Opinion: Thought Leader

By Professor Peter Kunzlik, director of the City Law School

Law firms lose their top talent to retirement at an almost obscenely early age – a time when, in other walks of life, individuals might only just be approaching the peak of their careers. At the same time, top practitioners have a natural curiosity about the world outside the firm – an intellectual appetite much broader than can be fully satisfied within the confines of day-to-day practice.

Law-school deanship offers an opportunity to achieve enormous satisfaction by reflecting on what has been learnt in practice and passing it on to a new generation. For some, the opportunity to engage with bright young people is a satisfaction in itself. For others, notwithstanding the frustrations, the opportunity to help shape law schools, and make them more exciting and relevant to the real world, is also a potentially-rewarding challenge.

Perhaps less positively, one’s own approaches will also be challenged. As a partner in a firm you will be used to expecting an immediate response to instructions. Colleagues in education may be slower to respond, and much more ready to question decisions and policies. From the perspective of legal practice, the extent to which universities are still imbued with a democratic spirit is quite extraordinary, and can mean less autonomy. It is important to learn that law-school deans can have great authority and effectiveness, but that it is not conferred simply by dint of one’s position in the hierarchy. Instead, they arise from effective ‘upward management’ of superiors, and critically, from building a relationship of mutual respect with colleagues.

Howver, those practitioners who are able to adjust to these cultural differences can have an enormous contribution to make. Forming links between practice and the academy environment can be stimulating and satisfying, and it may also be essential to the long-term health of both. For many years now, those with a PhD, but no professional qualifications or practical experience, have generally been favoured in recruitment to junior posts at universities. As a result, academic lawyers at many of our leading law schools can be antipathetical to the world of the profession. Many of their most influential seniors will have made their names writing theoretical works rather than the highest-quality practitioner-focused texts and student treatises that were once so highly valued by both the academy and the profession. In short, academic law desperately needs deans who know and respect the world of practice and who can help to rebalance policy.

Professor Peter Kunzlik is director of The City Law School and was formerly a founding partner of the Hammond Suddards (now Hammonds) Brussels office. He can be contacted at p.kunzlik@city.ac.uk