Introduction

The chronic crisis that plagues legal education has transatlantic historical roots, as the current problems can be identified since the foundation of the primordial Brazilian courses attached to the European mold, especially the Portuguese one.

The lack of didactic-pedagogical training for the exercise of teaching can be pointed out as fundamental in this context: both to cause and guarantee the maintenance of the current system, and to promote transformation in the achievement of a critical, democratic, and emancipatory legal education.

In view of this, considering the stricto sensu Graduate Programs in law located in the State of Paraná, which offer didactic-pedagogical training to their students, in accordance with article 66 of the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDB), it is questioned: How do its graduates perceive the didactic-pedagogical training offered in the master’s and doctoral courses in law and, consequently, its implications for the delineation of the profiles of legal education professors?

In order to answer the problem formulated, the objective of this article is to understand the implications of the didactic-pedagogical training offered through stricto sensu graduate academic courses in law, based on the assumption of the perceptions of the graduates about being and doing teaching, thus characterizing the profiles of the professor of legal education.

This is a bibliographic and field research. The data collection strategy adopted is the semi-structured interview with a script of questions, having as a parameter the qualitative treatment of the data and the content analysis presented by Bardin ⁽²⁰¹⁶⁾. In the pre-analysis phase, the interviews conducted based on a semi-structured questionnaire were recorded and fully transcribed, each document was enumerated and filed separately, being treated as a constitutive part of the corpus of analysis ( ^{Bardin, 2016}).

The thematic registration units were approximated by analogy and demonstrated through the frequency of appearance of themes (words, phrases, expressions) ( ^{Moraes, 1999}; ^{Biagi, 2010}) mentioned by the interviewed professors, based on the objective-quantitative aspect in relation to the percentage of repetition of the thematic registration units.

The constitution of the categories was a posteriori, so that they would emerge from the responses of the research participants, and were not imposed in a pre-established manner (Moraes, 2017). Therefore, the category system was progressive, deriving from classification by analogy, using the procedure called collection, in which the category title is defined only after the procedure has been completed.

In the material exploration phase, it was possible to identify, through the speech of the research participants and the frequency of appearance, the following categories: I) natural-vocational; II) traditional-transmitter; III) technical-practical; IV) researcher-updated; and V) critical-emancipatory. Finally, in the data processing and interpretation phase, analysis was carried out based on the bibliographic review, problematizing the data collected in accordance with the objectives of the investigation.

The research was submitted to the Ethics Committee for Research Involving Human Beings at the State University of Londrina, which issued an approval opinion under n. 44043421.2.0000.5231. The participants were chosen based on an invitation made to professors, who work in higher education in the undergraduate law course, and who are graduates of the stricto sensu Postgraduate Programs in law in the State of Paraná. The temporal parameter adopted corresponds to graduates from the last 4 years, covering the period of the Quadrennial Assessment (2017-2020) carried out by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) in relation to stricto sensu Postgraduate Programs in the country.

90 professors were interviewed, who stated that 54% were female and 46% were male, 77% were between 30 and 45 years old, 66% came from master’s courses and 34% from doctoral courses, 82% have been teaching between 3 and 10 years, in private higher education institutions (93%) located in the State of Paraná (90%). The central questioning asked to the graduates was based on their perception of the importance of didactic-pedagogical training for the exercise of teaching and the formative experiences lived during the completion of the master’s and doctoral courses.

Organized in two moments, initially the article discusses the views and tensions present in the interviewees’ statements, which mark the contradictions regarding the didactic-pedagogical training experienced in master’s and doctorate courses and, subsequently, addresses the profile of the legal education professor who they believe to be the most appropriate for the exercise of the profession.

Conceptions regarding being and doing teaching

The questions directed to the interviewees sought to demonstrate the importance of didactic-pedagogical training, as well as highlighting the graduate’s conception of being and doing teaching, that is, revealing how the interviewed professor positions himself in the world, the principles, visions and conceptions that guide his teaching work, as well as this professional’s commitment to a certain educational and political project for society. In summary, it indicates the profile of the legal education professor who believes he is the one who best responds to the contemporary challenges of Brazilian society.

Initially, it is important to point out that approximately 7% of the professors interviewed had difficulties to understand the questions formulated, thus, it was necessary to have a previous explanation and exemplification of the interviewer so that the participants could discuss the importance of didactic-pedagogical elements for professor training and performance, as can be seen below:

I didn’t understand your question, didactic-pedagogical in what sense? (E12)

What do you mean by didactic-pedagogical? (E51)

What do you mean, if you’re talking about methodologies? I didn´t understand your question, I’m sorry. (E65)

Look, if I understood you correctly, your question would be in the sense of us having elements in the undergraduate program to prepare students to be professors? Would that be it? (E85)

The strangeness in relation to the use of the terms “didactic” and “pedagogical” may indicate the lack of training for the exercise of the teaching activity. Although these are elements that make up the practice of the teaching work, and, are therefore discussed and analyzed on a daily basis, the professors revealed inability to handle these terms.

In professor training, didactic elements are fundamental for the professionalization of teaching work, as they are responsible for directing the teaching activity, with the purpose of student learning ( ^{Libâneo, 2013}). However, this conception cannot focus on a merely instrumental perspective linked to preparation for instruction, as the didactic-pedagogical element is a field permeated with complexities that involve the multidimensionality of being and doing teaching ( ^{Candau, 2013}).

Regarding didactic-pedagogical training for the exercise of teaching activity, 59% point out this as a major challenge in legal education. In fact, the interviewees consider that this problem needs to be faced, as can be seen in the following excerpts:

I tell you that the problems I have as a course coordinator are precisely because people don’t specialize in the pedagogical part, in the education part, in methodologies. (E39)

This is a great challenge in law itself, we don’t come from a pedagogy. (E27)

The deficiency of a good part of law professors in this didactic-pedagogical issue is exposed, a serious problem to be faced in Brazilian legal education. (E81)

As seen, the majority of the interviewees admit the absence or incipience of didactic-pedagogical training of law professors. This is important, as it is understood that the recognition of reality is a constitutive part of the process of its transformation ( ^{Freire, 2020}).

However, perception is not enough, it is necessary to discuss the teaching profile that we aim to train, aligned with the legal education project that we seek to consolidate, bearing in mind that a merely instrumental and pragmatic training, in line with an anti-dialogical and dogmatic legal education, only contributes to maintaining the status quo practiced in law courses, a teaching and learning model that does not correspond to the historical processes of democratization of spaces of power, humanization of jurist and alignment of their interests with those of society, and not those of the market or the State, that is, the consolidation of legal education that is a catalyst for social changes ( ^{Machado, 2009}).

Thus, this project of legal education requires that the didactic-pedagogical training of its professors, which is not a neutral or abstract training process, also have this intention. In order to break with traditional legal education, articulating teaching practice with this emancipatory project, it is necessary that didactic-pedagogical training is not merely pragmatic, but capable of equipping professors to appropriate the theoretical-methodological, scientific and cultural heritage of humanity with a view to the humanization of subjects ( ^{Martins, 2014}).

In addition, in relation to the practice of legal education professors, the interviewees emphasize that the lack of didactic-pedagogical training for the exercise of teaching has implied in the teaching methodology, highlighting this as a weak point in the field of legal education, as pointed out below:

This is one of the main complaints from students. Including the professor, he knows everything, he is the guy, but he has no teaching skills, this is a challenge for teaching law. (E53)

He has the practice, the day to day, the practical knowledge, but I often see that the pedagogical part is missing, and this harms the students, that’s how I see it. (E70)

But we see little participation from professors in law courses and the non-application of these new methodologies, and this is a problem in legal education. (E33)

This instrumental link between didactics and methodology also points to the traditional conception that professors have about legal education ( ^{Candau, 2013}), a process of transmitting knowledge from those who know everything (professor) to those who consider that they know nothing (students). ) ( ^{Freire, 2020}), a one-way street, which disregards the sociocultural context and the transformative perspective of reality that the legal field can take on in the emancipation of historical subjects.

Finally, these interviewees indicate that didactic-pedagogical issues are neglected in the courses that make up the training process of legal education professors, whether in initial training or in continuing education. As can be seen below:

There is a very, very big lack in higher education in terms of training professors. (E55)

There is a master’s degree in law, but we often fall a little short in terms of pedagogical training. (E59)

I see that we don’t have didactic-pedagogical training, we don’t learn this, neither at the undergraduate level, nor in the master’s degree nor in the doctorate, and I see this as a problem. (E45)

As expressed above, professors agree that the lack of didactic-pedagogical training is a problem to be faced. However, it is understood that it is not enough to guarantee the provision of training, as something neutral or abstract, as depending on the conception that directs this training process, this can directly imply in the constitution of the profile of the legal education professor, contributing to the maintenance or overcoming contradictions related to being and doing teaching.

Profiles of professors of undergraduate law courses

Regarding the question about the importance of didactic-pedagogical training, the aim was not to collect yes or no answers. Even because none of the interviewees denied the importance of these elements, but the intention consisted of analyzing this relevance for the professor and allowing the externalization of what the interviewees understood about being and doing teaching. The point of view relating to didactic-pedagogical training denotes the conception that the subject himself has in relation to the profile of the legal education professor, as will be analyzed in the next topics.

Natural-vocational professor

Among the concepts that appeared frequently in the speeches of the interviewed subjects, there is the emergence of the category of the natural-vocational professor. Vocated is the person who responds to a calling. The conception of the natural-vocation-priesthood professor was consolidated in the political-religious sphere for conservative reasons of maintaining the circle of those who belong, that is, an elitist vision that subsidizes the separation of those who have and those who do not.

For Hypolito ⁽²⁰²⁰⁾, the natural-vocational professor is linked to the Church’s domination over educational processes, especially in the sixteenth century, when primary schools were founded for the popular strata of society. Although only 12% of the professors interviewed refer to the teaching work as a natural gift or inner calling, this is a relevant issue to be problematized, as it has a deep historical root. The natural-vocational profile can be observed in the following transcriptions:

I personally think that we, the professor, have more or less always had the form, sometimes people think I want to be a professor and I’m going to take a course to be a professor, I think it’s something that is born with people. (E14)

Unless he is that person who is naturally prepared to do that, there are people who have a remarkable talent that they don’t need. (E43)

Both statements deserve to be highlighted, since, in the wake of contemplating the vocational professor, the one who is originally graced with a divine gift or a gift from nature to work in teaching, these interviewees ignore the relevance of professor training courses, considering that the professor does not become, but is born. Therefore, there would not be a constitutive-formative-appropriative process of knowledge, procedures and techniques ( ^{Gatti et al., 2019} ) at a theoretical, scientific and cultural level ( ^{Duarte, 2003}; ^{Martins, 2014}), but only a defined luck at birth.

This correlation prevents discussion around the professionalization of teaching activities, such as working hours, improved salaries, improved conditions and adequate support to carry out teaching activities, as resignation and obedience are necessary characteristics for those with vocations. Furthermore, there is the figure of the natural professor, one who was born with particularities that allow him to carry out his teaching work in such an effective way, as can be seen in the statements below:

There are professors who have more resourcefulness, a natural resourcefulness to express themselves, but it is not a rule, it is not general. (E02)

I felt a vocation for teaching, but I didn’t have the technique for it when I started teaching [...] the vast majority, they teach not exactly out of a teaching vocation. (E42)

A professor with a good command of the content may, even if he has not had dogmatic contact with the didactic-pedagogical part, still be able to partially make up for this lack due to personal characteristics he has. (E51)

I believe so, you see, I think the didactic issue... as much as we can have this kind of naturally, many times, the law professor, he has this, either he has the didactics or he doesn’t. (E64)

For Roldão ( ^{2007, p. 102}), mediating teaching and learning processes is not “a gift, although some have it; it is not a technique, although it requires excellent technical-strategic operationalization; it is not a calling, although some may feel it.” Teaching work requires specific knowledge that can support and legitimize the professional activity performed, and this knowledge is learned, appropriated and internalized, it is not immanent.

The elements related to the exercise of teaching work are presented as dogmas, gifts, metaphysical concepts, vocation, personal characteristics and subjectivisms that distort reality and hide the responsibility of the subjects in pursuing aspects related to didactic-pedagogical training, as that gift can´t be sought; the vocation or the natural-originary characteristics, these are elements beyond the subject’s will and, as reported, indicate an impossibility for the professor to act in the presence or absence of these requirements. Therefore, there is a need to break with the sacredness surrounding teaching and assume teaching work as an intentional activity aimed at transforming reality, something that is learned and not naturally born with.

Traditional-transmitter professor

In the investigation, 23% of the interviewees mention expressions, such as “passing” or “transmitting” the content, are terms that denote the living presence of the traditional tendency, which persists in the social imaginary of the interviewees. The category of the traditional-transmitter professor, who often uses dissertation and exposition techniques as a teaching methodology, predominates in Brazilian education ( ^{Libâneo, 2013}). Consequently, didactics, teaching methodology and pedagogical foundations, are linked to a verbalist-transmitting view of knowledge. A one-way street, a knowledge that emanates from the one who knows to the one who thinks he doesn’t know. This conception can be seen in the following statements:

It is basic that you have this preparation beforehand so that you can then pass it on to your students. (E75)

Without didactics, there is a possibility that you will not pass with quality what you should pass, I see it as paramount. (E13)

If you want to be able to transmit your knowledge to someone, it is essential that you have knowledge of techniques to do so. (E84)

Especially because if you can have a better didactics, you can also make him understand, especially these areas that are more doctrinal, an area that requires much more, so you have to have a way to pass on the content. (E83)

Traditionalism and the repetition of old practices is a characteristic of legal education ( ^{Bittar, 2006}). The transposition of European university experiences to the Brazilian territory, at the time of the foundation of the first law courses (1827), may have contributed to the construction of a collective imagery that attributed an aura of sacredness to legal education: the Coimbrão style, “a monopolizing professor and a passive student, involved with the reproduction of an archaism” (Arruda Júnior, 2012, p. 126). Bachelor’s verbalism and juridical dogmatism are hallmarks of this structure that rejects change, because one should not touch the sacred. Its presence can be seen in the following reports:

My professors, who work with me, use the same way of teaching that they used with me ten years ago, it’s the same thing even today, they haven’t changed at all. (E33)

They play the subject in the way they understand to be the best possible way, but the student’s attitude is not taken into account, it is that method in which only the professor speaks and the student listens, there is no exchange. (E89)

I graduated at a time when professors didn’t have much concern with teaching, with passing on the material, delivering their knowledge, passing it on. (E76)

The professor’s role is to teach, this task cannot be forgotten, but when teaching, the professor also learns, and the student, while learning, can also teach ( ^{Freire, 2020}). Dussel ( ^{1977, p. 191}) states that: “[...] the authentic master will first hear the objecting, provocative, questioning and even insolent word of the one who wants to be Other”, and continues “[...] the voice of the Other means content that is revealed, and it is only from the revelation of the Other that the educational action is carried out. The disciple reveals himself to the master; the master reveals himself to the disciple” ( ^{Dussel, 1977}, p. 231). In this way, the professor enables the student to graduate by focusing on otherness and the recognition of the Other, who, in turn, will replicate, in his new condition, that is, as a graduate, the ethics of alterity.

Although the statements are intended to point out the lack of didactic-pedagogical knowledge of professors for the exercise of teaching activity, the view of the professor as a transmitter of knowledge reveals the conception that the interviewed subject has about the teaching work: an individual, owner of knowledge, who is responsible for transmitting the content to the student, which places itself as a passive recipient who has no knowledge, in an operation of transfer from those who have to those who have nothing, as expressed below:

We have pedagogical problems in relation to this, the professor knows a lot of the content, but cannot transmit it to the student. (E39)

Many professors, they have the knowledge and they don’t have the issue of didactics [...] so I believe that this pedagogical training would make it easier for professors to pass on the content in a more didactic way to law students. (E60)

The traditional-transmitter profile ignores that “[...] strategies have to be constantly modified, invented, and reconceptualized to account for each new teaching experience” ( ^{hooks, 2017}, p. 21). Although it seems like a triviality, the theoretical concepts used by the interviewees reveal worldviews, the words and expressions are not random or lacking in representation and, in this case, transmitting or passing on content to students is linked to a banking and alienating perspective of education. On the contrary, some professors claim that:

Teaching is much more than passing on content. (E55)

The role of the professor is not only to transmit knowledge, it is to raise the level of the student, so that he can learn consistently, but also to draw the attention of that student body and soul into the classroom. (E79)

In other words, it is often said that education will save the world, the true panacea against all evils, but what education? What education? The bank? The totalizer? Against whom is it taught? For whom is it taught? Why is it taught? What is taught? ( ^{Freire; Shor, 2021}). These questions must be discussed and answered by all educators constantly, so that this reflection can unveil reality and enable the construction of new paradigms.

Technical-practical Professor

The category of technical-practical professor is the most recurrent in the investigation, with approximately 27% of the professors interviewed reporting the presence of this teaching profile. Professional practice is exalted as if, in some way, it could supply the lack of didactic-pedagogical training ( ^{Oliveira; Gibran, 2018}). Experiential and practical knowledge is important, including to enable a greater process of contextualization of contents, but legal education cannot be transformed into a preparatory course for advocacy. This instrumentalization compromises the quality of legal reasoning and critical thinking, as it focuses on the mission of training legal practitioners, from an industrial and mechanical perspective, and not jurists, who could be committed to justice, to the transformation of reality, to the democratic rule of law, to constitutional axiology and to human rights.

However, the interviewees emphasized the predominance of knowledge derived from professional practice, as can be seen below:

The office practice helps me a lot, because after all I have been practicing law for twelve years. I’ve only worked in the legal field since I was eighteen, I’ve never stopped, it’s very different to have the practical knowledge and then have the theoretical knowledge to pass on to the student. (E52)

Of course, a professor with much more practice offers much more in the classroom than the professor eventually with only a degree and immersed in books, practice for us makes all the difference. (E28)

The misconception persists in the academic imaginary related to legal education that those who practice professionally also know how to teach ( ^{Berbel, 1994}), and the statements of the interviewees corroborate this finding, because for the professional-professors, most of the time, “teaching is seen as a secondary or peripheral occupation in relation to material and productive work” ( ^{Tardif; Lessard, 2013}, p. 17).

In relation to teaching as a secondary activity, about 44% of the interviewees listed law as their main activity and, even among the 36% of the participants who choose teaching as their most important job, a portion recognizes that they do not practice teaching exclusively, including for financial reasons.

In addition, due to the absence of initial training for the teaching work, as well as the null or incipient continuing education offered in the master’s and doctoral courses in law with regard to didactic-pedagogical training, the professor is submitted to a training process centered on knowledge and solutions to practical problems of the daily teaching work, as precepted in the BNC-Training (art. 7, items II, VIII; art. 8, item II): learning to do, doing, learning to teach, teaching. As can be seen in the grafts below:

Many of the people in other areas, prosecutors, judges, said that you learn in practice, teaching you learn by teaching, and that the discipline of the pedagogical process is not as relevant, so it is complicated. (E24)

I think it is a weakness in the law course, the law professor learns to teach based on his personal and lived experiences with professors who taught him, unless he seeks independent training. (E05)

I consider it important because as I first got into teaching and then went on to study what it was like to be a professor, I will say that I missed it at the beginning, the lack of preparation I had for teaching, I learned on my own [...], but due to lack of knowledge, I ended up learning in practice on my own. (E50)

I think that there is a tendency in the formation of the jurist to think that practice is what will be the delimiting criterion of the good professor, of the good professional, when in fact, the didactic-pedagogical work is relegated to the background. (E82)

Professional-experiential knowledge as a founding and sufficient element for the teaching work is based on common sense. For Vázquez ( ^{1982, p. 13}), “common sense is the point of view of practicalism; Practice without theory, or with a minimum of it. In the consciousness of common sense, the practical – understood in a strictly utilitarian sense – is opposed to theory.” The professor should not base his or her work on common sense, on the contrary, he or she should be based on the theoretical, scientific and cultural heritage of humanity, it cannot be only a professional-experiential performance based on the reflection of practice, on “[...] professional knowledge, of a tacit, personal, particularized, subjective nature, etc.” ( ^{Duarte, 2003}, p. 619-620).

Due to the history of law faculties of valuing the personal qualities of professionals in the legal world, such as rhetoric, oratory and charisma in the selection of professors for law courses ( ^{Adorno, 2019}) and the valorization of practical, quick and resolute knowledge, aligned to the contemporary world of work, this professional (lawyer, judge, prosecutor) was and continues to be well received in legal education. At this point, the interviewees made a diagnosis regarding this professional-professor relationship (lawyer, judge, prosecutor), a hallmark of legal education, which can be seen below:

Generally, the person who teaches is a lawyer, a famous person, an experienced person, a judge, and not necessarily a law professor. (E30)

The guy is a great lawyer in the area, or a judge, or an appeals court judge, and he teaches, but he’s not a career professor, he didn’t have any training. (E25)

There’s a false perception that a great lawyer, a great judge, or a great prosecutor is a great professor, and I don’t agree with that [...] a legal professional is not always a good professor. (E47)

Because we have seen many times people who have a very high level of legal knowledge, lawyers, judges, prosecutors, but who are unable to express this knowledge. (E27)

You have professors who have an absurd knowledge of the legal field, even judges, and I have to talk to him, you have to speak more slowly, you have to follow a logic. (E41)

Although it is important, verticalized knowledge in the area, especially from a mechanical and operational perspective of practice, cannot suppress or even replace the knowledge that is inherent to the activity and teaching work. And the professors interviewed highlight this need: to seek didactic-pedagogical training for teaching, considering that the teaching profession is a job that requires specific knowledge of the area of activity ( ^{Roldão, 2007}). Contributing to this reflection, the interviewees state that:

The Law professor, he is above all a professor, he is a jurist, generally, a profession in some nearby area, but he is a person who will dedicate himself to a teaching activity, so the particularities of the activity require specific knowledge , it’s not something you just learn in practice, you have to have moments in your training that are dedicated specifically to this training. (E18)

I think there was a time when there was a lot of this about a professor without pedagogical training, but who had that practical experience, I think that time has passed, I think that today, to be a good professor, the pedagogical part is necessary. (E17)

Unlike the professional professor, Roldão ( ^{2007, p. 101}) teaches that “the professional professor – like the doctor or the engineer in their specific fields – is the one who teaches not just because he knows, but because he knows how to teach.” According to the author, knowing how to teach demands the construction of the complex capacity to mediate formal curricular knowledge, a mediation that requires “solid scientific knowledge”, “technical-didactic mastery” and a “continuous meta-analytical stance” from the professor in relation to their practice. professor ( ^{Roldão, 2007}, p. 102).

The technical-practical profile, especially the one that considers knowledge of professional legal practice to be sufficient for teaching, needs to be overcome. This does not mean abandoning the importance of knowledge and practical experience, but it indicates the need to overcome this theoretical common sense of jurists, this perception must be abandoned in history.

Aligned with the contemporary historical-social-cultural context, it is essential to recognize the importance of didactic-pedagogical elements in the training process of legal education professors, in addition to a pragmatic and instrumental vision, training that, is based on the paradigm of inseparability between theory and practice.

Updated research professor

Another profile category of the legal education professor identified in the investigation refers to the researcher-updated professor. The frequency of thematic responses allows us to infer that for these interviewees, didactic-pedagogical knowledge is related to the improvement of scientific research or the updating of vertical content in the area of activity. For Freire (2013, p. 30) “there is no teaching without research and research without teaching”.

Thus, a professor-researcher is better able to provide contextualized teaching, reformulating their performance, motivating students to pursue research and building spaces of autonomy. However, training focused strictly on research is not sufficient for teaching work ( ^{Cavalcante, 2020}). That is, academic-scientific research does not prepare for teaching, which is a professional activity that requires knowledge intrinsic to being and doing teaching.

In addition to this factor, there is the figure of the reflective professor, one who is a researcher of his or her own practice. For Freire (2012, p. 40), “[...] in the ongoing training of professors, the fundamental moment is critical reflection on practice”. However, it is important to highlight that, although this reflective process is important, the continued training of professors for legal education cannot be limited to a reflection on practice, as it becomes like a closed cycle in itself, and must be, in addition to this reflection, a moment of analysis of teaching practice, supported by scientific, theoretical and cultural content ( ^{Martins, 2014}).

At this point, approximately 15% of the graduates emphasize the importance of academic-scientific research for their teaching work. A profile that has its importance, especially in the context of higher education, but which cannot supplant the other elements of teaching work. In the following grafts, it is possible to verify the value of research and updating for the daily life of the classroom:

The professor in the master’s and doctorate programs, because he creates a routine of study and research, I believe that this improves the didactic resources that he will use in teaching. (E16)

It’s a matter of you having more research, because without incentive for research, that professor won’t be motivated to continue his studies. (E08)

I felt almost immediately for my publications, for my academic production [...] great contributions, for example, alignment of some research, I felt a difference, yes, it was very productive. (E32)

In the master’s degree there is, in the doctorate we do not have a teaching internship, but there is advanced research in law [...] even this pedagogical issue involves this issue of research methodology. (E46)

Another aspect to be highlighted refers to the link between teaching work and updating content in the field of knowledge in which the professor works. Due to the constant changes that law experiences, especially through legislative, doctrinal and jurisprudential changes, updating is an indispensable element for legal education, and the professors interviewed recognize this importance, as highlighted in the following statements:

I understand that this didactic-pedagogical training for professors is important, so that they stay up to date. (E40)

Yes, I consider it important, even for the sake of updating. (E69)

However, this process of updating the area of knowledge of law, such as more recent judicial decisions, new legislation, among others, is one of the dimensions of professor training, but it should not be confused with the didactic-pedagogical elements, and just like the research and professional experience cannot make up for the lack of these elements that are linked to being and doing teaching, such as: knowledge and knowledge related to teaching methodology; strategies and actions aimed at student learning; planning and evaluation processes; interpersonal relationship; educational theory and theoretical-methodological perspective.

Critical-emancipatory Professor

The category of critical-emancipatory professor is repeated in the speeches of the interviewed subjects approximately 23% of the time. The concept of “criticism” was used in different ways throughout the historical periods, thus denoting its ambiguous and polysemic nature. In Kant, for example, criticism assumes the role of an analytical operation of thought, a way of working. In a different way, in Marx, criticism has the function of revealing hidden reality and demystifying ideologies ( ^{Correas, 1995}).

According to Coelho ( ^{2019, p. 74}), the core of critical theory seeks, fundamentally, “[...] adherence to reality, the discovery of truth through the refusal to deny, distort or omit.”

Critical thinking is a necessary characteristic for emancipation and social transformation (Giroux, 1986). The emancipatory perspective aims to free man from all forms of oppression, the search for freedom and independence, a perspective that sees the subject as an agent of transformation, who does not wait for change to come from outside ( ^{Costa, 2016}).

Therefore, in the critical-emancipatory approach, which focuses on the transformation of reality based on critical interventions by emancipated subjects, teaching work must be aimed at teaching “[...] liberation from false illusions, false interests and desires, created and constructed in students by the worldview they present based on knowledge made available by the sociocultural context in which they live.” ( ^{Kunz, 2004}, p. 121). Collaborating with this reflection, the professors highlight that:

Being a professor is not just transferring, passing on a technical language that is available in the book, but it has a critical dimension, which implies criticizing the status quo [...] promoting strategies for students to think critically about reality to transform the reality, and not to become a mere performer of mechanical tasks. (E31)

We realize that legal education must be emancipatory, liberating, it must be critical and we don’t see that so much in law. (E26)

Achieving a critical-emancipatory profile, in the words of the interviewees, requires overcoming teaching practices and professional attitudes intertwined with the traditional-transmissive vision. The professor’s dialogic behavior is a mark of the critical-emancipatory model, one committed to the teaching and learning process, and not just teaching, a professional committed to ensuring the student’s development, meeting the student, talking to the student and not for the student ( ^{Freire, 2020}). This characteristic can be observed in the following statements:

The professor does not pass on the knowledge, he will build the knowledge, I will guide, the professor’s role is increasingly that one of an advisor. (E36)

We strongly defend the mediating professor, and not the professor who simply transmits knowledge. (E68)

The professor’s main objective is not only to transmit technical knowledge, but to awaken the student’s interest in learning that knowledge. (E56)

The professor has gone from being a mere transmitter of knowledge, he has to somehow generate knowledge in a participatory way for the student, the methods he uses today are as important as the knowledge of specific subjects for legal education. (E86)

I consider it important, especially because law has a very positivist teaching practice and focused on the memorization of information [...] pedagogical training is important as a way to oppose the traditional teaching that has been in the same training since the nineteenth century.

It is important to point out that a set of competencies and skills that can be learned and assimilated in practice, especially a non-teaching practical experience (legal activity), are not sufficient for the professor’s work, because professor training is multidimensional and complex, and cannot be reduced to know-how ( ^{Gil Villa, 1998}).

Mastering and teaching the technique, especially from a perspective of knowing how to do and teaching how to do it, does not promote emancipation, on the contrary, it makes thinking and critical analysis of the reality in question impossible ( ^{Tiroli; Jesus, 2022}). For the professors interviewed, didactic-pedagogical training is fundamental to overcoming the technical-practical paradigm in the search for critical-emancipatory.

Because being a professor is much more than just teaching technique, it means teaching a series of skills and attitudes that depend on knowledge of didactic-pedagogical practices that are not taught to us. (E34)

You need to have knowledge beyond mere legal technique, and in addition to this interdisciplinary reasoning that you have to have, it seems to me, the professor himself, he needs to have at least a basic notion of the pedagogical issue. (E61)

The difference is that we stop being spectators and become protagonists of knowledge [...] with this didactic-pedagogical procedure we learn tools that enable us to build better thinking for academics. (E54)

It needs to be a different look, a didactic look, because otherwise we make this communication difficult, I think we end up transforming the law into something more elitist, taking people’s rights away. (E88)

As highlighted by the interviewees, it can be seen that, in the critical-emancipatory profile, the professor becomes a subject committed to the socio-historical-cultural reality in which his work is inserted, who meets the student and who is committed to the emancipation of the subject, thus requiring a solid theoretical, scientific and cultural training ( ^{Martins, 2014}), a training that recognizes that the professor’s work is an intellectual activity ( ^{Giroux, 1997}), an agent promoting change and transformations, an active subject of history.

In summary, the paradigms identified in this investigation reveal a plurality of conceptions regarding being and doing teaching. The Table 1 below demonstrates the frequency of these profiles in the speeches of the research subjects, allowing us to infer that there is no consensus regarding the identity and work of the professor, considering that the percentages are not very disparate.

This diversity can demonstrate that the critical-emancipatory perspective, in which the professor recognizes himself as an agent transforming reality, assuming his responsibility in the teaching and learning process, in addition to strategies for transmitting technical knowledge arising from professional experiences, is still a minority. (23%).

The profiles of legal education professors prevail as a subject dedicated to teaching work (12%), which is born with characteristics that provide their resourcefulness in the classroom, or even a holder of knowledge who, knowing the contents deeply, radiates them to the students, who passively assimilate them (23%). However, the most remembered is the professional-professor (27%), who dispenses with didactic-pedagogical knowledge in view of the technical precision he acquired in the legal profession or in the repetition of the old practices of his former professors.

Therefore, through academic-scientific literature and the treatment of data collected through interviews, it is assumed, in this article, that the critical-emancipatory profile, emerging from the responses, is what best responds to the contemporary challenges of Brazilian legal education, marked due to the plurality of new actors and social themes and the need to democratize spaces of power with a view to humanizing the subject.

Final considerations

Legal education faces many challenges, including the lack of didactic-pedagogical training of its professors. There are no standards that deal with professor training for higher education, only article 66 of the LDB, which attributes this responsibility to master’s and doctorate courses. However, according to the bibliography and the interviewees’ reports, the central focus of these courses is scientific research and academic production, often neglecting aspects related to teaching.

The didactic-pedagogical training of law course professors is related to the legal education project that we aim to build, either to perpetuate old models or to transform them in the search for new paradigms. By opening space for this internal discussion, stricto sensu Postgraduate Programs in Law assume responsibility for the training of those they will train, in order to allow the option for maintenance or change to be made.

Therefore, stricto sensu Postgraduate Programs in law need to implement strategies and actions aimed at the didactic-pedagogical training of their students, but not only that, as even those who already foresee actions aimed at this purpose need to discuss the profile that one aims to train and the legal education project one seeks to build.

At this point, based on the data collected and the bibliographical review, the following profiles were verified, indicated by the research participants: natural-vocational, traditional-transmitter, technical-practical, researcher-updated and the emancipatory critic, with predominance the technical-practical (27%).

The predominance of this profile is worrisome, because it is understood that it is a conception of teaching based on merely instrumental and pragmatic aspects, detached from social problems and in tune with an anti-dialogical and dogmatic legal education, a perspective that is understood to be overcome.

It was also verified, through the interviewees’ statements and the bibliographical review, the emergence of a critical-emancipatory vision of teaching (23%), a profile that is characterized by conceiving the professor as an agent transforming reality that seeks humanization of the subject. Thus, there is a need for Postgraduate Law Programs to give new meaning to the training processes of their graduates, using the critical-emancipatory perspective as a parameter, since, as argued throughout the article, this profile aims to form a professor committed to the emancipation of students against all forms of oppression, who not only teaches, but who forms and transforms, capable of promoting emancipation in the construction of a legal education freed from its historical ties and committed to the future.

Finally, it is noteworthy that the research presented is an invitation to reflection, above all a provocation. Announced far and wide, the crisis in legal education is umbilically linked to professor training. The blocking of spaces for discussion and the refusal to address the problem represent the choice to preserve the status quo. On the contrary, like a beam of light in a dark room, the discussion around the professor’s desired profile can contribute to the construction of critical, democratic, and emancipatory legal education, through those who are committed to these values.