You have to admire it when someone close to their subject takes the gloves off and really lets fly. University of Western Ontario professor emeritus Robert Martin brought the shortcomings of Canadian legal education to the fore in an article actually entitled: University Legal Education in Canada is Corrupt Beyond Repair. Legal education gets a fair bit of flack over here but not quite in this league.

On students:

“Each fall, a horde of illiterate, ignorant cretins enters Canada’s universities. A few years later, they all move on, just as illiterate, just as ignorant and rather more cretinous, but now armed with bits of paper, which most of them are probably not able to read, called degrees.”

On legal education:

“When one observes a dismal current reality, there is a tendency to assume that there once existed a golden age. The best that can be said is that there was, in the 1950s and 1960s, a bronze age. During this period, some Canadian law faculties managed to reach the level of second-rate American law schools.”

In conclusion:

“There are two phrases that can be used to describe every law faculty in Canada. The phrases are: ‘feminist seminary’ and ‘psychotic kindergarten’.”

Whilst legal education in North America follows a different structure to the UK but our’s is hardly without its critics. For the most part, mild mannered. However, one can’t help feeling that some of Professor Martin’s comments may find sympathy with a few observers on this side of the pond.

Extracts via the Guardian