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Bilingual Legal Education in the United States: The Deficient Status Quo and a Call for More Action

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Bilingual Study and Research

Part of the book series: Ius Comparatum - Global Studies in Comparative Law ((GSCL,volume 58))

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Abstract

While there are some opportunities to learn law in a foreign language in some US law schools, they are so few and far between that only a very small faction of US law students experience their discipline in a language other than English. This is unfortunate in light of the fact that acquisition of foreign language capabilities has significant professional, as well as broader educational, benefits. If US law school wanted to proffer foreign language training more broadly, they could actually draw on a significant talent pool both among their faculty and among their student population. In fact, US law schools should make much greater efforts at teaching law in a foreign language, not only to let more students reap the benefits, but also to counter the current political trend towards nationalism and isolationism.

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.”—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Proposition 5.6 (1922))

This Report focuses on the United States proper and thus excludes Puerto Rico. There, the main language of instruction is of course Spanish. Most lawyers, however, speak English as well and can thus be considered bilingual, albeit to varying degrees.

Thanks to the staff of the University of Michigan Law Library, especially Seth Quidachy-Swan and Virginia Neisler, for their excellent research support. I also thank Vivian Curran and Stacie Strong for their valuable criticisms, hints, and suggestions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This is true for nearly 90 countries, i.e., almost half of the world’s jurisdictions, Strong et al. (2016) 5 (fn. 8).

  2. 2.

    See Reimann (2014).

  3. 3.

    Of course, there are many varieties of English, particularly in the law; even in English, legal terms often have somewhat different meaning.

  4. 4.

    Bodum v. La Cafetière, Inc., 621 F.3d 623, 633 (7th Cir. 2010) (Posner, J., concurring).

  5. 5.

    For a collection of essays on bilingual legal education in countries where the population speaks more than one language, see Arzoz (2012), reviewed by Strong (2014), pp. 358–360.

  6. 6.

    A list of schools offering courses in foreign languages is also provided by Strong (2014), p. 355 (fn. 6) though it is not, and does not claim to be, complete.

  7. 7.

    Sanchez (1997), p. 639.

  8. 8.

    See Rathod (2013), p. 866 (fn. 2).

  9. 9.

    Again, concrete data are difficult to find. The only information that Columbia Law School, which has dual degree programs both with the University of Paris I (Sorbonne) and the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po), could provide was that “at least a few students are going to the Sorbonne every year” (telephone conversation between Virginia Neisler, University of Michigan Law School Library, and Columbia representative of the dual degree programs, December 14, 2017). As director of the University of Pittsburgh Law School’s dual degree program with the University of Paris I, Vivian Grosswald Curran reported that is not easy to find students able and willing to participate; e-mail from Vivian Grosswald Curran, October 9, 2017.

  10. 10.

    Ward (1996), p. 1314.

  11. 11.

    Conard and Stein (1957).

  12. 12.

    Lacey and Garcia Reyes (1981).

  13. 13.

    The number of students enrolled in the various foreign language courses at the University of Pittsburgh, for example, has ranged from 3 to 13; statistics provided by Vivian Curran to the author per e-mail, October 9, 2017; see also Crank and Loughrin-Sacco (2001), p. 203 (Boise State University; never more than 12 students).

  14. 14.

    See, e.g., Curran (1993).

  15. 15.

    E.g., the Introduction to the Continental Legal Systems taught in Spanish at the Washington College of Law at American University, see Rathod (2013), p. 899 (fn. 137).

  16. 16.

    An example is Vivian Grosswald Curran’s course L’arbitrage international which is taught in French at the University of Pittsburgh Law School; e-mail from Vivian Grosswald Curran, October 9, 2017.

  17. 17.

    Rathod (2014) (course at American University Washington College of Law); Crank. Loughrin (2001). See also Dutton et al. (2013), p. 43. Law clinics also sometimes conduct meetings in the clients’ language, especially in Spanish, see Rathod (2013).

  18. 18.

    According to the various websites of US law schools, students can spend a semester abroad in a very broad of range of countries, including Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Guatemala, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Taiwan as well as (at least linguistically foreign) Puerto Rico.

  19. 19.

    The most thorough discussion is Rathod (2013). This section draws heavily on that article.

  20. 20.

    To these benefits for US-American law students as individuals, Rathod adds a systemic dimension: bilingual lawyers “will transform and invigorate interactions between attorneys and limited English proficiency (LEP) clients and, more broadly, among attorneys, the parties to a proceeding, and the legal decision makers,” Rathod (2013), p. 863. He then explores this systemic dimension in greater detail, id. 890–898.

  21. 21.

    Note that here, they compete with foreign lawyers whose command of English is usually very good—and often better than the American lawyers’ command of the respective foreign language.

  22. 22.

    According to a 2011 census, that is estimated to be true for 8.7% of the US population, see Language Spoke at Home, U.S. Census Bureau (2011), quoted by Rathod (2013), p. 869. That amounts to about 30 million people—almost equivalent to the population of all of Canada.

  23. 23.

    Acello (2013).

  24. 24.

    Anon (2009); Volkert (2013); see Crank and Loughrin-Sacco (2001) (for the special context of criminal justice work); Curran (1993), p. 605.

  25. 25.

    Various international governmental organizations have expressed their interest in a greater number of bilingual lawyers, see Strong (2014), p. 354 (with further references).

  26. 26.

    See Volkert (2013); Anon (2008).

  27. 27.

    Of course, this is often true with non-legal terms as well, as illustrated by the well-known contract case of Frigaliment Importing Co. v. B.N.S. International Sales Corp., 190 F.Supp. 116 (S.D.N.Y. 1960); see the discussion by Sanchez (1997), pp. 663–664.

  28. 28.

    For another striking example (English investment v. Spanish inversion), see Sanchez (1997), pp. 662–663. Terms can have different meanings even where legal systems share a common language: “judicial review” in the United States usually means constitutional scrutiny of legislation, in England, it commonly means review of administrative action. In Germany, Verfügung means a legal act affecting private property rights; in Switzerland, it can also mean an administrative decision (for which the term in German is Verwaltungsakt).

  29. 29.

    See Standing Committee on Legal Aid (2012); Dutton et al. (2013), pp. 22–23 (also noting that there is a considerable body of constitutional, statutory and regulatory law on access to courts in the United States); Uyehara (2003), pp. 544–557.

  30. 30.

    For a fuller discussion of these issues, see Ahmed (2007).

  31. 31.

    Rathod (2013), p. 885.

  32. 32.

    Ahmed (2007), p. 1024.

  33. 33.

    While each state has its own set of rules, they are largely based on the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct (1983). In the United States, such rules are known as “professional ethics.” The term is somewhat misleading because the rules are actually legal in character; they are enforced by the respective bar associations through a variety of sanctions including disbarment.

  34. 34.

    See American Bar Association (1983), Rules 1.1., 1.3., and 1.4.

  35. 35.

    Ahmed (2007), pp. 1019–1024; Rathod (2013), pp. 886–889; Sanchez (1997), p. 641.

  36. 36.

    von Savigny (1814), pp. 8–16; von Savigny (1831), pp. 24–31. Of course, the intimate connection between law and culture had already been discussed by Montesqieu (1748); and the intimate connection between language, thought, and culture had been pointed out by Herder (1784–1790).

  37. 37.

    See Curran (2019), pp. 681–709.

  38. 38.

    See, e.g., Curran (2019); Sanchez (1997), pp. 658–660.

  39. 39.

    The concept of a “legal culture” is complex and contested. This Report is not the place to delve into the debate. For an overview, see Cotterrell (2019), pp. 710–733.

  40. 40.

    Curran (2019), p. 680.

  41. 41.

    This is pointed out by Curran (2005), pp. 779–780, 782.

  42. 42.

    It is interesting to note, for example, that many (especially civil law) systems define legal concepts much more clearly, precisely, and uniformly than is common in the United States. This shows a much greater preference for clear demarcations of legal concepts and categories and a concomitantly greater discomfort with ambiguous terminology. In the mind of a French, German, or Mexican jurist, law is a precise “science”—at least as a theoretical ideal, even if that ideal cannot always be reached in practice.

  43. 43.

    5 See Atiyah and Summers (1987).

  44. 44.

    For an illustration in the US-Mexican context, see Sanchez (1997), pp. 672–673.

  45. 45.

    See Slaughter, The International Dimension of the Law School Curriculum (2004), pp. 417–418.

  46. 46.

    “Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen.” Goethe (1907, orig. 1838), p. 18 As was quite common for the educated upper middle class in 18th century Germany, Goethe had studied the classical languages, i.e., Greek, Latin and Hebrew, as well as the most important modern ones, i.e., French and English.

  47. 47.

    In a similar vein, Sanchez (1997), p. 665, points out the different significance of categorization of legal material in the civil and common law traditions. Modes of categorization, in turn, determine conceptions of reason and reasoning processes, see Lakoff (1987).

  48. 48.

    For a much fuller discussion, see Rathod (2013), pp. 871–883.

  49. 49.

    Rathod (2013), p. 878; see also Curran (2019), pp. 686–687.

  50. 50.

    Curran (2019), p. 687. As Umberto Eco put it: “A language always is a prison…because it imposes a certain vision of the world.” quoted after id., fn. 19.

  51. 51.

    Rathod (2013), pp. 880–882.

  52. 52.

    Id., 882–883.

  53. 53.

    Id., 880.

  54. 54.

    Id., 879.

  55. 55.

    See supra note 4 and text.

  56. 56.

    Dutton et al. (2013), p. 9.

  57. 57.

    Also, most graduate students in the United States have almost surely been exposed to some foreign language teaching. They all have college degrees, and most colleges still impose a language requirement for graduation. Unfortunately, however, college study of foreign languages rarely results in fluency.

  58. 58.

    We leave students in the various masters (LLM) programs aside here. It is true that most of them come from foreign, and indeed from non-English speaking, jurisdictions and thus have a native knowledge of a foreign language. Yet, they are obviously not the audience for foreign language courses at a US law school. The domestic students in LLM programs have a obtained a J.D. degree and are thus part of the J.D. language talent pool.

  59. 59.

    We know the number of J.D. students coming from foreign countries, but it remains small (the ca. 3500 foreign J.D. students amount to less than 3% of the ca. 124,000 students enrolled in US law schools in 2016), and at least some of them come from English-speaking countries like the United Kingdom or Australia. The percentage of Hispanic or Asian students could provide some indication of existing language skills but their overall number is difficult to assess because existing statistics lump all minority students together and because not all of the students from these regions count as minorities. Also, not all of them still speak the language of their family origin.

  60. 60.

    Note that this is a higher threshold than may be required for a course merely on foreign legal terminology.

  61. 61.

    Other languages listed by multiple students were Arabic, Japanese, Russian, Hindi, and Korean, Cantonese, and Italian.

  62. 62.

    The instructions specifically encouraged the students without such language skills to check the box for “none,” and the questionnaire put that box at the very top of the list of options.

  63. 63.

    For what it is worth, my experience with our law students suggests that this is entirely plausible.

  64. 64.

    This count does not include the foreign instructors who come and teach on a regular basis (Cook Global Law Professors). Including them adds one Korean and two German native speakers.

  65. 65.

    I also asked who feels sufficiently competent to take a law course in a foreign language. 33 of the respondents said yes, i.e., about one third of the faculty. Beyond the languages mentioned in the text, they listed Guarati, Italian, and Russian.

  66. 66.

    Curran (1993), p. 607.

  67. 67.

    Id.

  68. 68.

    Supra notes 9, 13.

  69. 69.

    Former ABA President Roberta Cooper Ramo suggested that in the admissions process, law schools “give some preference” to applicants with foreign language skills; Cooper (1996), pp. 313–314. However, that really makes sense only if law schools then provide students with an opportunity to use their language skills; as we have seen, that is currently much the exception.

  70. 70.

    Curran (1993), p. 604; Lacey and Garcia Reyes (1981), p. 659.

  71. 71.

    Curran (1993), p. 604; Lacey and Garcia Reyes (1981), id.

  72. 72.

    Supra Sect. 2.4.

  73. 73.

    See Maxeiner (1998), pp. 35–36.

  74. 74.

    See Strong (2014), p. 357 (with further references).

  75. 75.

    Upon the initiative of its current President, Vivian Grosswald Curran, the American Society of Comparative Law held a bilingual (French-English) conference before its annual meeting in October of 2017. The Society will include a foreign-language panel or component at its future meetings, beginning in 2019.

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  1. University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Mathias Reimann

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  1. School of Law, University of Montevideo, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Nicolás Etcheverry Estrázulas

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Reimann, M. (2022). Bilingual Legal Education in the United States: The Deficient Status Quo and a Call for More Action. In: Etcheverry Estrázulas, N. (eds) Bilingual Study and Research. Ius Comparatum - Global Studies in Comparative Law, vol 58. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84550-6_15

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