This is one of six articles collected into a Special Issue of the Law Teacher on Ethics in Legal Education, published in 1999.
Allan Hutchinson concentrates on the inadequacies of a black-letter approach. He uses the fundamental issues raised in the articles to explain how a narrow black-letter approach to legal education continues in so many of our universities to limit the scope for addressing these issues seriously. While accepting that "black-letterism" has its place he deplores its presentation as core to legal scholarship. He argues that it is dangerous in that it engenders the false impression that lawyers can be good lawyers without concerning themselves with the political, ethical and social consequences of their professional pursuits. His concern is that black-letterism will colonise the study of ethics.