Once every decade or so, the ABA’s annual meeting is set in London. It appears to be a popular decision, and why not? It allows a lawyer to fly to Europe and deduct the cost as a business expense, making the vacation that surrounds the meeting just a little bit cheaper (and in a weak dollar era, that’s not a bad thing). The ABA justifies its decision as giving American lawyers a chance to better understand the roots of the American legal system by studying the English common-law system. So, lawyers visit the Inns of Court, maybe take in a lecture or panel discussion from English lawyers and judges, and even visit the courts. But does one really learn anything applicable to the practice of law (or even the theory of law) from this event? (I put aside for now the question whether one learns anything from any ABA annual meeting.) The ABA’s justification is both true and trite. The English legal system serves as a broad-based template for the American legal system (with some exceptions that followed civil law), but large differences began to emerge by the early nineteenth century, and a distinctly American legal system was in place by no later than the end of the nineteenth century. How the country that gave us trial by jury managed to eliminate it in civil matters is interesting but dated and of little concern to nearly all American lawyers. Further, and more importantly, the English and American legal systems remain but a shadow of their former common-law selves. We live not just in an age of statutes (as Yale Law Professor and now federal appeals court Judge Guido Calabresi noted), but in an age of regulations and ordinances, of written laws unending. No, the reason to go to London is because it is a taxpayer-financed boondoggle.

Like the ABA, law schools may have initially found the lure of European travel the reason for the development of summer abroad programs. 

These programs allow students, usually those who have just completed their first year of law school, to learn something about public or private international law, and something about comparative law. These summer abroad programs were harmless, and, for a few lucky students the instrumental value was quite positive, for they managed to make contacts (or more likely, to make contacts in order to make further contacts) that provided some work opportunity. But for most students the value was in garnering more credits toward graduation and getting to travel in Europe to boot, a type of last hurrah before entering the “real” world of practice.

The puzzle is, why are there more than 200 summer abroad programs offered by American law schools, more than one per law school, when the instrumental value of these programs is so modest? St. Mary’s is celebrating the 25th annual program of what is modestly 😉 called the Institute on World Legal Problems in Innsbruck, Austria. This achievement has largely been facilitated by our success in getting Supreme Court Justices to serve as visiting distinguished lecturers. But there are only nine Supreme Court Justices (and actually fewer to invite, for retired Justice Souter never participated, Justice Kennedy always teaches in Salzburg, Austria, for McGeorge, and Justice Stevens hasn’t taught lately). When St. Mary’s sponsored its first program in 1986, there were about 40 programs overall. That means that over 160 summer abroad programs have been created in twenty-five years. During the same time the ABA has approved 28 new law schools. What’s going on?

First, let me offer a particular argument in favor of at least one summer abroad program. The goals for the St. Mary’s program in Innsbruck were varied, including trying to expand the curriculum beyond (very) narrow doctrinal fields, hoping to use the program as a student (and even faculty) recruitment tool, and filling an interest by several faculty in teaching and learning in the comparative law field. The Innsbruck program has been successful in both financial and reputational terms. (Full disclosure: I served as co-director of the program from 2003 to 2008, and served as a program administrator for two years before that.) The program has regularly returned a surplus to the school, ensuring that it is not a financial drain, while running a lean operation making it affordable to students. Students from over 140 law schools have attended the program, and faculty from nearly 80 law schools have taught at it. We have averaged something between 60 and 70 students a year, a possibility generated by, as stated above, regular visits from Supreme Court Justices. Most students and faculty have had positive things to say about the program, and word of mouth has allowed the program to recruit successive classes. But our particular success is, I believe, largely not replicable for most law schools. So, 200 summer abroad programs? Fourteen programs in Beijing alone? Nearly the same number in London? Who’s attending these programs, and are they worth it?

My anecdotal sense is that the blossoming of summer abroad law programs is in large part a consequence of the burgeoning of semester abroad programs in universities. The numbers of undergraduate students who spend a semester abroad has grown tremendously in the past quarter-century, and some universities require or at least strongly encourage students to spend a semester abroad. It was once the case for many law students attending the Innsbruck program that this was their first time outside the United States. This is now an unusual event. Most of our students have traveled in Europe and elsewhere. A second reason for this extraordinary increase may be the willingness of faculty (based on their own experiences?) to teach in places other than Europe, as South America, Asia, and Africa have become more common summer-abroad locations. A third reason may be the “me too” syndrome of law schools.

Most students with whom I’ve spoken tell me they are interested in 1) racking up some additional credit hours (though a number of law schools violate ABA rules by denying credit for summer abroad if the sponsor is not the student’s home institution), 2) getting to Europe (or elsewhere) to travel and, less often, to see if any future jobs might exist, and 3) getting to listen to (and maybe meet) a Supreme Court justice (usually this is first or second on their list of reasons). Then, if prompted, students will discuss learning more international and comparative law, and getting to meet students from European law schools (we regularly invite students from other European law schools, including the University of Innsbruck). It is, like the ABA’s sojourns to London, a taxpayer-financed opportunity, with loans available to fund some travel in Europe.

Given the kinds of wrenching changes taking place in the profession and soon (?) to happen in legal education, the summer abroad program is likely to shrink in the next decade. Most programs are loss leaders, offered to showcase the variety of course offerings available through the law school, and to entice applicants to matriculate (most students in my experience do not know that they can attend any summer abroad program and get credit under ABA Standards as long as they are a student in good standing). The cost of ABA reinspection (fortunately now every seven years, not five as was previously the case) is quite substantial, particularly given how little the ABA does during its inspection. (A minor scandal is the absence of any oversight on an annual basis despite the fact that an onerous annual report must be given to the ABA every year. It is my speculative contention that the ABA never looks at those reports, or indeed, whether a school is making annual reports.) The rising costs and decreasing benefits of summer abroad programs makes it likely that a substantial number of such programs will not survive in the next five years. Certainly many survive now only with strong financial subsidies from home institutions, and those subsidies are going to be harder to come by as the financial educational squeeze continues to hit both law students and law schools.