the national law
in -the law faculties, the implementing legislation appeared to set
the occupants of the Chair of French Law somewhat apart from
their colleagues and to give them an inferior rank in the institutional
hierarchy. The 1682 Diclaration stated, on the one hand, that -the
professors of French law
seront du corps des dites Facultds, et auront voix d6lib6rative dans tou-
tes les assembl6es et s6ances entre le plus ancien et second profes-
seur…Pi
while adding, on the other hand,
sans qu’il puisse devenir doyen ni participer aux gages et 6moluments
des dits professeurs&36
The professeur royal du droit frangais was indeed an oddity
in the halls of the tradition-bound law faculties. Not only was he
the sole faculty member to carry the title of professeur royal, teach
in the French -language, and reflect upon a “living” corpus of legal
doctrine, but he was poorly paid and generally disliked by his
fellow professors, who deemed him to be an outsider.37 Despite the
inadequate remuneration and other drawbacks, a significant amount
of prestige accompanied the appointment to the royal professorship.
The text of the 1682 Ddclaration explicitly stated that the King
himself would fill any vacancies by choosing a successor from a
list of three candidates submitted by the bar8 In order to appear
on the list, a candidate had to have been an avocat or a member of
the judiciary for at least ten years 9 Finally, in order to solidify
and nomination process. Art. 20 prohibited a professor of law from simul-
taneously holding a position in private practice or in the judiciary. These
features are still part of the modern process.
35Ibid., art. 11.
36 Ibid.
37 See Bonnecase, supra, note 6, 63. The professeur royal de droit frangais
received some compensation directly from his students; in order to receive
his degree, a candidate for the licence had to obtain a testimonial letter from
the professor of French law, for which letter he paid the professor a small
fee. See D6claration du 6 aofit 1682, supra, note 18, art. 13.
38 Supra, note 18, art. 15.
9 Ibid. One U.S. foreign law scholar (deVries, supra, note 3) has stated
that the criterion of professional experience for the selection of the pro-
fesseur royal represented a “recognition of the need for maintaining a close
relationship between the academic world and that of the practitioners”: ibid.,
73. It seems that this claim is somewhat exaggerated; it would be more
accurate to interpret the requirement for practical experience as one con-
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
the place of French law in the law faculty curriculum, the Royal
Administration proclaimed that all prospective avocats must take at
least one course in French law during their three years of study. 0
The reforms of the Sun King, however, were no more than a
starting point in the development of a modern legal studies curri-
culum. During the eighteenth century, the attempt to revitalize legal
education proved at times to be ineffective.4’ Roman civil law and
canon law continued to dominate the curriculum; Latin was still
the principal language of lectures and examinations; the former
were poorly attended and the latter too easy to give legal education
credibility.42 In a word, prior to the French Revolution, it had
become clear that, despite the integration of national French law
into the law ,school curriculum and the revival of the system gene-
rally, the reforms of the late seventeenth century had failed to offset
the decline of legal education. The Facultds de droit were content
to see
task as the preparation of practitioners who,
quite paradoxically, were trained in classical oratory, and, thanks
to the force of blind tradition, received the major part of their
substantive education in the precepts of Roman civil law and canon
law.43
their
IV. The revolutionary ideology: legal education as civic instruction
In the aftermath of the Revolution, many universities closed
their doors. 4 A few years thereafter, the Republican Convention
enacted legislation establishing the Ecoles centrales to replace
the former system of higher education.45 Since previous re-
publican legislation had made the professions open to all without
ditioned by practical necessity. Since legal education until this time had
been relegated to instruction in Roman civil law and canon law, only prac-
titioners and judges, who had received their legal training through appren-
ticeships to members of the Ordre des avocats (the bar), were qualified to
speak authoritatively on the state of French judicial doctrine. In any event,
the requirement certainly did not establish a close affinity of a permanent
duration between the academic world- and that of the practitioners.
40 Ibid., art. 13.
41 See Allem~s, supra, note 7, 38.
42 See Valeur, Deux conceptions de l’enseignement juridique (1928), 16.
4Ibid.
44See generally Bonnecase, supra, note 6, 72-80.
45 By the provisions of the D6cret de la Convention du 15 septembre 1793,
the Republican Convention abolished not only the existing institutions of
secondary education, but also “les coll~ges de plein exercice et les Facultds
de th6ologie, de m&iecine, des arts et de droit”. Although this decree was
repealed on the following day, subsequent legislation –
the Loi du 7 ven-
t6se an III (25 fdvrier 1795) which was never applied and which was re-
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
regard to formal qualifications, and also had eliminated the bar,40
law teaching apparently was of minor importance to the legislators.
Within the framework of the Ecoles centrales, one professor,
who held the Chair of Legislation, was responsible for the entire
curriculum of legal education in each ‘school.4 7 His mission, as
described by a proponent of the new system, essentially consisted in
imparting a sense of civic values to his students:
[L]e cours de i6gislation n’est point destin6 b. former de profonds juris-
consultes pas plus que des hommes consommds dans ‘6conomie politique
ou dans la science du gouvernement, ou dans celles de n~gociations,
mais h donner aux jeunes gens les sains principes de la morale priv6e
et publique, avec les d~veloppements n~cessaires pour en faire des ci-
toyens vertueux et 6clair~s sur leurs intrts et sur ceux de leur
pays… ;48
In practice, the substance of tie one course in legislation varied
with the individual discretion of the professor who taught -it. Some
confined their attention to the provisions of revolutionary legisla-
tion; others lectured on the principles of natural law, or on a
combined program of natural law -and a special subject; still others
taught a survey course in civil law. Although the professors ap-
parently took their responsibilities seriously, the structure of the
course did not allow for more than the most basic sort of teaching.
With some striking exceptions, most lectures were poorly attended
and the course itself gradually ceased to have any impact upon or
importance in the educational process.49
Rather late in this period, the private efforts of a few legal
scholars demonstrated unequivocally that legal education transcend-
ed its base purpose of training practitioners and instilling a rudi-
placed by the Loi du 3 brummaire an IV (25 octobre 1795) on the organization
of public education – had the same effect. These statutes replaced the pre-
vious university system with the Ecoles centrales, the purpose of which was
to provide teaching in the sciences, the arts, and letters. For the texts of these
legislative documents, see Bonnecase, ibid., 81-88.
40 See Law of March 2, 1791 (freedom of access to all professions) and
the Laws of September 11, 1790 and March 6-26, 1791 (suppression of the bar)
in Allem~s, supra, note 7, 37.
47 See Bonnecase, supra, note 6, 88.
48 Circulaire du ministre de l’Int~rieur en date du 5e jour compl6men-
taire de l’an VII aux professeurs de legislation: ibid., 89.
49 Ibid., 91-93. It should be noted that in addition to the oreation of the
Chair of Legislation at the Ecoles centrales, the revolutionary government had
maintained a Chair of Droit de la nature des gens at the Collage de France,
the only institution of the Ancien rggine to find favor with the republican
government. Although the occupant held a position of high prestige, he
proffered little guidance for the renovation of legal studies. For a detailed
discussion of this point, see Bonnecase, ibid., 94-98.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[VCol. 25
mentary sense of moral and civic responsibility; it could constitute
an authentic area of intellectual inquiry and fulfil the vital pro-
fessional needs of society. These scholars founded the Acaddmie de
l6gislation and the Universitd de jurisprudence, which began operat-
ing in 1802 and 1803 and offered a comprehensive program of law
teaching The Acadginie, for example, had twelve chairs of law. It
offered courses in a wide variety of legal topics, from private
French law through natural and international law and Roman law
to a course in logic, morality and eloquence; its curriculum even
included a -course in medical-legal problems. In fact, this curriculum
contained the basic elements of what French legal education was
to become in the twentieth century 6 However, these imaginative
innovations remained the private offspring of a few men, and, as
such, could not and did not have an important influence upon public
legal education. Moreover, in historical terms, they came late –
too close to the age of the Napoleonic reform of French legal
education to be other than an isolated instance of truly exemplary
law teaching.
V. The Napoleonic Charter on legal education
Under Napoleon, the evolution of French legal education reached
the second stage of its modern development –
a critically decisive
stage which was to leave a firm imprint on legal education, one
characterized by an emphasis on practical pedagogy. The need for
a bar and a judiciary and Napoleon’s personal predilections made
the newly reinstituted law schools a training ground for practi-
tioners. The law of May 1, 1802, a document pertaining to public
education generally, announced, inter alia, that the old law faculties
would be re-established in the form of ten Ecoles de droit, each
having no more than four professors.52 The law of March 13, 1804
and the decree of September 21, 1804,” which related specifically
U0The Acadimie benefited from better leadership and, as a consequence,
offered a program of instruction in law which was quantitatively and
qualitatively superior. The Universitd curriculum consisted only of six
courses on basic legal subjects. Moreover, its faculty was reputed to be less
gifted and conscientious than its counterpart at the Acaddmie. For a detailed
discussion of both institutions, see Bonnecase, ibid., 95-98.
51 Ibid.
52 Loi du 11 flordal an X sur l’instruction publique, reprinted in Bonnecase,
ibid., 100-4.
53Loi de 22 vent6se an XII relative aux Ecoles de droit; D6cret du 4e jour
compldmentaire an XII concernant l’organisation des Ecoles de droit: ibid.,
104-14. For a general discussion of this legislation, see Allem~s, supra, note 7,
39.
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
to law teaching and which constituted the Napoleonic Charter on
legal education, made the provisions of the 1802 law a reality.
Despite dissenting views appealing for ,a broad vision of legal
education,5 4 the spirit of utilitarianism dominated the 1804 legisla-
tive enactments, which ratified the view that the Ecoles de droit
should function as professional “trade schools”. 5 According to the
Charter, education in the law schools would be restricted to the
texts of the codes and the principles of private French law. The
professors would teach private law by dictating their comments on
the codal provisions to their students. Such courses as the philoso-
phy of law, legal history, and natural law were not included in the
curriculum.56
ibid., 114.
6 See Bonnecase, ibid., 115-22.
55 Termed “dcoles professionnelles” or “6coles spdciales”:
50 See Bonnecase, ibid., 114-15, 123-25. In large measure, this system of
legal instruction reflected Napoleon’s personal views; he was averse to
scholars and philosophers generally since they needed independence in order
to function. Also, he believed that schools of higher education should respond
to and perform a limited and well-defined task. This view was premised on
his idea that all cultural learning should be completed at the secondary
education level. The law of March 13, 1804 had given a limited place to the
study of public law, and had defined the study of legal philosophy as the
study of natural law and the rights of man, with legal history consisting of
the study of Roman law in its relation to civil law. The implementing pro-
visions of the decree of September 21, 1804 were even more restrictive –
they further confined the place of public law and eliminated the study of
legal philosophy and history entirely. The ordinance of March 24, 1819 re-
presented a slight improvement; it created a number of chairs in the neglected
areas of law. Many of its provisions, however, were either never implemented
or implemented only half-heartedly. In fact, some were tacitly abrogated
by the ordinance of September 6, 1822. See Bonnecase, ibid., 126-27. See also
Allem~s, supra, note 7, 40.
The law curriculum at this time no longer included canon law; Roman
law was taught only in its relation to French law. Major emphasis was
placed on private French law as contained in the codes. The compulsory
subjects in the law faculties were: French civil law, French public law,
Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Civil Procedure, and Civil Law in relation
to Public Administration. The entire process of legal education was dominat-
ed by the imperial spirit, and the insistence on a single professional mold
was accentuated by the influence of codification on French legal scholar-
ship. The codes were seen as definitive and immutable works; this attitude
gave rise to a casuistic tendency to give the codal texts primacy over legal
principles and fostered a belief in mechanical jurisprudence. Scholarship
was further marked by the narrow professional spirit of the Napoleonic
Charter. Rather than engage in a scientific inquiry into legal phenomena,
scholars became preoccupied by the exegetical method, contriving semantic
arguments on the basis of the codal provisions. Legal teaching and scholarship
at this time and until the last decades of the nineteenth century confirmed
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
Opposition to the Napoleonic method of educating lawyers
began as early as 1819. A number of scholars, taking exception to the
idea that the simple memorization and the logical and grammatical
analysis of the code provisions could produce educated lawyers,
inveighed against its vocational orientation and its lack of a scientific
base57 They insisted upon the need to foster a higher form of juris-
prudential activity, opining that the fundamental purpose of legal
education was to endow the students with a humanistic understand-
ing of the law. In their view, this objective could be achieved only
by incorporating courses in legal history and philosophy into the
curriculum.58 These criticisms laid the groundwork for a third stage
in the evolution of French legal education, one with a historical
personality that was less well-defined than the two previous stages,
but which would give French legal education its modem character.
VI. The movement toward a hybrid legal curriculum:
social science and the law
In 1838, in response to the mounting dissatisfaction with the
legal education process, de Salvandy, the then ministre de lInstruc-
tion publique, appointed a committee on legal studies.5 9 It recom-
mended that the current curriculum be expanded by supplementing
the exegetical commentary on private law with courses in public
law, political economy, comparative legislation, and legal history
and philosophy. The intention of the committee was to infuse law
teaching with a comprehensive social scientific perspective which
could -account for legal phenomena accurately and give the law
faculties an authentic university and academic statusY0 The political
a commonly held impression of the law, namely, that it was “un ensemble
de r~gles arbitraires mises en oeuvre par un art de chicane”: Valeur, supra,
note 42, 17-21.
57 E.g., Athanase Jourdan, the founder of the journal La Thdmis (1819);
Lherbette in his book Introduction a l’dtude philosophique de droit (1819);
and Lerminier in his book Introduction Gdndrale a ‘Histoire du Droit (1829).
All these scholars lamented the fact that the study of law had been reduced
to a sort of vocational training; they unanimously called for a higher form
of jurisprudential inquiry based upon philosophic and historical considera-
tions. See Bonnecase, supra, note 6, 130-35.
58 Klimrath was the principal advocate of the historical study of law.
He promulgated his views in 1833 in his doctoral dissertation, stating that
an incomplete and superficial education, based upon routine learning and
rote memorization, constituted misguided science and could lead only to
short-sighted ideas and narrow bias. See Bonnecase, ibid., 135-37.
-9 Ibid., 139.
6o Ibid., 140-41.
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
instability of the times, however, did not permit that objective to be
realized.6
The next serious attempt to revamp legal studies in France came
in 1872 upon the initiative of another ministre de l’Instruction pu-
blique, Jules Simon, who also appointed a committee to evaluate
the substance and structure of legal education6 2 By comparison,
the recommendations of this committee were much more modest,
representing at best a perfunctory attempt to achieve fundamental
reform. For example, to integrate a social scientific perspective into
the current curriculum, the committee confined itself to proposing
that two new courses be added to the licence program, namely, a
course in political economy and a general introductory course to the
study of law (which included a survey of natural law principles and
legal history as well as a treatment of the organization of public
institutions). These courses represented the only part of the de
Salvandy committee recommendations that were retained by the
Simon committee.6 The Simon committee, however, appeared to be
more sensitive to the new educational needs generated by the
practical development of the legal system; in a more forceful way,
it advocated that courses in criminal and administrative law be
incorporated into the curriculum. In effect, these reforms relegated
a social scientific inquiry into law to the doctoral research level.”‘
Accordingly, during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth
century, the spirit of the law of March 13, 1804 (emphasizing private
law; the code provisions, and practical training) dominated the
process of French legal education. In the last two decades of. the
century, however, the criticisms voiced throughout
the century
began to have their effect: the narrow professional mentality was
beginning to erode and to give way to the social scientific vision
of -the legal education and law teaching 5 In the closing years of
81 Ibid., 142-46.
162La Commission des 6tudes de Droit charg~e de rechercher et de proposer
les mesures propres A rdorganiser l’enseignement du Droit en France: see
ibid., 150.
0N Ibid., 152.
64 Ibid., 152-53.
65The decree of December 28, 1878. rendered the teaching of political
economy obligatory in all law faculties. It would be taught for three hours a
week during the entire second year. The decree of December 31, 1879 re-
established the Chair of Constitutional Law at the University of Paris law
faculty. Only doctoral students, however, were permitted to take the course.
The decree of December 28, 1880 introduced two new courses in the basic law
curriculum: a course in the general history of French public and private
law for first year students and a course in private international law for third
year students. See Valeur, supra, note 42, 39-40.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
the century, courses in political science and political economy
became an integral part of the curriculum of the law faculties. The
pedagogical raison d’dtre of the Facultds de droit gradually was
being reassessed:66 while not abdicating their responsibility as
centres of professional learning, the law faculties also recognized
their status as university institutions –“des 6tablissements de haute
culture intellectuelle et de recherche scientifique”.
VII. French legal education during the first half of the
twentieth century
At the beginning of the twentieth century, French legal educa-
tion, while remaining faithful to certain traditional features of its
past, had advanced considerably in its substantive curriculum. The
most salient of the traditional characteristics that persisted into
the modern era was the method of law teaching by way of the
formal lecture08 The preference for this pedagogical method –
allowing for little, if any, student participation –
inhered in the
nature of the French legal system and educational process. Despite
the integration of French law into the law school curriculum to
supplement the more academic subjects, case law in the French
civil law system never occupied the central position that it has in
common law countries.”‘ At least in theory, jurisprudence is not re-
cognized in the French system as on an equal footing with statutory
06 The ministerial circular of January 12, 1889 stated:
“[L]a licence en droit, l’dconomie politique except6e, semble avoir dtd
surtout consid~rde comme une preparation professionnelle au barreau et
h la magistrature. L est sans doute une de ses fonctions essentielles: mais ce
n’est pas la seule; il ne faut pas oublier que, parmi nos licenci6s en droit, un
tr~s grand nombre ne se destinent ni
la magistrature ni au barreau, mais
aux fonctions administratives et politiques et aux carri6res commerciales et
industrielles”. Cited in Valeur, supra, note 42, 45.
67Duguit, Le droit constitutionnel et la sociologie (1889) 18 Revue interna-
68For a detailed description of the French law
tionale de ‘Enseignement 484, cited in Valeur, supra, note 42, 23.
teaching method, see
Valeur, supra, note 42, ch. 4.
89 Some French scholars, however, did attempt to introduce the study
of case law as a supplement to the lecture course (based on a treatise). An
effort was made in this direction by Professor Henri Capitant in his book
Les grands arr~ts de la jurisprudence civile which was published in 1927 and
revised in 1934. This book was reviewed by Deik (1934-35) 9 Tul. L. Rev. 149
and by Wigmore, The Case-Study System in Continental Law Schools (1930-31)
25 IIl. L. Rev. 579. For a discussion of the case method in civil law countries,
see Dedk, The Place of the “Case” in the Common and the Civil Law (1933-34)
8 Tul. L. Rev. 337. The case method, however, still occupies a distinctly
secondary position in French law teaching.
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
and customary law.70 Moreover, since the principles of French law
were codified in the early nineteenth century, the lecture format,
already widely used to explain the precepts of Roman civil law and
canon law, was tailor-made for the elucidation of the theoretical
implications of the general legal principles in the codal provisions 7
The less adversarial character of the legal system and the diversity
of the career orientation of the law students also favored the con-
tinued use of the lecture method. Finally, the expansion of the
curriculum to include social scientific courses reinforced the use
of the lecture method. Despite the consistency in teaching metho-
dology, the substance of the curriculum and the purpose of law
teaching had been altered: law was envisioned not only as a tech-
nical apparatus for the resolution of disputes, but as an historical
entity with profound philosophic underpinnings interacting with
social and political phenomena.
Following the example set by Louis XIV and Napoleon, legal
education in France continued to be the responsibility of the State-
controlled universities, with the government acting as ultimate
arbiter in all matters and setting a uniform educational policy for
all the law faculties.72 Throughout the first half of the twentieth
century, the course offerings at the Facultds de droit not only were
uniform, but also remained fairly constant. In 1905, a government
decree73 provided that the three-year licence program would consist
of the following set of courses:
First Year
Second Year
Third Year
Roman Law
Civil Law
Political Economy
General History of
French Law
Constitutional Law*
Civil Law
Criminal Law
Administrative Law
Political Economy
One Elective*
Civil Law
Commercial Law
Civil Procedure
Private International
Law
Industrial Legislation
Two Electives
* Indicates a one semester course, all other courses were two semesters
long.
70 See Szladits, supra, note 4, 188.
71 deVries, supra, note 3, 78: “… French legal reasoning appears to start
with a highly generalized proposition of law to which the facts are then
fitted, rather than to begin with a detailed examination of the facts followed
by application of a narrowly formulated rule”.
72 Ibid., 73.
S73 D6cret relatif h la licence en droit, 1.O., 3 aofit 1905.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
The entire three year curriculum consisted mainly of required
courses. It achieved its diversity in the intertwining of basic law
courses and social science courses. It required students to attend
approximately fifteen hours of lectures per week and to sit for
year-end examinations.
Subsequent legislation, enacted in 1922, modified the curriculum
only slightly.71 The law of October 30, 1940,71 however, provided
for more substantial change by requiring all law students to attend
weekly sessions devoted to individual practical work on the subject
matter of one of the lecture courses. Regular attendance at these
conferences et travaux pratiques was a prerequisite to sitting for
examinations, and the student’s performance at these sessions was
a factor in the faculty’s total evaluation of his work.” The purpose
of introducing this additional requirement was to bridge the gap
between students and professors, between the virtual absence of
student participation and a more individualized -forum to cultivate
opinions and views, and, finally, between theoretical analysis and
its application to practical problems. Without question, it was a
welcome addition to a system (however much enlightened it had
become by the cross-breeding of the strictly legal and the social
scientific) which had been impersonal, abstract, and overly theore-
tical.71
’74 Dcret du 2 aofit 1922 modifiant le rdgime des 6tudes et des examens en
vue de la licence en droit, J.0., 5 aofit 1922. The changes consisted in slightly
modifying the title of the courses in constitutional law; eliminating the
second year elective course and adding Roman Law to replace it; and
substituting a course in fiscal legislation for the course in industrial legisla-
tion in the third year curriculum. For a critical account of French legal
education around this time, see Bullington, Legal Education in France (1925-
26) 4 Tex. L. Rev. 461. In addition to summarizing the workings of the
system, the author decries the fact that too little attention is given to prac-
tical matters in the French law faculties and that the lectures are often boring
and tedious: ibid., 467-69.
75Loi du 30 octobre 1940 faisant obligation aux dtudiants des facultds de
droit d’assister aux confdrences et travaux pratiques, 1.O. 22 novembre 1940.
761bid., art. 4.
77For a comparative account of continental and U.S. legal education at
about this time, see Riesenfeld, A Comparison of Continental and American
Legal Education (1937-38) 36 Mich. L. Rev. 31. Although the author focuses
upon the German and the Italian processes, his study contains significant
insights into the continental system as a whole. In particular he notes (at
p. 47) that “[t]he aim of the university law school [in Europe] is not to give
the most useful technical training, but to give the most complete and
thorough picture of the basic ideas of the legal system and the difficulties
of certain basic legal institutions and concepts, and above all to develop
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
The most significant re-evaluation of French legal studies during
this period came in 1954, again in the form of a government decree.78
The preamble of this document stated unequivocally that the time
had come to realign the structure and organization of legal educa-
tion to enable it to respond to changes in society, namely the growth
of public law and social legislation, the surfacing of new economic
theories, and the growing diversity of career options open to law
faculty graduates. The reshaping of the curriculum was to be guided
by the two-fold mission that had been entrusted to the Facultds de
droit: to provide students with a general but solid social science
background through a hybrid teaching of law and political economy,
and to prepare them to engage in professional activity in their
chosen career field.
a general and a specialized cycle –
To accomplish this objective, the Decree of March 27, 1954
lengthened the program of legal studies for -the licence to four years,
divided it into two cycles –
and placed a renewed emphasis upon the weekly travaux pratiques.
The rationale behind the additional year of study was to provide
students with a more complete education, thereby eliminating the
previous practice of pursuing advanced studies at the doctoral
level. The first cycle consisted of a general program of required
courses; in the final -wo years, in addition to a limited common
program, students would specialize in one of -three sections –
either private -law or public law and political science or political
economy –
and would take the courses corresponding to their
choice of specialty. Finally, during each year of the licence program,
the students were required to take two one-and-a-half hour sessions
of travaux pratiques each week and to write a final examination
each year. 9 The 1954 law curriculum consisted of the following
courses:
‘legal grasp’ “. He also maintains (at p. 52) that “[iln Europe the whole
. Greater influence is exerted by theoretical,
attitude is more critical …
deductive considerations
to
rationalize, to work out fundamental principles, to maintain harmony of
the whole. … Nobody on the continent would bother to raise for lengthy
discussion each year the question about what the holding of Slade’s case
really was”.
in dealing with legal problems, the effort
7’D6cret du 27 mars 1954, D.1954.141, modifying the program of study and
examinations in law. The reforms were implemented under the provisions
of D6cret du 23 octobre 1954, D.1954.432.
7 For a discussion of the 1954 reforms in French legal education, see
Dainow, Revision of Legal Education in France: A Four-Year Law Program
(1954-55) 7 1. Legal Ed. 495; Tunc, New Developments in Legal Education
in France (1955) 4 Am. J. Comp. L. 419.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
FIRST CYCLE
First Year
Second Year
Facts
Judicial Institutions & Civil Law
History of Institutions & Societal History of Institutions &
Political Economy
Constitutional Law & Political
International Institutions*
Financial Institutions*
Civil Law
Societal Facts
Political Economy
Administrative Law
Labor Law*
Criminology & General Criminal
Institutions
Law*
SECOND CYCLE
All Sections: Commercial Law & Social Security*
Third Year
Fourth Year
Private Law Section
Civil Law
Criminal Law*
Civil Procedure*
Criminal Procedure*
Roman Law & Old French Law*
Commercial Law
Civil Law
Private International Law*
Roman Law & Old French Law*
Elective Course(s)
Public Law & Political Science Section
Political Science Methodology*
Advanced Public International Law*
Fiscal Science & Techniques*
History of Political Ideas*
Civil Procedure*
Criminal Procedure*
Fluctuations in Economic Activity* Elective Course(s)
Important Administrative Depart-
Colonial Law*
Public Liberties*
Private International Law*
Financial Economics*
ments & National Enterprises
Political Economics Section
Fluctuations in Economic Activity* Economic Systems & Structures
History of Economic Thought &
Analysis of Contemporary
Theories*
Observation*
Statistics & Methods of Economic
Fiscal Science & Techniques*
History of Political Ideas*
Economic Geography*
International Economic Relations*
Business Management &
Financial Economics*
Elective Course(s)
Accounting*
* Indicates a one-semester course; all other courses are two semesters long.
Course work in each year of the program is supplemented by three hours
of travaux pratiques each week. While attendance at course lectures is
optional, it is compulsory for the travaux pratiques.
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
The 1954 reform shows that the theory underlying the organiza-
tion of the French legal studies curriculum had grown increasingly
sophisticated. The Facultds de droit were capable of functioning both
as bona fide academic institutions dispensing a broad education in
law and as professional schools providing a substantial (albeit
theoretical) preparation for business, government, and legal careers.
State control over higher education, however, was to have a per-
nicious consequence. Although the centralization of educational
policy in the national government provided for a nationally uniform
curriculum and guaranteed the worth of national diplomas, it did
not allow the regional universities to determine their own educa-
tional policies and prevented them from dealing effectively with
their particular problems. Rigid government control also had the
effect of supporting and maintaining a strict hierarchy of authority
in which students and faculty had little or no place. The lack of
autonomy from government supervision, combined with student
alienation and mounting dissatisfaction, gave rise to a final episode
in the modern development of the French legal studies curriculum.
VIII. The present curriculum
Prior to the May 1968 student riots, the French national govern-
ment ‘had ,been the chief architect of French educational policy. In
matters -relating to higher education, for example, the Ministry of
National Education not only set university budgetary requirements
and the procedures governing the recruitment of ‘professors, but also
established the substance of the university curricula for degree
programs. Opposition to this rigid hierarchical system manifested
itself in violence, which gave rise to an almost immediate legislative
response. On November 12, 1968, the French Parliament unani-
mously enacted a statute, entitled the Loi d’orientation de l’ensei-
gnement supgrieur,80 which provided for faculty and student parti-
cipation in the -administration and management of the universities.
More importantly for purposes of the present analysis, the 1968
statute gave the universities some measure of autonomy vis-h-vis
the national government in matters concerning the curriculum and
pedagogical organization.
Under the provisions of the 1968 statute, the universities acquired
the right to establish their teaching activities, their research pro-
80 Loi no 68-978 du 12 novembre 1968, D.1968.317. For a detailed commentary
on the consequences of the statute on the system of French higher education
generally, see Carreau, Toward “Student Power” in France? (1969) 17 Am.
I. Comp. L. 359.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[‘Vol. 25
grams, their pedagogical methods, their examination procedures,
and the status of their teaching personnel.”‘ Moreover, by granting
the universities the benefit of a moral personality and financial
autonomy 2 and by creating a network of elected university and
regional advisory councils on educational matters,8
the statute
further reduced the previously all-encompassing authority of the
Ministry of National Education, and in effect made university curri-
cula the fruit of a partnership between the Ministry and the indivi-
dual universities. While the national government retained -the discre-
tion to set mandatory requirements for conferring nationally-re-
cognized degrees,4 the universities were -free to determine the
distribution of these requirements and to supplement them with
their own requirements and a broad range of electives.’ The ad-
ministrative restructuring of the system of French higher educa-
tion –
did not alter, however, the basic
pattern of French legal studies: the basic degree course remains a
four-year program consisting of two principal “cycles” or stages of
study.86
its “decentralization” –
The first two-year cycle essentially is a period of general orienta-
tion to the study of law; students achieve a -limited concentration
(or major) in an academic department only in the second year.
Upon completing this first cycle, students are awarded a general
studies degree, called the Dipl6me d’Etudes Universitaires Gdndra-
les, mention Droit (D.E.U.G.), which corresponds to an associate
degree with specialization in law. During the second two-year cycle,
students must concentrate in one of the departments providing
instruction in law. For example, a senior law student may take the
majority of his courses in the program designed by the depart-
ments of commercial law, political science, or economics. At the
end of the third year, students receive a licence en droit, the
equivalent of a B.A. in law; at the end of the fourth year, they are
granted a maltrise en droit, an M.A. in law, which, for all practical
purposes, has become the basic French -law degree. The weekly work
load of French law students during each year of study normally
amounts to twenty class hours, consisting approximately of fifteen
hours of university lecture courses (cours magistraux), three hours
81 Ibid., art. 19.
82 Ibid., art. 3.
83 Ibid., arts. 8 and 9.
84 Ibid., art. 20.
85 Ibid., art. 19.
86See French Cultural Services, Higher Education in France (1977), 20-22.
1980]
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
of directed study classes (travaux dirigds), a one-hour introductory
course to professional practices, and a weekly language seminar.8 7
Although the basic pattern of legal studies in France is un-
changed, the sharing of power instituted by the 1968 statute in
matters of curriculum policy has accentuated the already marked
tendency of French universities to teach law in an interdisciplinary
fashion. As with the 1954 legal studies curriculum, the interdisci-
plinary perspective is present at the initial stage of study and con-
tinues, despite the specialization, into the final years of the program.
Although the Ministry of National Education still determines nearly
half of the substantive content of the legal studies curriculum, even
these core courses foster the interdisciplinary objective. The re-
mainder of the curriculum consists of university and departmental
requirements as well as electives and it is here that the impact of
the decentralization of educational policy is most pronounced. 88, The
French law student is confronted with a plethora of course packages
and electives both within and without the area of chosen concen-
tration. This allows the student to move from one social science
perspective to another, from an initial introduction to a more
legal
advanced consideration, and provides for a well-rounded
education with courses from allied or more remote academic dis-
ciplines. It also is worth noting that the required program includes
courses in public or private international law as well as comparative
law.
This brief description, of course, does not do justice to the
originality of the legal studies curriculum in each of the French
universities. This study will focus upon the program that is being
administered at the University of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne), a
university long recognized as one of the most distinguished centers
for the study of law in France. Although its legal studies curriculum
probably is more exemplary than it is representative of the programs
offered at other French universities, Paris I provides a forceful
illustration of the educational and intellectual advantages that can
be derived from the interdisciplinary study of law. 9
At Paris I, five Teaching and Research Units (departments) pro-
vide instruction in law: -the Departments of Public Administration
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid., 20-21.
89 For the description of the legal studies curriculum at the University of
Paris I, the author has used a catalogue entitled Universitg de Paris I Pan-
thdon Sorbonne, Licence et Maitrise en Droit (1977-78), 9-18, 29-58. The tables
presented in the text are summaries of the content of the booklet, but have
been reorganized considerably.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol, 25
and Domestic Public Law; Commercial Law; Development and
International, European and Comparative Studies (Law Section);
Political Science; and Labor and Social Studies. For both adminis-
trative and academic purposes, entering law students are required
to select tentatively one Teaching and Research Unit as their major
department. During the first two years of the program, the student’s
choice of a major area of academic concentration is of relatively
minor importance and, in fact, can be changed from one year to
the next; it does, however, become binding during the last two
years of study when a final orientation in legal studies is chosen.
First year law students at Paris I are required to take three
year-long university lecture courses, entitled Political Institutions
and Constitutional Law, General Introduction to Civil Law, and
Economics, and a one-semester departmental course. For those
students who have registered as majors in the Department of Poli-
tical Science, the departmental requirement is satisfied by taking
Political Science: The Sociology of Politics; students in the other
departments must take History of Law and of Institutions. The
program of elective courses also is administered on a departmental
basis. Students registered in the Departments of Public Administra-
tion and Domestic Public Law, Commercial Law, and Labor and
Social Studies may satisfy their elective requirements by taking
three of the following courses: International Relations; Political
Science: The Sociology of Politics; The History of Political Doc-
trines –
19th and 20th Centuries; or Sociology and Social Psycholo-
gy. Students in these departments, however, also have the possibility
of fulfilling their three credit elective requirement -by taking certain
specified courses in other university departments. For example, they
may take a purely historical elective component, consisting of In-
troduction to the Historical Sciences and Survey of Contemporary
History, or the three-credit course General Philosophy and the
History of Philosophy; or offerings in art, such as Introduction to
the Art of Modern Times, Introduction to Contemporary Art, and
Introduction to Cinematographic Studies; or business-related elec-
tives, namely, Statistics, Mathematics, and National Accounting.
Students from the Department of Development and International,
European and Comparative Studies and the Department of Political
Science choose their electives from a similarly diverse list of
courses, although the distribution of these electives caters more
to the particular interests of these departments.
In addition to the foregoing program, first year law students
at Paris I are required to take three hours of directed studies classes
(the travaux dirigds) each week. These classes are intended to
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
provide students with individual instruction on -the subject matter
covered in the basic curriculum. For example, all students must take
the two directed studies classes in Political Institutions and Consti-
tutional Law, and Introduction to Law and Civil Law. The choice
of the third directed studies class again depends upon the student’s
major concentration. Students who are registered in the Depart-
ments of Public Administration and Domestic Public Law, Com-
mercial Law, or Labor and Social Studies, may select between a
directed studies class in Economics or History of Law and of
Institutions, while students in the Department of Development and
International, European and Comparative Studies and in the De-
partment of Political Science may choose between Economics or,
respectively, International Relations or Political Science as their
third -directed studies class.
By the second year of -the D.E.U.G. program, law students at
Paris I begin to work more closely within the framework of the
program administered by their major department. Although the
elective and inter-departmental offerings are reduced significantly
during the second year, the curricula established by the individual
departments, while promoting specialized study in a given social
science discipline relating to the law, incorporate a sufficient diver-
sity of courses to maintain a full-fledged interdisciplinary character.
It is also during this final year of the D.E.U.G. program that law
students at Paris I receive weekly instruction on the more practical
aspects of professional life and work. The table below summarizes
the basic second year course requirements in two of the five depart-
ments. While one program is more traditional in character than the
other, they both reflect an unfailing commitment to the inter-
disciplinary study of law.
Department of
Commercial Law
University Lectures:
Criminal Law
Civil Law II
Professional
Practices:
Corporate
Accounting
Directed Studies
Class:
Commercial Law
Civil Law
Department of Deve-
lopment and Interna-
tional, European and
Comparative Studies
Contemporary Econo-
mic Problems
Political Organizations
or
Criminal Law
Organizations and
Relations
(International
Orientation)
Commercial Law
Administrative Law
and Institutions
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
The organization of the second year D.E.U.G. program around the
departmental structure foreshadows the type of specialization law
students engage in during the second cycle of the legal studies pro-
gram. The candidates for the licence and the maitrise have chosen a
definite area of concentration; as a consequence, in their final two
years of study, they are obliged to take the specialized program
established by their major department. Specialization erftails a
drastic reduction in elective offerings and inter-departmental distri-
bution requirements. These limitations, however, are counterbalan-
Ced by the interdisciplinary character of individual departmental pro-
grams. The table below provides a description of both the licence
and the maitrise curricula in the Department of Commercial Law and
the Department of Development and International, European and
Comparative Studies. It should be noted that the maltrise program
is divided into two semesters in which special concentration is
achieved in the second semester in the form of a certificate program.
LICENCE
Department of
Commercial Law
Department of
Development and
International,
European and
Comparative Studies
University Lectures
Directed Studies
Classes
Labor Law
Civil Law
Commercial Law
Instruments
Suretyship
Family Law
Negotiable
Bankruptcy
Law I
Public International
Private International
Administrative
Law
Law I
Public International
Private International
Law
Law
Labor Law
Administrative Law I
Commercial Law
Major Legal Systems
and
Anglo-American Law
or
German Law
Three from among:
Labor Law
Suretyships
Family Law
Negotiable
Bankruptcy
Instruments
Three from among:
Law
Law
Public International
Private Internatonal
MaJor Legal Systems
and
Anglo-American Law
or
German Law
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
Electives
First Semester
University Lectures
One from among:
The History of
Business
Company Organiza-
tion and Financial
Management
Public Liberties
Criminal Procedure
Major Legal Systems
Insurance Law
Private Judicial Law
One from among:
Public Liberties
Economic Politics
Administrative
Law II
Introduction to
EEC Law
Civil Law
Suretyship
or
Family Law
MAiTRISE
Dept of Commercial
Law
Dept of Development
& Int’l, European &
Comparative Studies
Commercial Law
Taxation
Private International
Law
Civil Family Law
Directed Studies
Classes
Commercial Law
Taxation
.Electives
(None)
International
Commercial Law
Public International
Economic Law
Private International
Law
International
Commercial Law
Public International
Economic Law
Two from among:
The Sociology of
International
Relations
Foreign Administra-
tive Institutions
Comparative Labor.
Seminar in German
Law
Law
Second Semester
Certificate in
International
Business Matters
Certificate in the Law
of International Life
University Lectures
International
Commercial Law
European –
Commercial Law
European
Organizations
European
Organizations
European Commercial
Law
Directed Studies
Classes
International
Commercial Law
European
Organizations
Electives
University Lectures
Directed Studies
Classes
Electives
University Lectures
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
Two from among:
Oil Law
Middle East Oil
Politics
Maritime Law
Computer Pro-
gramming and
International
Relations
International Law
of Development
Certificate in
Domestic
Business Matters
Certificate in
Anglo-American Law
Commercial Criminal
Law
Banking & the Stock
European Commercial
Market
Law
U.S. Company Law
Contract Law in
Common Law
Countries and
Private
International Law
English Company Law
Seminar in Anglo-
American Law
European Commercial
(none)
Law
*
Certificate in
Management
Commercial
Financial
Management
Management
Banking & the
Stock Market
(none)
Certificate in
European
Institutions & Law
EEC Institutional Law
European Commercial
EEC Economic
Law
Problems
Directed Studies
Classes
Financial Management
Electives
EEC Institutional Law
European Commercial
Law
One from among:
European Social
Legislation (includes
a directed studies
class)
European Tax &
Finance Law**
In addition to the certificate program, all students in the Department of Commercial Law
must take two electives from among Remedies, History of Private Law, English Company
Law, European Social Legislation, Insurance Law, Industrial Property, Management Super-
vision, and Special Criminal Law.
* The Department of Development and International, European and Comparative Studies also
offers Certificates in African Law and Economics and Third World Studies. Considerations of
space did not allow for a description of these two additional certificate programs.
19803
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
When compared to the legal studies curriculum established by
national government decree in 1954, the current program at the
University of Paris I represents a considerable advance in the
social scientific interdisciplinary methodology. While law students
are nurtured in a particular departmental -discipline, the initial
phases of the program and the continuing diversity of both the
required -and elective curricula oblige them constantly to perceive
the law as a multi-faceted phenomenon with political, economic,
and social ramifications. The university, in its capacity as an acade-
mic institution whose fundamental mission (-according to the lan-
guage of the 1968 statute) is to provide for the elaboration and trans-
mission of knowledge, the development of research and the training
of men,10 is concerned that students understand the ‘law in its full
dimension: its origins and interrelationships with society as well
as its actual elements in a more narrow vocational and technical
sense. The principal question emerging from this description of the
evolution and present status of the legal studies curriculum in France
is whether its theoretical promise and appeal can be transcribed –
into the reality of the French legal educa-
either wholly or in part –
tion process. Do students emerge from the program of study with a
firm intellectual understanding of the law? Does the program cater
to their interests and needs or is it more a reflection of the academic
proclivities of their professors? Is such a curriculum operable
within the framework of the French university system?
IX. The value of the French legal studies curriculum as a
comparative model
In actual practice, the French legal studies curriculum suffers
from a number of drawbacks which, although they do not under-
mine its status as a model of substantive legal instruction, call into
serious question the pedagogical worth of some aspects of the
French university system.91 On the one hand, these flaws are en-
demic to any educational system which places so much importance
upon strictly academic values and establishes so clear a -demarca-
tion between the world of ideas and the realm of existing fact.
Rightly or wrongly, the French university appears to function prin-
00 Loi du 12 novembre 1968, art. 1.
91 In describing the characteristics and the operation of the French
university system, the author has relied on his own experience at the
University of Paris and the University of Tours. He wishes to express his
gratitude to Professor John M. Kernochan, Professor William J. Bridge,
Antoine N. Paszkiewicz, Esq., and Ms Marie-Annick Fdddli, a fourth year
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
cipally upon its own momentum. Academic inquiry becomes mean-
ingful in itself; knowledge is prized exclusively for its own sake and
perhaps at the expense of other human endeavors. Accordingly,
despite statutory language and government policies proclaiming
educational egalitarianism and the need to have the universities
respond to the immediate needs of society, the French universities
have held fast to an elitist tradition, envisioning themselves pri-
marily as breeding grounds for academic vocations.
On the other hand, the deficiencies that attend the legal studies
(or any other) curriculum within the setting of the French university
system stem from the fact that higher education in France is “part
of a nationally uniform system of free, secular, public education”9 2
which is funded rather parsimoniously by the national government.
law student at the University of Paris, for their comments and observations
on their experience in the French legal studies program. See also Hauser &
Hauser, The Study of Law in France: A Student’s View in Harvard Law School
Bulletin, vol. 10, no. 4 (Feb. 1959).
02 deVries, supra, note 3, 72. Because of its public character, tuition and fees
at the French university are minimal, rarely exceeding more than $50 a year;
room and board costs are subsidized heavily by the State. The “open ad-
missions” policy was instituted in France primarily for political reasons, to
assuage critics who assailed selectivity as elitist and undemocratic;
it is
not a policy which reflects a purely pedagogical design. Although the open
admission policy admittedly equalized access to higher education, it also
created a more subtle form of post-admission selectivity, engendering, for
example, a 50% attrition rate during the initial years of professional studies.
A few years ago, the then Minister of National Education, Joseph Fontanet,
recognized that the open admission policy had particularly brutal conse-
quences, essentially eliminating after a few years of study many of those
students whose expectations had been raised unjustifiably and whose in-
vestment of their time and effort in a program of study for which they
were unsuited and unprepared went to naught. Most of the teaching per-
sonnel do not have offices or secretarial support. Libraries lack sufficient
space to accommodate students, library hours are inconvenient, and it is
difficult to get books and almost impossible to take them out. A sense of
participation in the life of an academic community or a willingness to
engage in extracurricular activities are unknown in the majority of French
universities. These general conditions of university life promote an attitude
of indifference and cynicism, not only among students, but also among the
teaching staff. While students focus their attention almost exclusively upon
getting a passing grade on examinations, professors, who usually can rely
upon the job security guaranteed by their status as civil servants, minimize
their pedagogical roles and devote their time and energy to research or
other personal pursuits. Finally, in direct contradiction
to the open ad-
missions policy, the French university system remains hierarchical and
elitist in character, catering primarily to the needs and interests of a small
minority of academically-inclined students who aspire to enter the teaching
profession.
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
An alternative to this system in the form of private universities has
yet to be proposed; in light of the commonly-held attitude in France
that the government bears full responsibility for the educational
needs of the country, it is unlikely to be forthcoming in the future.
Admission to the French universities is open to any high school
student who has obtained his baccalaurgat. The exceedingly large
numbers of students generated by this admissions policy, combined
with ihadequate government funding, leads to overcrowding and
generally inadequate facilities for both students and professors,
especially in the large metropolitan areas03
As with other university programs, the university lecture courses
in law may be attended by anywhere from five hundred to a
thousand registered students. Professors deliver formal lectures,
presenting a view of the law which is not only didactic, but also
dogmatic in character. Clearly, the size of the courses discourages
both formal and informal contacts between students and pro-
fessors; the method of presentation prohibits any attempt to question
the fundamental principles of the law, the memorization of which
usually is the key to success in the final examination. Moreover,
students often complain that the basic instruction is too erudite
and theoretical to be of any value to them when they leave the
university. For many French law professors, the lecture is an art
form, the substance of which responds to a detached analytical
imperative and is delivered in an elegant and impeccably articulated
French. By his training and personal predilections, the French law
professor avoids the practitioner’s perspective; he weaves a web of
theoretical abstractions that is destined to inspire those few mem-
bers of his anonymous audience who aspire to follow in his foot-
steps.
The more individualized group instruction proffered by the
directed studies classes was meant to remedy the impersonal and
theoretical character of the lecture method of instruction. These
weekly sessions were designed to provide students with an oppor-
tunity to apply the knowledge they acquired in lectures to existing
legal problems. The actual operation of the directed studies classes,
however, appears to deviate from this statement of purpose. In
keeping with the training they have received and with the precedent
set by the professors they wish to emulate, the graduate instructors,
who conduct these sessions under the general supervision of a law
professor, devote their teaching efforts to expounding upon funda-
93 See Herzog, supra, note 2, 69.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
mental legal principles rather than encouraging students to de-
velop a critical perspective upon the law. Often, the analysis of the
practical legal problem is relegated to a hurried treatment in the
closing minutes of the sessions. Paradoxically, the professors, who
have established themselves as educators, have the least amount of
contact with students, while the graduate instructors, who have just
begun to teach, have the most direct influence upon the students’
education.
This brief summary of the deficiencies of the French university
system -does not compromise the substantive integrity of the French
legal studies curriculum or undercut its viability as a comparative
model, especially in regard to a system which has the benefit of
more adequate educational funding. The independence of the curri-
culum from external pressure exerted by the bar, its grouping
together of a number of social science disciplines, and its provision
for guided specialization in a given area during the final years of
study are features which could provide an illuminating and profit-
able comparative perspective upon the more focused, vocational
orientation of the North American law school curriculum. Needless
to say, the substantive differences between the French and North
American legal studies curricula are radical in character. One could
argue that any extensive comparison between the two programs
would be misleading and false, on the ground that the French legal
studies curriculum finds its closest analogue in the North American
undergraduate program, in which students are exposed to a diversi-
fied liberal arts perspective and choose a particular field of con-
centration in their final years of study. In the final analysis, the law
program in French universities is an undergraduate course of study,
established for students who lack any previous university training
and fixed professional goals.
In contradistinction to the French curriculum, the program of
courses -in North American law schools represents graduate4evel
study designed to inculcate, in students with well-defined career
ambitions, certain professional values and basic -skills that are
deemed requisite to the practice of law. In the majority of North
American
law schools, faculty time and institutional resources
devoted to an interdisciplinary treatment of the law are frills around
a basic core curriculum of traditional law courses. The study of law
in North America is a serious practical business. In fact, some law
professors feel obliged to engage in several years of actual law prac-
tice, in lieu of graduate legal study, before seeking academic posi-
tions. Moreover, in order not to disappoint student expectations,
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
law professors focus the substance of their courses upon “real world”
legal problems and disregard the more esoteric aspects of their
subject matter.
All these differences, however, discount the fact that the French
and North American legal studies curricula share a common peda-
gogical goal: to give students an understanding of the law. They
merely represent different ways of achieving this same goal; each
of them inevitably falls victim to the deficiencies of its particular
methodology. The French system has attempted (albeit with mini-
mal success) to introduce more practical instruction in its curricu-
lum through the directed studies classes and the survey courses in
professional practices. North American law schools have established
distinguished reputations for training legal practitioners, although
they have been under increasing pressure to -do so more effectively
and with greater -sophistication. It is undeniable that a professional
school with a vocational mission must give its students high quality,
intensive training in the basic skills that are indispensable to the
exercise of their future profession. Quite possibly, the most effica-
cious way of fulfilling that mission is to retain the -traditional first
year format, possibly supplementing it with a more elaborate
clinical writing program. The North American system, however,
appears to have been guilty of a lack of commitment in those areas
where the French system has engaged in excesses. In the opinion of
this writer, North American law schools have failed to maintain a
sufficient autonomy from the practical -demands of the bar and
consequently have neglected to assert fully their -academic character
and establish a viable ‘law teacher training component in their
curricula.
Much ink ‘has flowed over the question of what is to be done with
the curriculum after law students have been through the rigors of
the first year of law school. In recent years, there has been a
growing trend favoring the complete elimination of the second and
third years of study and the reintroduction of a form of apprentice-
ship program. Many of the proponents of this abbreviated legal
studies program stress the strength of character and personality
that can be gained from actual experience and maintain, with some
accuracy, that senior law students who aspire to practice law are
really only impatiently putting in their time after the first year of
study. Such a position, however, unjustifiably belittles the academic
status of law schools and even more unjustifiably discounts the
fact that the law has an intellectual life of its own.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 25
Proposals for the reformulation of the North American legal
studies curriculum should take into account the fact that the law
schools are university institutions which, although they have a
strong commitment to professional endeavor, also have the re-
sponsibility of furthering the pursuit of knowledge and preserving
intellectual traditions and of acting as the impartial and indepen-
dent repositories of ideas. Any abridgement of the length of the
current curriculum would work a considerable disservice not only
upon the academic status of law schools but also upon the social
standing of the legal profession itself. Although the present second
and third year curricula are defective in many respects, the answer
is not to eliminate them, but rather to refurbish them so that they
can be made to provide students with greater stimulation. In this
way, the advanced curriculum could satisfy the need -for improved
legal services and provide a means by which law schools could lay
claim to an authentic academic and intellectual status as university
institutions. It is precisely in this area that certain features of -the
French model –
the history of its vacillation between practical and
academic instruction, its adoption and continued use of an inter-
disciplinary social scientific approach, its emphasis upon academic
values and the training of professors, and finally, its program of
guided specialization in the concluding years of study –
can be
particullarly instructive to institutions with more adequate financial
resources and physical facilities to deploy its principal ideas.
This article seeks to advance the general idea that the quality
of North American legal education could be enhanced considerably
by transforming the second and third year curriculum into a three-
tier system of areas of concentration, with a common first year
program (closely akin to the current program at most law schools)
assuring a basic uniformity of legal training. The first track of the
advanced curriculum would be in keeping with the substance of the
curriculum that is being offered presently; it would consist of basic
core courses in corporate law, commercial law, evidence, conflicts
of laws, a -few required courses in legal history and philosophy, and
a fairly elaborate clinical program in such subjects as trial advocacy
and negotiations. The second track would represent a hybrid pro-
gram, combining strictly legal courses with interdisciplinary offer-
ings, and would act as an intermediary between the first and the
third options. It would appeal to students who are interested pri-
marily in practising law, but who also wish to spend some of their
time in law school exploring the law from a less practical perspec-
tive. The third track would be designed for students who intend to
19801
THE FRENCH LEGAL STUDIES CURRICULUM
become teachers of the law. Although they would take courses in a
certain area of the substantive law, their time would be devoted
primarily to an interdisciplinary consideration of the law, ultimately
preparing them to engage in graduate legal study and professional
research. The content of their program would focus upon philoso-
phy, economics, political science, and sociology, as these disciplines
relate to law.
Admittedly, the foregoing description only provides the skeletal
structure of a potential program, the details of which would require
more thought and extensive planning. Nonetheless, it is submitted
that the general idea of a three-tier advanced curriculum, based
upon the French model, could be of immense use and benefit to
North American law schools. It would enable them not only to re-
spond more effectively to a multiplicity of social needs and student
expectations, but also (and more importantly) to give more breath-
ing room to the intellectual side of the law. The institution of such
a program would be the beginning of a response to Professor
Auerbach’s description of his short-lived experience in a North
American legal education program:
After so many years spent learning what to think it was a relief to be
told that I was learning how to think. The experience was paradoxical:
the more I learned how to think like a lawyer the less I wanted to
become one. Legal education was designed to evade precisely those
questions which, in my naivet6, I believed that lawyers should con-
template: Is it just? Is it fair? If not, how can law be utilized to make
it so?94
04 Auerbach, Unequal Justice (1976), ix.
