Reflection on Impact of Undisclosed Educational Goals on Adult Legal Education

Reflection on Impact of Undisclosed Educational Goals
on Adult Legal Education

B. Shayne
Fordham University
Graduate School of Education

Abstract

This paper reflects the author’s view of the conflicting interests of colleges/universities and adult education in the area of the law as illustrated by the undisclosed goals of those institutions.

Reflection on Impact of Undisclosed Educational Goals

on Adult Legal Education

Educational institutions have espoused a variety of goals over the last three centuries. Each goal has had reasonable aims whether cultural advancement, protection of the dominant view, social change or integration, professionalism, religious, or other. The validity of those goals and outcomes, however, have always been evaluated from an historical perspective, in the context of the provider’s interpretation of their goals, and very often through a revisionist lens which re-aligned those goals with the results actually achieved.

What has generally not been discussed is the implication of the provider undisclosed goals and how that has impacted adult learners in the larger societal setting and in terms of adult education.

Despite their expressed educational or altruistic motives all programs contain some degree of bias or self interest if for no other reason that their primary focus, of necessity, has to be survival of the college or university providing them (Kett, 1994, p. 266-268.) No judgment is made as to whether the motives, goals, or outcomes are valid, good, or bad. The author’s reaction instead relates to the failure of the provider to fully disclose the scope of those goals so as to permit sponsors, learners and other to appreciate and evaluate those goals in relation to their own context.

Consistent with the position of the necessity to fully disclose motive or bias, Shayne discloses that he attended a law school which although at the time of his attendance was part of a university, it had until the year before been an independent degree granting law school. Shayne attended one of the relatively few night/part-time law programs and was one of the youngest members of a class of working adults averaging 32 years of age most of whom already possessed one or more advanced degrees and/or were members of a licensed profession.

The relevancy of this disclosure becomes apparent in Shayne’s reaction as to the impact of undisclosed goals related to legal education as it implicates adult education in the field of law.

Concealment of underlying objectives is hardly unique to education. Indeed in politics and diplomacy it is considered by many to be the norm. But in other areas affecting consumer decisions it has resulted in a dizzying array of state and federal government regulation and professional ethics requirements requiring complete disclosure of self or conflicting interest and substantial disclosure of other facts that a reasonable consumer might find relevant to their decisions. Shayne is not aware of any comparable disclosure requirements existed in the case of education in general and not in the case of legal education.

Review of the development of professional higher education in what is usually presented as a battle solely between schools of thought: the first focused on full time education based upon theoretical or philosophical approach, and the second focused on part time and practical experience, reveals the undisclosed power play based heavily on economic interests and not solely on academic theory.

The battle between what had previously been essentially distinct non-competitive models of legal education and delivery were joined over competition for educational market share and control over the profession.

As higher education tried to sort out its role, university administrators observed the relatively mass market that existed for specialized and part-time education (Kett, 1994, p. 259.) They went after that market.

As a practical matter the established colleges and universities accomplished this by controlling the definition of education and by equatating college/university with that coveted term and the ability to grant degrees which effectively discounted all that was taught or learned except as they provided.

Elite colleges and universities through control over the licensing associations argued that educational standards dictated that they alone should have the right to grant the all prestigious degree. Definitions and standards always benefit their author. Just as the definition of who was covered under the term of equality impacted who in the 18th and early 19th century defined who was considered a proper beneficiary of education (Stubblefield & Keane, 1994a,b, p. 15, 51, 53; Rudolf, 1990a, p. 20) so too did the definition of educational standards in the late 19th and early 20th century seek to preserve dominance of full-time philosophically law schools over those more practically oriented regional or part-time/night time law schools. (Stubblefield & Keane, 1994b, p. 53.)

To the extent that there is oversight of institutions of higher learning it is usually conducted by cooperative associations composed of institutions and/or professionals who have clear motivation for protecting their historical position of exclusivity and control (Kett, 1994, p. 264) and this applies to legal education as well.

With the ability to grant a degree came the ability to attract students especially during periods of Depression (Kett, 1994, p.__.) In the case of Suffolk Law school the difference was a ratio of 5:1 (Kett, 1994, p.__.) Auerbach’s 1997 Unequal justice: lawyers and social change in modern America makes plain the intent of the oversight organization to eliminate adult legal education by denying the right to grant a degree. In a referenced 1920 ALRS report addressing standards for day and night programs, there was an effort to prohibited member schools from “offer[ing] a degree solely for night-school work.” Which “a night-school teacher protested … [was] designed to kill the night-school.” Auerbach, 1997, p 108-112, note 12.)

The underlying goals were not as it relates to part-time adult education was not always so benign as to be considered merely a matter of control over the market. In many instances the superficial goal of improving educational standards was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to protect the profession from immigrants who were diluting the field (Kett, 1994, p. 264-265) and who just so happened were also the primary attendee/market for the part-time or night programs (Kett, 1994, p 263.)

The battle for the bastion on higher education as between theoretical and practical has found an ever shifting balance although the effort to thwart market demands for the practical and part-time education continues (Kett, 1994, p. 268.) While regulating agencies, such the ABA in the case of law schools still frown on both part-time/night programs and part-time teachers, (Kett, 1994, p. 268) there appears to be no shortage of applicants for those programs.

While the conversion of certain practices including law, medicine, business and accounting into professions has clearly aided the standing of doctors, businessmen/women, accountants and lawyers (Kett, 1994, p. 258,) but the same institutions which aided in that advancement, because of long standing and undisclosed motives, have rather than democratizing education by increasing access to it and rather than fostering adult education and mobility between levels of employment, careers, and social standing through life-long learning opportunities afforded through continuing and part-time education addressing the needs of working adults (Kett, 1994, p. 261), has arguably thwarted it.

While there is no question as to the long term advantages of a philosophical and theoretical backing for practice of law that does not negate the fact that the push for control over the market by standards which sought to displace part-time and night-schools, effectively put the breaks on much of what today would be termed adult education in the field of law.

The supposed greater access to education through student loans and state supported schools still focuses on full-time students and theory. While it may serve to advance overall culture and further social goals, legal education seems to be resistant to meeting the needs of working adults. As a practical matter the cost of pursuing a legal education whether because of tuition costs or the need to support a family essentially precludes working adults from ever transitioning into law.

Tennant’s 2005 review of the five volume series Adult and Continuing Education noted that “[i]It is ironic that adult education has always positioned itself as ‘marginal’ – the ‘poor cousin’ of education…” (Tennant, 2005, p. 528). In the case of legal education it is more than a perception, it is a reality.

References

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