AltLJ Vol 37:3 2012 — 171 ARTICLES I n his entertainingly polemical article The Emperor’s New Legal Education Theory, 1 Dan Svantesson considered the place of legal education theory in Australian law schools. As his choice of title might suggest, Svantesson seeks to question the value of academics theorising about their teaching, in particular, of academics conducting research in education theory unless it is their main discipline. The aim of this article is to respond to two points raised by Svantesson and then, more generally, to offer some reasons why academics should engage with legal educational theory. Cooking up a storm Svantesson’s first argument concerns the qualities required to teach law well: to produce good food, a chef does not need to have an understanding of food science. Similarly, law tutors should be able to teach well without knowledge of legal education theory. His recipe for good teaching includes only four ingredients, knowledge of the subject matter, creativity (as opposed to innovation), interpersonal skills and showmanship. Of these, Svantesson argues that only the first may be learnt. We should note that no special evidential claim is made for these requirements; they are simply the product of his personal experience. This last point is of course not unimportant since (with the exception of subject knowledge) to demonstrate these requirements of good teaching and how they might best be used would require research into how students learn. In other words, it would involve education theory. But why reject education theory? To return to Svantesson’s analogy of lawyers and chefs, while no doubt many chefs could produce good food, absent knowledge of food science does not mean that their chances of doing so (or of producing truly exceptional food) would not be much greater were they to have such knowledge. Moreover, to the science of food we might add the physiology and psychology of smell, taste, touch, sight and even sound. For the record, such chefs exist. As his fascinating website explains, Heston Blumenthal: researches the molecular compounds of dishes so to enable a greater understanding of taste and flavour. His original and scientific approach to the molecular breakdown of cuisine has teamed him with fellow chefs, scientists and psychologists throughout the world. His restaurant, The Fat Duck, opened in 1995 and was awarded its third Michelin star in January 2004. 2 The restaurant is regularly recognised as one of the best in the world. But is it the case that only subject knowledge, the first of the four requirements, may be obtained through study? Interpersonal skills and showmanship, while they may be studied and taught (think for example of trainee advocates, of salesmen, nurses or circus performers) are both skills and most obviously gained, as Svantesson suggests, through example and practice. Whether it is the case that creativity is properly limited to Svantesson’s tool-box of purely practical teaching ideas and that gains are unlikely to be made through engagement in legal educational theory will be dealt with in more detail below. Of course, none of this is to say that Svantesson’s four requirements are wrong (save pondering perhaps over a creativity that resists innovation). Indeed, for reasons that we will come to, many teachers of law might broadly agree with him. Rather, the aim here is to widen the discussion and to suggest that Svantesson’s list is too short. Researching legal educational theory? Svantesson’s second argument concerns the question of why so much is written on the subject by those who are not expert in the area. He posits three possible reasons: self-validation (fear of a lack of knowledge of how to teach), an anxiety among academics to demonstrate a commitment to teaching and lastly, the pressure to research that leads those interested only in teaching to write about teaching. The danger of this is he claims, among others, the production of a large amount of poor quality research. As Svantesson makes clear that the first two points are largely speculative, comment here will focus on the issue of publishing. The pressure to publish will be familiar to many academics. A survey of twelve Australian universities in 2002 revealed that 80 per cent of the respondents felt that while they had less time to write, the pressure to publish had increased. 3 However, the quality of outputs, although primarily a matter for those managing research within departments, is governed — as is the reputation of the journals in which those research outputs appear — largely by the process of peer review. If there is a problem with peer review then that should be addressed. Otherwise, the only matter that need concern academics in respect of research is academic freedom. That some poor quality research is done in the area of legal educational theory can tell us nothing about the importance or otherwise of engaging with it — no more than it would any area of substantive law. Given that such arguments are REFERENCES 1. See Dan Jerker B. Svantesson, ‘The Emperor’s New Legal Education Theory’ (2011) 36(4) Alternative Law Journal 255. 2. See The Fat Duck, Awards, http://www. thefatduck.co.uk/Heston-Blumenthal/Our- Awards. 3. See Don Anderson, Richard Johnson and Lawrence Saha, ‘Changes in Academic Work: Implications for Universities of the Changing Age Distribution and Work Roles of Academic Staff ’ (DEST, 2002). THAWING OUT THE LAW SCHOOL Why we need legal education theory JAMES GRAY