ABSTRACT
Support for legal education is not high profile; is not going to produce quick results and might be difficult at first sight to reconcile with a commitment to support legal system reform to benefit the poor. One could however, argue that it’s the one Law and Development input that brings together the external and the internal perspectives of Law and Development and the one such input that is highly unlikely to fail: in every society there are some lawyers who are concerned with justice, with freedoms and with advancing the rule of law. If it does nothing else as a community, the Law and Development community should make it its business to argue the case for support for legal education in the South and especially in ‘failed states’ so as to develop as rapidly as possible that critical mass of national legal skills and knowledge that is the only sure way to build up a national legal culture and so in turn create the undergirding for a legitimate, effective and just national legal system.
