Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy: A Polemic Against the System: A Critical Edition

In this critique Duncan Kennedy argues that the hierarchical organization of legal education is largely unnecessary and harmful, as well as culturally retrograde, and that it reinforces a similarly destructive hierarchy in the bar and society as a whole. However, Kennedy proposes a radical egalitarian alternative vision of what legal education should become and a strategy, starting from the anarchist idea of workplace organizing, for struggle in that direction. Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy is comprehensive, covering everything about law school from the first days to moot court to job placement to life after law school. Kennedy's book remains one of the most cited works on American legal education.
The original text is reprinted here, buttressed by commentaries by five prominent legal scholars who consider its meaning for today, as well as by an Introduction and Afterword by the author that describe the context in which Kennedy wrote the book, including a brief history of critical legal studies.

Duncan Kennedy is Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence at Harvard University School of Law.