A critical history of the Americanization of legal education in fourteen countries The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the export of American power-both hard and soft-throughout the world. What role did US cultural and economic imperialism play in legal education? American Legal Education Abroad offers an unprecedented and surprising picture of the history of legal education in fourteen countries beyond the United States. Each study in this book represents a critical history of the Americanization of legal education, reexamining prevailing narratives of exportation, transplantation, and imperialism. Collectively, these studies challenge the conventional wisdom that American ideas and practices have dominated globally. Editors Susan Bartie and David Sandomierski and their contributors suggest that to understand legal education and to respond thoughtfully to the mounting present-day challenges, it is essential to look beyond a particular region and consider not only the ideas behind legal education but also the broader historical, political, and cultural factors that have shaped them. American Legal Education Abroad begins with an important foundational history by leading Harvard Law School historian Bruce Kimball, who explains the factors that created a transportable American legal model, and the book concludes with reflections from two prominent American law professors, Susan Carle and Bob Gordon, whose observations on recent disruptions within US law schools suggest that their influence within the global order of legal education may soon fall into further decline. This book should be considered an invaluable resource for anyone in the field of law.

Peter Brett (1918-1975), Alice Erh-Soon Tay (1934-2004) and Geoffrey Sawer (1910-1996) are key, yet largely overlooked, members of Australia's first community of legal scholars. This book is a critical study of how their ideas and endeavours contributed to Australia's discipline of law and the first Australian legal theories. It examines how three marginal figures - a Jewish man (Brett), a Chinese woman (Tay), and a war orphan (Sawer) - rose to prominence during a transformative period for Australian legal education and scholarship. Drawing on in-depth interviews with former colleagues and students, extensive archival research, and an appraisal of their contributions to scholarship and teaching, this book explores the three professors' international networks and broader social and historical milieux. Their pivotal leadership roles in law departments at the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, and the Australian National University are also critically assessed. Ranging from local experiences and the concerns of a nascent Australian legal academy to the complex transnational phenomena of legal scholarship and theory, Free Hands and Minds makes a compelling case for contextualising law and legal culture within society. At a time of renewed crisis in legal education and research in the common law world, it also offers a vivid, nuanced and critical account of the enduring liberal foundations of Australia's discipline of law.