Legal Socholarship in Ontario's English-speaking Common Law schools

This paper considers the current state of academic legal research in a neo-liberal policy environment. The purpose of this study was to obtain empirical data profiling the research activities of full-time, tenure-stream, law professors in Ontario's English-speaking common law schools to ascertain trends over the past 20 years. The implications of the findings were critically analyzed in terms of a socio-critical framework that considers the relationship between knowledge and professionalism within the context of the political economy of higher education. The findings suggest that while changes in higher education associated with neo-liberal policies are challenging law professors' research context, these same changes have contributed to their strengthened position in the university. The findings suggest this is largely because of factors not associated with research, such as the strong teaching mission and the deregulated tuition fees associated with the professional program, as well as the proximity to a wealthy and entrepreneurial profession that has strong connections to the market and offers potential endowments and donations. Some participants believed this allowed law professors to preserve their professional autonomy in relation to their work and scholarship while others maintained that the law itself had been penetrated, and possibly compromised by a neo-liberal agenda.