The Role of Legal Theory in Legal Education

A Reflection on Professional and Academic Ideals in Nordic Legal Education

Abstract

The article addresses the role of legal theory in legal education. Today, a multitude of perspectives is present within legal theory and, as a subject, it is not as distinct as it is sometimes claimed to be. It is evident when considering syllabuses in the Nordic countries that nearly all LLM programmes have ambitions to teach legal theory as embracing a multitude of theoretical and methodological perspectives. This multitude of perspectives promises adaptable content for the subject of legal theory in various legal contexts, and could facilitate a reflection on how knowledge is acquired and why. The challenge addressed in the article is the presence of explicit or implicit ideas from the subject of legal theory as comprising a coherent “legal method” and a specific list of accepted theories. The persistence of such ideas is scrutinised in this article with help of the concepts of “professional knowledge” and “scholarly knowledge”. In order to navigate the complex field of legal theories, students need meta-reflective skills, which means the ability to reflect upon the underlying complexity and multitude of the subject. This is shown by a case study from the Department of Law at the University of Gothenburg, together with examples from curricula and textbooks from legal theory courses across the Nordic countries.