History and development of the program

1. Genesis

In 1981, the UND School of Law invited Rolv Ryssdal, then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Norway to present the inaugural Fode Memorial Law Lecture.  Chief Justice Ryssdal and his wife, Signe Marie Stray Ryssdal, also a lawyer and at the time chief of social security of Oslo Commune, lawyer, spent a week in Grand Forks visiting classes and meeting with members of the bar and public groups.  The visit culminated on March 31, 1981, with Chief Justice Ryssdal's lecture: lecture, The Relation Between the Judiciary and the Legislative and Executive Branches of the Government in Norway, Norway.  This interesting and useful comparison of the scope of constitutional judicial review in Norway and the United States was subsequently published in the North Dakota Law Review (57printed at 57 N.D.L. Rev. 527 (1981)).(1981), an interesting and useful comparison of the scope of constitutional judicial review in Norway and the United States.

The Ryssdals thoroughly impressed the UND and Grand Forks communities with their warmth, sincerity, and legal acumen.  With characteristic Norwegian hospitality, they extended an invitation to their new UND law school friends to visit them in Norway.  Jeremy Davis, then Associate Dean of the School of Law, acceptedJerry Davis, then UND's Associate Dean, took them up on their offer by making a side trip on his way back from a seminar in Germany the following summer.  Upon arriving at the Oslo train station, Davis telephoned Chief Justice Ryssdal who personally picked him up in his Volvo, drove him to his home for dinner, and offered to introduce him to appropriate people at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law.

Chief Justice Ryssdal's introduction of Dean Davis to Professor Peter Loedrup, then Dean of that faculty, produced not only a firm friendship, but also an immediate mutual recognition of the potential benefits of exchanging students between the two law schools, and an agreement to forge ahead with the project at the earliest opportunity.  Approval for the experiment was quickly obtained at both institutions, and the first exchange commenced in the Summer of 1982.  Dean Davis and Professor Loedrup are clearly the founding fathers of the exchange program.

The "UND at Oslo" part of the Program consists of the North Dakota students spending six weeks in Oslo from mid-May to the end of June taking lectures from law faculty members, judges, lawyers and members of the Norwegian government.  The curriculum has evolved into three separate and planned courses: The Norwegian Legal System; Comparative Criminal Justice; and, International Human Rights.  The three two-credit course curriculum totals to six credits, each graded separately. Members of both the UND and the Norwegian faculty recognize this program as a serious and legitimate academic enterprise.  It is primarily the Norwegian faculty's curriculum, planned and implemented under the joint direction of UiO Professor Helge Thue and UND Professor Thomas Lockney and, as indicated above, taught by Norwegians.

The "Oslo at UND" part of the Program consists of Norwegian law students spending the spring semester, January to mid-May, in Grand Forks.  With a few exceptions, they take classes from the regular law school curriculum at the School of Law.  The Norwegian students are also permitted to schedule courses from the general undergraduate curriculum of the University, as long as at least nine credits are earned from the law school.  This semester satisfies as a spesialfag for credit toward their Norwegian law degree.

From the Norwegian side alone, this program has produced 165 Norwegian lawyers who have attended the UND School of Law (one of the 166 has unfortunately died since he attended the program).  The real benefit of this program has been the extraordinary academic and cultural experiences provided to a large number of North American, Norwegian, and Central and Eastern European students, in the relatively brief span of 12 years.

Our Norwegian alumnae are a very loyal group. They have formed FOND (Friends of North Dakota), an organization consisting of Norwegian lawyers who have studied at UND in the exchange program. Members of FOND assist in recruiting Norwegian law students to attend UND, work with UND law students while in Oslo to provide them with practical aspects of the Norwegian legal system, and advise the School of Law regarding aspects of the program.

The program has been of benefit in other ways as well. Professor Lockney, largely because of his close involvement with the Norwegian law faculty, was invited to deliver a paper at an international comparative law seminar in Oslo in September, 1994.

2.  Experience for US, Canadian, and European students in Oslo

a.   Academic

In my view, the primary benefit for our students is to learn about different legal subjects from different types of teachers.  So far, the specific personalities and subjects have been less important than the general impact.  This is something I see changing gradually with the involvement of more schools and counties.

b.  Cultural and social

Although I firmly believe that the "academic" and the "cultural and social" cannot be cleanly separated, it does seem to me that there is a lot more learning that takes place in this program than what the students hear in the classroom or read.  Although we can reasonably differ about the relative importance of the academic learning and the cultural and experiential, I believe that it is important, once we assure a quality program that satisfies our own educational standards of respectability, and ABA accreditation as well, that we not lose sight of the other aspects.  This point may appear obvious and somewhat trivial in the abstract, but it becomes highly relevant, when certain on-site decisions have to be made:  for example, transportation for a three day trip to the mountains is available only at a time which conflicts with a lecture--and the lecturer is unable to reschedule the lecture.  Trip (and substitute something else later, if necessary, to satisfy ABA classroom hour requirements) or lecture?  I have opted in such situations for the trip.  A more rigid academic approach might have dictated sticking to the lecture and schedule.

3. Experience for Norwegian students

a.  Academic

1) Linguistic

I believe the primary benefit for the Norwegian students is not the specific legal subjects they learn, but rather the facility they obtain working with legal materials in English, whatever the specific subjects studied.   Some may disagree with my "linguistics primacy" notion, but I feel the "learning important law" interests are adequately met at UND by the requirement that all the Norwegian students take a 2 hour/credit course giving them a general introduction to U.S. law.  Actually, the last few years, since I have had sole responsibility for this course, I have combined exposing the students to most of my colleagues (remember, we are a small school with only about 14 full time teachers) who talk about their primary area of expertise, with requiring the students to write short weekly essays on the subjects covered.  All the Norwegian students understand English quite well.  Many of them, however, have  a little more trouble expressing themselves, especially in writing.  And nearly all have little experience expressing themselves in writing in English about law.  Thus, I force them to practice weekly.  At first, they usually express sentiments akin to "what is this, high school again?" but by the end of the semester, they usually recognize that they are much better able to understand what they read and hear in the other courses, and are also less fearful of writing law school exams in English.

Written in part by

Dean of the Law School, Jeremy Davis & prof. Thomas Lockney

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