Taking the Other Road: Polish Legal Education During the Past Thirty Years

Alan E. Garfield, Widener Law
Zbigniew Gostynski

Abstract

This article considers some of the changes that occurred in Polish legal education from the 1960s to the 1990s. The subject is of particular interest because Polish society itself underwent radical transformations during this period. In the 1960s, Poland was solidly within the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, its economy was centrally-planned, and the country afforded its citizens only limited political freedoms. By the 1990s, Poland was a democratic society with a rapidly developing market economy and was cementing its relations with the European Community and the United States. What impact did these immense changes have on the lives and work of Polish law professors and students? How did Polish law schools respond to the demands of this utterly transformed society?