The cogwheels are in motion and heated elections at the Bar Association are eminent. But, asks Karim Yehia Abu Youssef*, what of the education system that produces all these lawyers in the first place? "Are you out of your mind?" was family and friends first reaction to my announcement that I intended to attend law school. Back then, in 1995, when choosing a career and a branch of higher education, law school was a choice close to a nightmare; one of the "bad" options to invest a high score in the thanawiya ama [high school diploma] or equivalent degrees. Invariably, and according to Egyptian social pop-culture, the more brilliant students typically study medicine or engineering. A good student thinking of law school is considering intellectual suicide and compromising his or her whole future. Today, Egyptian faculties of law, even the most prestigious such as at Cairo, Ain Shams and Alexandria University, no longer attract bright or elite students. Most law students are forced into legal studies by their low high school diploma scores. What has happened to the once "faculty of ministers", elites, and history-makers of Egypt? In the not too distant past, Egyptian law schools yielded judges of great integrity, pioneering law professors and lawyers occupying leading positions in the national and international legal field. Take for example Saad Zaghlul, judge and father of the 1919 civil revolution, Ibrahim Shihata, member of the General Council of the World Bank, Mohsin Shafiq, a major contributor to the works of the UNCITRAL (UN Commission on International Trade Law), Boutros Ghali, former secretary-general of the United Nations, Ahmed Sadeq Al- Kosheri, a leading arbitrator described in recent scholarship as one of a very few to re-write the history of international arbitration, Cherif Bassiouni, the mastermind behind the recently established International Criminal Court and Fouad Riad of the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for Former-Yugoslavia). Egyptian law schools are filled every year with thousands of students. From an average student body of 200 to 300 in the 1960s, the number jumped in the 1990s to 5000 to 7000 students. These numbers make the provision of a decent legal education a mission impossible. When law schools lost their prestige in the 1960s the direct cause was the implementation of a disastrous admission policy. Free higher education for all was interpreted to mean that every high school graduate had a seat at university -- a policy which definitely increased the popularity of the revolutionary government at the time, but had negative effects on the quality of education. A university system overwhelmed with students naturally placed the majority of these thousands in non-scientific faculties where all that is needed to teach is a micro-phone and stadium-like- classroom. Hence, the faculties of law and commerce were direct victims. This disastrous admission policy is responsible for the "dark side" of Egyptian legal education. An immense student body leads to oversimplification of teaching, intellectual divorce between professor and students, outdated museum-like-libraries and memorise-recite-only exams. And since to grade the number of assignments produced by these numbers of students would require an army of professors, assignments are frequently graded by junior members of staff according to pre-supplied, standard-form answers! Students are forced into a large array of unnecessary courses, such as agricultural law, while essential courses like methodology and reasoning, and international contracts are marginal or nonexistent. Many of the most important currents of thought that have animated legal literature for the past century such as "law and economics" and "law and development" remain beyond the reach of students. In spite of the support exhibited by Egyptian law professors and judges of the 1952 Revolution, the least than can be said is that revolutionary government did not reciprocate respect. Draconian measures of "purging" the judiciary along with a state policy making law schools the haven of the worst students pushed many esteemed lawyers and law professors to leave the country. A policy of automatic admission to the bar with no further exams or special preparation -- a system not found elsewhere in the world -- made advocacy "the profession of those who had no other profession". Also socialist policies led to the virtual disappearance of the private economy and hence a dramatic deflation of the sphere of private law. Political and economic isolation and the dearth of international private dealings turned international law into an obsolete discipline devoid of practical application. At the same time a huge space remains for constitutional and administrative law, but these could not be properly enforced under a non-democratic regime. If Egypt continues to be a leader in the Arab legal world and the focal point of North-South legal discourse, it is due to the residues and remains of the good old times. This process is slowly being reversed, however. In the early 1990s, and in an attempt to trigger change and provide a different experience of legal education, French, then Anglo-American law departments were established at Cairo University. These are characterised by a limited student body (30 to 160), initiation in the study of foreign law and modern branches, provision of a much closer link between students and professors and offering the possibility of participation, assignments and research. The success of the Cairo University initiatives led to the adoption of similar departments at Ain Shams and Alexandria universities. French departments are under direct supervision of the Paris Faculty of Law and deliver the exact curriculum and degrees, with additional Egyptian law courses, granting students a French/Egyptian double major. English Departments deliver Egyptian degrees, but initiate students in Anglo-American legal systems. The strength of these modern departments lies in their understanding and building upon Egypt's unique potential as crossroads of legal cultures. We surpass great cosmopolitan cities like New York and Paris with a rare blend of Islamic Shariaa, a French- based legal system, along with a growing Anglo-American-law- firm-style of legal practice. Shortcomings and deficiencies do exist, but they are progressively reviewed and corrected. Now after about a decade of operationalism, success is undeniable. A new class of young elite law graduates is coming to the market. The admission and success of many of the graduates of these departments in graduate studies at top law schools abroad is sufficient evidence that these departments provide a decent level of legal education. Upon their return, these graduates will not only contribute a major improvement to legal life, but will also bring back home a new methodology more adapted to the opening of the country to the international economy. Within the same line of modernisation, the American University in Cairo established a legal programme in 2004 delivering an Egyptian Masters degree, yet offering classes in major branches of comparative and international law in US fashion. In today's global world, well organised and legally protected cross-border trade generates tremendous income. Multilateral, regional and bilateral trade and investment treaties constitute legal relationships worth billions of dollars; and experience has shown that being unprepared for legal battles can cost the Egyptian government very substantial amounts in foreign currencies. International competition and warfare occur mostly in the legal field and on the domestic level Egypt is in the throes of a legal transition to a free market economy. Today, more than ever before, the country needs legal minds. The more we push our best youth into oversaturated professions such as engineering and medicine, while disregarding the acute demand for a qualified, multilingual and internationalist legal professionals, the less efficient our allocation of human resources is, thereby hitting the overall process of economic development. * The writer is assistant-lecturer in Law at Cairo University and is currently finalising his doctoral dissertation in International Commercial Arbitration at Yale University.
