Teaching and Researching in Civil and Comparative Law – Discussion Group Session Summary

This discussion grouped convened to share strategies for teaching students and conducting research in topics in civil and comparative law. Twenty-nine participants from law schools in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Indiana, Washington, Vermont, New York, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri, and Switzerland participated in a wide-ranging discussion of the unique joys and challenges of teaching and working in this area. Participants had varied teaching experiences, including faculty that had taught Louisiana civil law, international law, comparative law, common law, and US federal law.

A continuing theme that emerged is that the teaching and practice of law is essentially always comparative because laws vary across jurisdictions and thus that comparative methodologies should have a place in the law school classroom. Participants noted that cross-jurisdictional practice and practice involving different sovereigns or systems of law is becoming increasingly common, not only between countries with civil or common law systems, but also between countries with different legal cultures within the same general system and between the US and American Indian Tribes and between the US and its territories.

Participants discussed concrete strategies for teaching code- or statute-based courses in which the rules required to be covered as part of the course exceed available classroom time. Participants then spent a significant amount of time discussing the techniques for incorporating comparative methodologies into core doctrinal subjects, with a particular focus on teaching civil and common law contracts side-by-side in the same year-long course. As part of that discussion, participants explored the role of history in teaching law generally and comparative law in particular and shared strategies for equipping students with the necessary historical or cultural knowledge that they may lack when arriving at law school. Finally, the group discussed the role of AI in teaching both as a tool for faculty preparation to teach and potentially as a tool for students to practice and learn material. Participants expressed hope that these conversations about the role of comparative law in legal education could continue at future SEALS meetings.