This detailed study of the lived experience of legal academics explores not only the culture of legal academia and the professional identities of law teachers, but also addresses some of the most pressing issues currently facing the discipline of law. Given the diverse nature of contemporary legal scholarship, where does the future lie? With traditional doctrinalism, socio-legal studies or critical scholarship? What does academic law have to offer its students, the legal profession and the wider society? How do legal academics 'embody' themselves as law teachers, and how does this affect the nature of the law they teach and study? In the context of the RAE, the QAA and all the other pressures facing universities, legal academics discuss the realities of contemporary legal academia in the UK. Dans ce chapitre, Cownie fait une revue de la littérature académique britnannique publiée sur le rôle de la formation juridique universitaire: vise-t-elle à former des praticiens prêts à entrer sur le marché du travail ou vise-t-elle plutôt à former de «bons citoyens»? Autrement dit, toute éducation en droit devrait-elle aspirer à « providing a liberal education in law rather than a narrowly vocational one »? L'auteure expose les divers points de vue sur le sujet selon une évolution historique. -AT