Teaching Procedure and the Legal Academy
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A Community of Procedure Scholars: Teaching Procedure and the Legal Academy Abstract This article asks whether the way in which procedure is taught has an impact on the extent and accomplishments of a scholarly community of proceduralists. Not surprisingly, we find a trs ong correlation between the placement of procedure as a required course in an academic context and the resulting body of scholars and scholarship. Those countries in which more civil procedure is taught as part of a university degree—and in which procedure is recognized as a legitimate academic subject—have larger scholarly communities, a larger and broader corpus of works analyzing procedural issues, and a richer web of institutional support systems that inspire, fund, and shape the study of public justice. This special issue article is available in Osgoode Hall Law Journal: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol51/iss1/4 93 A Community of Procedure Scholars: Teaching Procedure and the Legal Academy BETH THORNBURG, ERIK S. KNUTSEN, CARLA CRIFÒ, CAMILLE CAMERON & DAVID BAMFORD * This article asks whether the way in which procedure is taught has an impact on the extent and accomplishments of a scholarly community of proceduralists. Not surprisingly, we fi nd a strong correlation between the placement of procedure as a required course in an academic context and the resulting body of scholars and scholarship. Those countries in which more civil procedure is taught as part of a university degree—and in which procedure is recognized as a legitimate academic subject—have larger scholarly communities, a larger and broader corpus of works analyzing procedural issues, and a richer web of institutional support systems that inspire, fund, and shape the study of public justice. La manière dont on enseigne la procédure a-t-elle une incidence sur l’importance et les réalisations des spécialistes universitaires de la procédure? Nous ne sommes pas surpris de déceler une forte corrélation entre le statut de cours universitaire obligatoire accordé à la procédure et l’importance de la collectivité de spécialistes et de chercheurs qu’il suscite. Les pays où l’on enseigne la procédure civile dans le cadre des études juridiques universitaires – et où la procédure possède un statut de discipline légitime – connaissent une plus forte collectivité de chercheurs, des travaux plus abondants et plus variés analysant les questions de procédure, ainsi qu’un plus riche réseau de soutien institutionnel capable d’inspirer, de fi nancer et de façonner l’étude de la justice publique. * Respectively, Beth Th ornburg, Professor SMU Dedman School of Law, and Director, SMU Center for Teaching Excellence, Dallas, Texas, USA. Professor Th ornburg is the principal author of the US section of this article. Erik S. Knutsen, Associate Professor, Queen’s University, Faculty of Law, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Professor Knutsen is the principal author of the Canada section of this article. Carla Crifò, Lecturer, University of Leicester School of Law, Leicester, United Kingdom. Professor Crifò is the principal author of the United Kingdom section of this article. Camille Cameron, Dean, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Dean Cameron is one of the principal authors of the Australia section of this article. David Bamford, Professor, Flinders University Law School, Adelaide, Australia. Professor Bamford is the other principal author of the Australia section of this article. 94 (2013) 51 OSGOODE HALL LAW JOURNAL I. INTRODUCTION: THE LINK BETWEEN TEACHING AND SCHOLARSHIP ...........................................94 II. UNITED STATES ................................................................................................................................... 97 A. A Large Group of Scholars ...................................................................................................97 B. A Complex Web of Support Structures ................................................................................ 99 C. Procedure Scholarship ....................................................................................................... 105 III. CANADA ............................................................................................................................................. 109 A. A Multi-Dimensional Community .......................................................................................109 B. Pure Procedure Scholarship .............................................................................................. 112 C. The Scholarship of “Procedure Plus” ................................................................................ 114 IV. UNITED KINGDOM: ENGLAND AND WALES .................................................................................... 118 A. The Legal Academy in the United Kingdom—Divided, Uncertain of its Role .................... 118 B. The Dearth of People and Institutions ............................................................................... 121 C. Publications: The Strange Case of the Civil Justice Quarterly ..........................................124 D. Disincentives to Procedural Scholarship: Academic Stardom, Research, and the Quest for Excellence (or Funding) ................................................................................................ 126 V. AUSTRALIA ........................................................................................................................................ 130 A. The Historical Place of Civil Procedure in Law Schools ....................................................130 B. A Growing Community of Scholars .................................................................................... 131 C. A Growing Body of Scholarship ..........................................................................................134 D. A Very Long Way to Go ........................................................................................................ 138 VI. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................... 139 A. Number of Teacher-Scholars............................................................................................. 139 B. Outlets for Publication ........................................................................................................ 140 C. The Bottom Line ................................................................................................................. 142 APPENDIX ONE ........................................................................................................................................... 145 APPENDIX TWO ........................................................................................................................................... 152 I. INTRODUCTION: THE LINK BETWEEN TEACHING AND SCHOLARSHIP WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP between the teaching of a subject and its scholarly exploration? How does the inclusion of “procedure” among academic subjects infl uence the development and maintenance of an academic literature and a corpus of scholarly debate?1 How might a scholarly community be fostered and sustained by its members’ shared interest in challenging students to engage with current debates on a particular subject and in furthering their critical appreciation of ongoing developments in a fi eld? In this, the third article in this special issue on the impact of teaching procedure, we explore the link between teaching procedure and scholarship in the fi eld. 1. Janet Walker, “Th e Impact of Procedure” (2013) 51:1 Osgoode Hall LJ vii-viii. THORNBURG ET AL., PROCEDURE SCHOLARS 95 As Knutsen et al demonstrate,2 there is considerable variation among common law countries in the approach taken to the teaching of civil procedure, particularly regarding its place—or lack of a place—in the university setting. Th is article examines the possible consequences of those approaches for the legal academy, and seeks to document the relationship between the teaching of procedure and its scholarly exploration. It has often been suggested that the existence of a group of scholars studying and teaching a subject facilitates the development and maintenance of an academic literature and a corpus of scholarly debate. In this article we examine the related acts of teaching and writing about procedure and how they create a community of scholars who engage each other in sustained discussions about the general and specifi c requirements of a civil justice system and analyze ongoing developments in the law. Th at scholarly engagement encourages these scholars to teach students not just to memorize but to learn. It encourages them to expose their students to cutting-edge developments in the fi eld, and to inspire their students to seek out new information, synthesize it, and analyze it in the context of larger policy concerns.3 Th e teaching of civil procedure in an academic context promotes and supports the existence of a community of scholars by making possible the unifi ed “teacher- scholar.” Educational theory posits that the “teacher-scholar is at once deeply committed to inquiry in his or her disciplinary fi eld and passionately devoted to successful student learning through teaching and good institutional practices.”4 Faculty members achieve most in both teaching and scholarship when there are “lively connections” between their role as teachers and their role as scholars.5 Th is has a number of related causes: • teaching requires