Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T12:47:16.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Brazilian Legal Education: Curricular Reform that Goes Further without Going Beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Roberto Fragale Filho

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The celebration of 180 years of legal education in Brazil, held in August 2007, was marked by strong criticism of the Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil (Brazilian Bar Association) and the higher education expansion policy which was undertaken in the late 1990s, establishing more than a thousand law schools in the country. The escolas de enganação (schools of illusion), created mainly during the last decade, would have increased the numbers in the professional college, which currently has around 600,000 lawyers, to approximately two and a half million, if it were not for the professional filter of the Bar Exam. In other words, the proliferation of mass legal courses in Brazil would have enabled the emergence of educational merchants, specializing in the sale of an illusion of social elevation and professional success, which, thanks to the control of entry into the professional corporation, did not happen.

Type
Section 1: ‘Same Ol’, Same Ol'?' Reflecting on Curricular Reform
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 6-7: Following the Call of the Wild: The Promises and Perils of Transnationalizing Legal Education , July 2009 , pp. 751 - 766
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 See the speech of Brazilian Bar Association President, Cezar Britto at http://www.oab.org.br/noticia.asp?id=10699, last accessed 20 February 2009.Google Scholar

2 See http://www.oab.org.br/noticia.asp?id=10772, last accessed 20 February 2009.Google Scholar

3 Junqueira, Eliane Botelho, Faculdades de Direito ou fábricas de ilusões? (1999).Google Scholar

4 The list is available at http://portal.mec.gov.br/arquivos/pdf/tabela_2.pdf, last accessed 19 February 2009.Google Scholar

5 Bastos, Aurelio Wander, Criação dos cursos jurídicos no Brasil (1977) and O ensino jurídico no Brasil (1998); Sergio Adorno, Os Aprendizes do Poder (1988).Google Scholar

6 Daniel Torres de Cerqueira, O ensino jurídico no Brasil: breve radiografia do setor, 4 Anuário ABEDi, 87, 95 (2006).Google Scholar

7 Data collected from Daniel Torres de Cerqueira, O ensino jurídico no Brasil: breve radiografía do setor, 4 Anuario ABEDi, 87 (2006) and Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira, Censo da Educação Superior 2007, available at http://www.inep.gov.br/superior/censosuperior/sinopse/, last accessed 18 February 2009.Google Scholar

8 Data collected from Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira, Censo da Educação Superior 2007, available at http://www.inep.gov.br/superior/censosuperior/sinopse/, last accessed 18 February 2009.Google Scholar

9 Between 2001 and 2003 the Ministry of Education authorized 222 new legal courses, of which only 18 had received the assent of the Brazilian Bar. See http://www.gestaouniversitaria.com.br/index.php/edicoes/9-5/23-pressao-da-oab-sobre-o-mec-comeca-a-surtir-efeito.html, last accessed 19 February 2009.Google Scholar

10 Federal Act n° 9,394/1996.Google Scholar

11 Joaquim Nabuco, Um Estadista no Império 45 (1997).Google Scholar

12 Dantas, San Tiago, Palavras de um Professor (1975).Google Scholar

13 Roberto A. R. de Aguiar, A Crise da Advocacia no Brasil: Diagnóstico e Perspectivas (1991).Google Scholar

14 Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, Ensino Jurídico: Diagnóstico, Perspectivas e Propostas (1992).Google Scholar

15 Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, Ensino Jurídico: Parâmetros para Elevação de Qualidade e Avaliação (1993).Google Scholar

16 Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, Ensino Jurídico: Novas Diretrizes Curriculares (1996).Google Scholar

17 See Superior Tribunal de Justiça, MS n° 8,592-DF, Minister Franciulli Netto, available at http://www.jusbrasil.com.br/filedown/dev0/files/JUS/STJ/IT/MS_8592_DF_14.05.2003.pdf, last accessed 28 February 2009.Google Scholar

18 See Resolution CNE/CES n° 02/2007, available at http://portal.mec.gov.br/cne/arquivos/pdf/2007/rces002_07.pdf, last accessed 14 February 2009.Google Scholar

19 See Terry, Laurel S., The Bologna Process and its Implications for U.S. Legal Education, 57 Journal of Legal Education, 237 (2007), available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1086417, last accessed 10 February 2009. See also Andreas Bücker & William A. Woodruff, The Bologna Process and German Legal Education: Developing Professional Competence through Clinical Experiences, 9 German Law Journal, 575 (2008).Google Scholar

20 Machado, Rubens Approbato, Exigěncias Práticas no Exercício Profissional e Limitações da Formação Jurídica, in OAB Ensino Jurídico: Formação Jurídica e Inserção Profissional, 17, 25 (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil ed., 2003).Google Scholar

21 See http://www.oab.org.br/oabeditora/users/revista/1235069367174218181901.pdf, last accessed 28 February 2009.Google Scholar

22 See http://www.migalhas.com.br/mostra_noticia.aspx?cod=54606, last accessed 24 February 2009.Google Scholar

23 This is the case for the Brazilian Law International College (http://www.bliccollege.com/tikiindex.php?page=Faculdade+de+Direito+a+Dist%C3%A2ncia, last accessed 27 February 2009) and the American World University (http://www.awu.edu/, last accessed 27 February 2009).Google Scholar

24 Susskind, Richard, The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the nature of legal services (2008).Google Scholar

25 Roberto Fragale Filho, The Use of ICT in the Brazilian Courts, paper to be presented to the 9th European Conference on e-Government, London, 29–30 June 2009.Google Scholar

26 See José Geraldo de Sousa Júnior, A Prática da Assessoria Jurídica na Faculdade de Direito da UnB, in A Prática Jurídica na UnB. Reconhecer para Emancipar, 21 (José Geraldo de Sousa Júnior, Alexandre Bernardino Costa and Mamede Said Maia Filho eds., 2007). See also José Geraldo de Sousa Júnior (ed.), Colaboradores Voluntarios do Núcleo de Prática Jurídica (2002).Google Scholar

27 The logic of collecting hours is also present at another curriculum requirement: the complementary activities. Every student is compelled to fulfill between 5% and 10% of the total amount of hours required for graduation by choosing to attend a seminar or participate in research, for instance, which are usually accepted as complementary activities.Google Scholar

28 Reintroduced by the Federal Act n° 8,906/1994 (available at http://www.oab.org.br/arquivos/pdf/LegislacaoOab/estatuto.pdf, last accessed 22 February 2009), the Bar Exam became mandatory for every law student two years later (article 84).Google Scholar

29 Resistance to the final monograph came essentially from large schools that had a great difficulty in managing such a requirement for a large amount of students. It was extremely costly and time-consuming for a result that did not necessarily translate into evidence of quality.Google Scholar

30 For a theoretical application of PBL to the Brazilian legal curriculum, see Horacio Wanderlei Rodrigues, Pensando o Ensino do Direito no Século XXI: Diretrizes Curriculares, Projeto Pedagógico e Outras Questões Pertinentes 152 (2005).Google Scholar

31 See Maria da Glória Bonelli, Profissionalismo e Política no Mundo do Direito 56 (2002).Google Scholar

32 See Federal Act n° 8,906/1994 (article 44, I and II).Google Scholar

33 See Federal Act n° 8,906/1994 (article 54, XV). The Brazilian Bar opinion, although required by law, does not produce the same results as the American Bar Association (ABA) accreditation process which is not exempt of criticism. See Mathew D. Staver and Anita L. Staver, Lifting the Veil: an Exposé on the American Bar Association's Arbitrary and Capricious Accreditation Process, 49 The Wayne Law Review 1 (2003), available at: http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=lusol_fac_pubs, last accessed 27 February 2009.Google Scholar

34 See Instrução Normativa (Normative Instruction) OAB n° 5/1995.Google Scholar

35 See Instrução Normativa (Normative Instruction) OAB n° 1/1997.Google Scholar

36 See Enrico Martignoni & Leandro Molhano, Considerações sobre o Conceito de “Necessidade Social”: uma Nota Técnica (2005), available at: http://www.databrasil.org.br/Databrasil/‥%5Cpdf_docs%5CDoctrab46.pdf, last accessed 23 February 2009.Google Scholar

37 Replaced in 2004 by the Exame Nacional de Desempenho de Estudantes (National Exam of Students’ Performance), the Exame Nacional de Cursos was a universally applied exam to graduates in order to evaluate the quality of Brazilian higher education. Its results were expressed through five grades from A to E and were quickly adopted by the press to establish some sort of school ranking. For more information, see http://www.inep.gov.br/superior/provao/default.asp, last accessed 17 February 2009.Google Scholar

38 See Édson Nunes, André Magalhães Nogueira & Leandro Molhano Ribeiro, Futuros Possíveis, Passados Indesejáveis: Selo da OAB, Provão e Avaliação do Ensino Superior 75 (2001).Google Scholar

39 Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, OAB Recomenda: Um Retrato dos Cursos Jurídicos (2001).Google Scholar

40 Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, OAB Recomenda 2003: Em Defesa do Ensino Jurídico (2003).Google Scholar

41 Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, OAB Recomenda 2007: Por um Ensino Jurídico de Qualidade (2007), available at http://www.oab.org.br/arquivos/pdf/oabRecomenda/OABRecomenda1.pdf, last accessed 14 February 2009.Google Scholar

42 Minas Gerais is currently the only recalcitrant State. See http://www.oab.org.br/noticia.asp?id=15946, last accessed 17 February 2009.Google Scholar