By Ann W. Parks

Georgetown Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff (front, center) and Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia (left) with representatives from CTLS member schools at the October 28 signing ceremony. (Photos by Steve Forrest)

It was a celebration unlike that at any law school in the country — or indeed, the world. On Tuesday, October 28, the new Center for Transnational Legal Studies was officially launched in London. The Center, which is spearheaded by Georgetown Law, is not just another study-abroad program but a first-of-its kind, collaborative effort by 10 premier law schools around the world to offer transnational legal education in a truly global setting.

The opening ceremonies reflected that vision, as Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia joined representatives from each of the Center’s participating schools in the Weston Room of King’s College, London, for a document-signing ceremony.

“We’re delighted to gather in this historic setting with our partner institution, King’s College … to celebrate the successful opening of our shared academic enterprise,” Aleinikoff told the crowd in his brief opening remarks. “Our inaugural class of students and faculty has been hard at work for the past eight weeks, teaching and learning together in a global learning space.”

Richard Trainor, principal of King’s College, was equally honored to be associated with CTLS and its “galaxy” of participating universities. He noted that it was good for law schools with international reputations to come together, allowing students to learn about their differing legal institutions and to pursue transnational legal studies as a field of research.

President DeGioia said that it was fitting that this landmark agreement among law schools be signed in the United Kingdom’s former public records office — and on the birthday of the Renaissance humanist Erasmus, who lived during the “first great era of globalization” and exploration.

“We now live in a time when … nations are increasingly interdependent, people more interconnected, humanity less divided by narrow domestic walls,” DeGioia said. With these changes, he noted, come challenges, among them the need to adequately prepare students for this unparalleled new world.

“By helping to teach all of our law students to be better global lawyers, this new Center for Transnational Legal Studies will help ensure the promise of greater global justice [and] a stronger global community — which, as Erasmus recognized nearly five centuries ago, we are all part of,” DeGioia said.

Sign on

One by one, representatives of participating institutions — premier law schools from five continents — came forward to officially sign on, and to share their thoughts on the day.

“I am absolutely sure that the signature I will give today will be perhaps the most important event in my period as dean,” declared Markus Heintzen, dean of the Free University of Berlin.

James Hathaway, dean of the University of Melbourne, said that when asked by a colleague if CTLS sounded promising, he responded with simply two words: “Sign on.”

Other participants included Professor Pascal Pichonnaz of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Dean Yoav Dotan of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Dean Timothy Macklem of King’s College; Dean Tan Cheng-Han of the University of Singapore; Professor Calixto Salomao Filho of the University of Sao Paulo; Professor Gianmaria Ajani of the University of Torino; and Dean Mayo Moran of the University of Toronto.

At the conclusion of the hour-long ceremony, Aleinikoff said that CTLS represented an important collaboration among great law faculties as well as a paradigm shift in legal education.

“Call me a romantic if you want, but I still believe that law is a great vehicle for peace and for justice — at the local level, at the national level, and the global level,” Aleinikoff said. “As we teach our students, work together with colleagues and faculty and interact with the members of the profession, we all contribute our hope to a more just world through the pursuit of transnational law.”

At Spencer House

Baroness Hale at Spencer House.

At 5 p.m. London time, administrators, faculty, staff and students headed to London’s 18th-century Spencer House, to hear remarks by the Right Honourable Baroness Brenda Hale of Richmond, a justice on the United Kingdom’s highest court.

 “My main purpose is to congratulate Georgetown University Law Center and its partner universities on this splendid initiative; it has brought together universities from all over the globe,” Hale said, noting that she would have appreciated a similar opportunity to study transnational legal issues when she was a law student.

Transnational questions, she said, now have a much more direct impact on people’s lives. Hale cited examples involving multiculturalism, international human rights and “the European dimension” that now affects U.K. law.

Some U.S. judges, she noted, have paid little attention to U.K. law — claiming that the United Kingdom has become too heavily influenced by the differing legal traditions of Europe.

“Those traditions, I am glad to say, are very well represented among the universities that are part of this enterprise,” she said, drawing a chuckle from the crowd.   

CTLS’s two-day inaugural celebration also included discussions designed to lend perspectives on the Center and the newly emerging “global lawyer.” On Monday, Professors Mitt Regan and Carole Silver of Georgetown’s Center for the Study of the Legal Profession spoke with distinguished guests Lord Daniel Brennan of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords; Ted Burke (L’86), chief executive officer of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; David Bradley of DLA Piper; William P. Frank (L'63) of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Richard Price of Shearman & Sterling; and Robert Ruyak (L’74), CEO of Howrey, on the challenges that global lawyers face.

“A global lawyer isn't an expert in the laws of every country,” said Burke, noting that global lawyers do need to be flexible, open minded, creative and sensitive to the idea of different cultures and systems. “The parochial lawyer — the one who says, ‘well, this is the way we do it here and that's the way that it must be done everywhere' — is a client killer.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Dean Aleinikoff joined Professors Andrea Biondi (King’s College); Kerry Rittich (University of Toronto); Franz Werro (Georgetown and Fribourg University) and Muthucumuraswamy Sornarajah (National University of Singapore for a panel on faculty perspectives on the Center.

Located in the heart of London’s legal quarter, CTLS offers its current group of 56 students the unique opportunity to discuss law and perspectives across national boundaries. Georgetown Law Professors Nina Pillard and David Cole are presently serving as co-directors of CTLS; Assistant Dean Scott Foster is the Center’s administrative director. The establishment of CTLS was made possible in part by the generosity of Georgetown Law alumni and the law firms of Howrey LLP, DLA Piper and Skadden Arps.

 

For Webcasts of these events, see:

(PC users - best viewed in Internet Explorer. Mac users - best viewed in Safari)

 

Center for Transnational Legal Studies Ceremonial Opening:

mms://wm.futurecast.tv/georgetown-recorded/kings-college-28-10-08.wmv

 

Remarks by Right Honourable Baroness Brenda Hale of Richmond, DBE, PC, FBA:

mms://wm.futurecast.tv/georgetown-recorded/spencer-2-28-10-08.wmv

 

Senior Practitioners Perspectives on the Emerging Global Lawyer:

mms://wm.futurecast.tv/georgetown-recorded/dorchester-27-10-08.wmv

 

Global Legal Education: Reflections from the Faculty of the Center for Transnational Legal Studies:

mms://wm.futurecast.tv/georgetown-recorded/spencer-1-28-10-08.wmv

 

For more on CTLS, see the Center’s Web site at http://ctls.georgetown.edu/  and the cover story in the Fall/Winter 2008 issue of Georgetown Law.