Law teaching for sale

legal shadow education in Denmark from historical and current perspectives

Abstract

This study examines the use of supplementary private teaching (‘shadow education’) within the legal education in Denmark from historical and current perspectives. The aim is to estimate the extent of this phenomenon and understand why law students chose to pay for private teaching services. The study documents that practices that we today would label as shadow education are as old as the University of Copenhagen (1479) and the formal legal education (1736). During a period of around 150 years (1780-1930), the exam-oriented private teaching (manuduction) was, in fact, the backbone of legal education. The sources show that the poor state of the university education, including archaic teaching methods, was the primary reason for this: the private teaching was the market’s solution to a broken public education. Educational reforms during the first half of the 20th century challenged the raison d'être of the private manuduction industry, and the Danish welfare state provided the fatal blow in 1960: free university manuduction. However, the private teaching industry has been resurrected in the 21st century in a more corporate, professional, and aggressive form. The study documents that today around 60 percent of the law students have paid for private teaching services during their legal education. Moreover, the study shows that the quality of the university teaching in no longer the main catalyst, but rather the appeal of radically exam-oriented courses and the students’ insecurities, especially the first-years. The study links this development to the emergence of the competition state. Finally, the study concludes that the prevalence of shadow education at any time is a function of the dynamic relationship between the three players: the university, the students, and the private providers.