Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:46:12.191Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Legal Education in Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2015

Cheng Han Tan ,
Gary Bell ,
Xuan Hop Dang ,
Joongi Kim ,
Keang Sood Teo ,
Arun Thiruvengadam ,
V. Vijayakumar  and
Jiangyu Wang
Cheng Han Tan
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Gary Bell
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore and Asian Law Institute
Xuan Hop Dang
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Joongi Kim
Affiliation:
Yonsei University
Keang Sood Teo
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Arun Thiruvengadam
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
V. Vijayakumar
Affiliation:
National Law School of India University in Bangalore
Jiangyu Wang
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article starts off by providing an overview of the historical and structural aspects of legal education in selected representative jurisdictions in Asia. It then proceeds to tackle what the authors feel to be the most serious challenges faced by Asian law schools today - the need to balance legal education and inter-disciplinary perspectives, to provide sufficient comparative material, to reform teaching and assessment methodology, and to juggle competing needs with very limited resources.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Comparative Law , Volume 1 , 2006 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Jain, M.P., Outlines of Indian Legal History, 5th ed. (Nagpur: Wadhwa and Company, 1990) at 696–697 Google Scholar. See also Arun K. Thiruvengadam, “The Wanings of a Magnificent Obsession” (unpublished paper on file with the authors).

2 Keyuan, Zou, “Professionalising Legal Education in the People's Republic of China” (2003) 7 SJICL 159 at 161–163 Google Scholar; see also Herman, R.A., “The Education of China's Lawyers” (1982) 46 Albany Law Review 789 Google Scholar.

3 Zou, ibid at 163.

4 Juwana, Hikmahanto, “Teaching International Law in Indonesia” (2001) 5 SJICL 412 at 413 Google Scholar.

5 Sidel, M., “Law Reform in Vietnam: The Complex Transition from Socialism and Soviet Models in Legal Scholarship and Training” (1993) 11 UCLA Pac. Basin LJ 221 at 224–225 Google Scholar.

6 One of the predecessor institutions of the National University of Singapore (NUS).

7 Generally, see Tan, Kevin Y.L., “Early Legal Education in Singapore” in Tan, Kevin Y.L. ed., Change and Continuity - 40 Years of the Law Faculty (Singapore: 1999)Google Scholar; Han, Tan Cheng, “Challenges to Legal Education in a Changing Landscape - A Singapore Perspective” (2003) 7 SJICL 545 Google Scholar.

8 Johannes Chan, “Legal Education Review and Reform in Hong Kong” (unpublished paper on file with the authors). The law school was first established as a Department of Law within the Faculty of Social Sciences.

9 Prior to Singapore's independence in 1965, the University of Malaya had two campuses, one in Singapore and the other in Kuala Lumpur. After 1965, the University of Malaya in Singapore was renamed the University of Singapore and subsequently the National University of Singapore.

10 For example, Singapore currently recognizes nineteen English law schools, 8 Australian and 2 New Zealand law schools, see http://www.lawsoc.org.sg/ble/n_first_schedule.htm (10 November 2005).

11 Juwana, supra note 4.

12 Zou, supra note 2 at 164.

13 In China, both universities and institutes may offer bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees although universities are supposedly higher in ranking than institutes. More and more institutes are applying to be called universities or increasingly treating themselves as daxue, e.g. the Chinese name of East China University of Politics and Law, one of the leading law institutions in China, is East China Institute of Politics and Law. It was said in a law review article in the early eighties that university law departments and the institutes of law and politics have somewhat different missions. Graduates of the university law departments are educated primarily for careers in research, teaching and government. The institutes, on the other hand, are geared to train practicing lawyers to serve the procuratorates, the Ministry of Justice and the public security organizations, as well as to serve in the roles of advocate and justice, see Herman, supra n 2 at 792. Such a difference in mission is virtually non-existent today.

14 Zou, supra n 2 at 167.

15 Zhenshan, Yang, “Zhongguo Faxue Jiaoyu Yange Zhi Yanjiu” (“A Study on the Evolution of China's Legal Education”) [2004] 4 Zhengfa Luntan (Journal of Politics and Law), available at http://www.civillaw.com.cn (10 November 2005)Google Scholar.

16 Brunei, which is also a common law jurisdiction, does not have a law school and traditionally its lawyers receive their legal education in England.

17 Chan, supra n 8.

18 In Singapore, male students will only enter university after serving the period of mandatory military service and are therefore usually two years older than the female students who matriculate in the same year.

19 For example, the Bachelor of Jurisprudence degree offered by the University of Malaya Faculty of Law.

20 The two programmes are in Law and Economics, and Law and Business.

21 Students will spend approximately the equivalent of three years on law studies and two years on the other discipline.

22 Feng Yujun, “Miandui Zhongguo de Falu Shuoshi” (Facing China's Juris Masters Education) (2004), available at http://www.civillaw.com.cn (10 November 2005).

23 For example, the total tuition fee for Peking University's three year J.M. programme is RMB 50,000 which compares to RMB 6,000 for its four year LL.B. programme and even less for its three year LL.M. programme.

24 Chan, supra note 8. Chan also states that in 2004-05, City University of Hong Kong offered, for the first time, a full-time and part-time Juris Doctor programme aimed at graduate students. The duration of the programme lasts between two years and three and a half years.

25 Hence the official name of the programme is the Approved Graduate Programme, which persists till today despite being a misnomer.

26 For example, law schools in Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea. The Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore, for instance, requires a thesis of 40,000 words for its LL.M. by research programme.

27 For example, law schools in Vietnam and India. In India, one or two law schools that attempted research based LL.M. programmes have discontinued such programmes. Presently, the Indian Law Institute at New Delhi is planning to introduce an LL.M. by research programme.

28 See http://www.law.temple.edu/servlet/RetrievePage?site=TempleLaw&page=Degrees_Masters_Law_Beijing&menuitem=p89 (10 November 2005).

29 See http://law.nus.edu.sg/prospective/postgrad/coursework/LL.M._ibl.htm (10 November 2005).

30 See http://law.nus.edu.sg/asli/ (10 November 2005).

31 Zou, supra note 2 at 168 states that as China is a communist country, its legal education must follow some ideological doctrine such as training students to become familiar with MarxistLeninist theories of law and the Chinese Communist Party's policies and guiding principles. However, Chinese society has changed considerably in recent years and efforts to attain such aims now largely appear pro-forma only.

32 See also Zou, ibid. at 165-166 who makes the point that it is much easier for law graduates to pass the National Bar Examination. In any event, law firms also tend to prefer those they hire to have formal law degrees.

33 Ibid. at 164.

34 Juwana, supra note 4.

35 Typical compulsory subjects include Contract, Tort, Criminal Law, Legal System, Property Law, and Constitutional Law. There are of course variations between the different schools, e.g. the National University of Singapore has a compulsory Comparative Legal Traditions course, and Hong Kong University and the National University of Singapore have legal writing programmes which are not typically found in law schools outside North America. The aim of the legal writing programme at the National University of Singapore is to develop what is known as ‘adaptive expertise’, see Alexander F.H. Loke, “Forging a New Equilibrium in Singapore Legal Education” Wisconsin International Law Journal (forthcoming).

36 Juwana, supra note 4 at 413-414.

37 See http://www.edu.cn/20010101/5775.shtml (in Chinese) (10 November 2005).

38 See also Zou, supra note 2 at 168-170.

39 See http://www.nls.ac.in/academics/ug_courses.htm (10 November 2005).

40 Thiruvengadam, supra note 1 at 39.

41 See http://law.nus.edu.sg/prospective/doublehons.htm (10 November 2005).

42 See http://newshub.nus.edu.sg/pressrel/0503/050322.htm (10 November 2005).

43 For example Peking University's Intellectual Property Law programme referred to earlier.

44 Tan Cheng Han, supra note 7 at 567.

45 Twining, W., Blackstones Tower-The English Law School (London: Stevens and Sons/Sweet and Maxwell, 1994) at 175–176 Google Scholar; see also Sheridan, L.A., “University Law” (1956) 22 MLJ xxviii at xviii–xxix Google Scholar; Loke, Alexander F.H., “Educating the Thinking Lawyer: The Past, Present and Future of University Legal Education in Singapore” in Tan, Kevin Y.L. ed., The Singapore Legal System, 2nd ed. (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1999) 325 at 339–346 Google Scholar; Vick, D.W., “Interdisciplinarity and the Discipline of Law” (2004) 31 Journal of Law and Society 163 at 181–191 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Wright, Lord, “The Study of Law” (1938) 54 LQR 185 at 192 Google Scholar, speaking extra-judicially of English law said: “But in a more substantial way we can see the influence of history, of current modes of social, moral, political and economic ideas, current, that is, among the classes from which the law makers, judicial or legislative, were drawn. We can often see that a rule of law is based on or adapted to conditions and ideas that have become obsolete, and we have to consider whether it is possible to apply the maxim cessante ratione legis cessat ipsa lex. See also Wade, E.C.S., “The Aim of Legal Education” (1947) 9 CLJ 286 at 288 Google Scholar where he states that the study and teaching of law should not be an exercise in professional technique, but in relation to its place in the world in which we live.

46 Tan Cheng Han, supra note 7 at 568; Alexander F.H. Loke, “Forging a New Equilibrium in Singapore Legal Education” Wisconsin International Law Journal (forthcoming)

47 Simpson, S.P., “The Function of the University Law School” (1936) 49 Harv LR 1068 at 1075–1076 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Denning, Lord Justice, “The Universities and Law Reform” (1947–1951) 1 JSPTL (N.S.) 258 at 259 Google Scholar.

48 Quoted in Kennedy, W.P.M., “Legal Subjects in the Universities of Canada” (1933) JSPTL 23 Google Scholar. See also Lord Wright, supra note 45 at 199: “Law in its own way covers the whole range of human activity; there is no side of life which it does not touch. And the student of law must know the course of national history under which it developed; he must appreciate the affinity of his ideas with the social, moral, and economic ideas alongside of which it developed.”

49 Gower, L.C.B., “English Legal Training” (1950) 13 Mod. L.R. 137 at 171 Google Scholar. See also Sheridan, L.A., “Legal Education in Malaya” (1962–1963) 10 Far Eastern LR 489 at 491 Google Scholar and Sheridan, L.A., “Legal Education” (1961) 27 MLJ lxxxv at lxxxviii Google Scholar where he says: “This is not to say that a law student must become an expert in all branches of the social sciences. That would in any case be impossible. But social scientists are working around us, they will grow in number and in the extent to which they can make available to us knowledge of what Malayans do and need, and it will become increasingly possible for the university to approach law as a policy science as well as an exercise in logic, grammar and analogy.”

50 Indeed many law teachers will say that students have difficulty integrating their understanding of different law subjects itself.

51 Goldsmith, A., “Standing at the Crossroads: Law Schools, Universities, Markets and the Future of Legal Scholarship” in Cownie, F. ed., The Law School - Global Issues, Local Questions (England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1999) at 92–93 Google Scholar.

52 Indeed a candidate for a position at the NUS law school who has degrees in law and another discipline would have an advantage over other candidates with only a law degree (all other things being equal).

53 An American commentator who has traced the history of interdisciplinary studies in the United States makes the point that interdisciplinary work grew significantly only in the latter part of the 20th century when more individuals with qualifications in law and another discipline became law professors, see Kalman, L., “Professing Law: Elite Law School Professors in the Twentieth Century” in Sarat, A., Garth, B. and Kagan, R.A., eds., Looking Back At Law's Century (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2002) 337 Google Scholar. In the longer term, law schools in Asia that wish to have a better balance between doctrinal and interdisciplinary/theoretical scholarship may have little choice but to ensure that more of its faculty have degrees in law and another discipline.

54 Tan Cheng Han, supra note 7 at 565-573.

55 Professor Stella Quah from the Department of Sociology and Associate Professor Debbie Ong from the Faculty of Law.

56 Where the law school is part of a comprehensive university, it may be better for legal academics to reach out to their colleagues in other disciplines with a view to collaboration than hiring non-lawyers as faculty within the law school (unless it is a joint appointment with another school). There is a danger that non-legally trained faculty in a law school will feel alienated and cut off from their disciplinary roots unless the longer term objective of the school and such faculty is for them to read for a law degree. At the National Law School at Bangalore, some social science faculty who did not initially have a law degree eventually went on to acquire qualifications in law. Vick, supra note 45 at 192 agrees, in the context of research, that perhaps the best way to avoid the pitfalls of interdisciplinary work is to collaborate with someone trained in the non-law discipline involved but acknowledges that there are significant impediments to effective collaboration. This is something that most academics will attest to and the impediments include individualism, the way universities are organized into distinct departments and Faculties, and the reward system.

57 While it is outside the scope of this paper to discuss legal research in Asia, it may be worth observing that a more inter-disciplinary approach to teaching in law schools may lead to greater variety in the types of legal research that is produced. Today, the form of legal scholarship that dominates is doctrinal scholarship. It has been said that although ‘traditional’ legal research embraces many forms, including legal philosophy, legal history and comparative law, it is doctrinal research that has been predominant, so much so that the academic study of law has become synonymous with it, Vick, ibid. at 177.

58 See http://www.nus.edu.sg/prog/econlaw/int_mods.htm (10 November 2005).

59 The term ‘comparative law’ is used here in a broad sense for it may fairly be said that there is no such thing as Comparative Law, Markesinis, B.S., “The Comparatist (or a plea for a broader legal education)” in Birks, P. ed., What Are Law Schools For? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) at 112 Google Scholar.

60 Twining, W., Globalisation and Legal Theory (London: Butterworths, 2000) at 255 Google Scholar. Twining also states at 255-256 that nearly all description and interpretation involves at least implicit comparison and that in a loose sense we are all comparatists now. Legal scholars, law students and practitioners regularly have to use sources, materials and ideas developed in more than one jurisdiction and in more than one legal culture. As such they need to be equipped with at least the rudiments of coping with such material. As such, comparative method needs to be treated as a central element of ‘legal method’.

61 Reisman, M.W., “Designing Curricula: Making Legal Education Effective in the 21st Century” in The Singapore Conference: Leading the Law and Lawyers into the New Millenium @ 2020 (Singapore: Butterworths, 2000) at 275–276 Google Scholar.

62 Tan Cheng Han, supra note 7 at 550. See also Valcke, C., “Global Law Teaching” (2004) 54 Journal of Legal Education 160 at 169–170 Google Scholar.

63 A term used to denote customary law in the Islamic regions of South East Asia.

64 Tan Cheng Han, supra note 7 at 553-554.

65 See http://www.law.mcgill.ca/undergraduate/ (10 November 2005).

66 See http://www.iiu.edu.my/laws/upload/course/LL.B._structure2.pdf (10 November 2005).

67 Tan Cheng Han, supra note 7 at 573-577.

68 King, D.B., “Globalization Thinking for Modern Legal Education” in King, D.B., ed., Legal Education for the 21st Century (Colorado: Fred B Rothman, 1999) at 394 Google Scholar.

69 Ibid. at 411-416; see also G. Bell, “World-Class Law Schools Will Teach (and are Already Teaching) the Laws of the World, in Change and Continuity, supra note 7 at 176-177.

70 I. Dore, “The International Law Programme at St Louis University School of Law” in Legal Education for the 21st Century, supra note 68 at 387. See also C. Valcke, supra note 62 at 168-169. For law students who have aspirations to work overseas, such traits and mindsets will be invaluable, although other factors are obviously relevant to obtaining such employment.

71 de Witte, B., “The European Dimension of Legal Education” in Birks, P. ed., Reviewing Legal Education (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) at 72–73 Google Scholar. All these point strongly to the fact that comparative law “has to be integrated into our research and teaching, across the board”, P. Birks' editor's preface, supra note 59 at viii. Similarly, Clark and Tsamenyi, “Legal Education in the Twenty-First Century: A Time of Challenge” in What Are Law Schools For?, supra note 59 at 25-26 state that “Australian law graduates will have to be less parochial and more international in their legal outlook. Students will have to be more aware of other legal systems and have a greater understanding of international law (both public and private), comparative law and be more knowledgeable about and sensitive to other cultures.”

72 Vick, supra note 45 at 180.

73 The challenge of limited financial resources is one that cuts across many issues and is the root cause of many of the problems facing Asian (and other) law schools. It is for example a major challenge for law schools in Asia to attract the best minds to academia because of the inability to pay competitive salaries. In some jurisdictions such as the Philippines, this has led to law schools having hardly any full-time faculty. Most law teachers in the Philippines practice law in the day and conduct classes in the evening. Not only does this affect the quality of teaching, research output is also minimal. In India, it has been remarked that “law teaching is the most unattractive option to a law graduate, in terms of pay structures and status”, Thiruvengadam, supra note 1 at 50.

74 It should be said though that these are not challenges unique to Asian law schools.

75 One perhaps understandable aspect of the superficial nature of comparative law teaching is that it often is the case that such teaching is intended principally to illuminate domestic law rather than to additionally allow students to see the issues through a global lens and as part of an international system, see Tan Cheng Han, supra note 7 at 577-578; C. Valcke, supra note 62 at 174-176.

76 Zou, supra note 2 at 170; Herman, supra note 2 at 797.

77 Herman, ibid. at 804.

78 Zou, supra note 2 at 170-171. Some Indonesian law schools such as the University of Indonesia Faculty of Law also offer such opportunities.

79 In Indonesia, a final term written dissertation may be required before students are allowed to graduate.

80 Krishnan, Jayanth K., “Professor Kingsfield Goes to Delhi: American Academics, the Ford Foundation, and the Development of Legal Education in India”, (2004) 46 American Journal of Legal History 447 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also von Mehren, Arthur Taylor, Law and Legal Education in India: Some Observations” (1965) 78 Harv. L.R. 1180 at 1185–1189 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Thiruvengadam, supra note 1.

81 Baxi, Upendra, “Towards a Socially Relevant Legal Education” (1976) 5 Journal of the Bar Council of India 23 at 38 Google Scholar.

82 Ibid. at 39.

83 von Mehren, supra note 80 at 1182-1183.

84 Krishnan, supra note 80 at 16-17. See also von Mehren, ibid. at 1186. Baxi, supra note 81 at 24-25 wrote of some “well known” facts of Indian legal education including “a phenomenal quantitative expansion of entrants to legal education”; “the bulk of LL.B. and even LL.M. education is not full-time”; “the bulk of LL.B. education is imparted by Law colleges, not university faculties or departments”; “a large number of law teachers are not full-time”; “most law colleges are under or poorly staffed and have poor library resources”; “one can pass LL.B. examination with minimum effort, mostly confined to rote learning of bare essentials through guide books”.

85 The first batch of students was admitted in October 1987.

86 It is estimated that about one-third of Indian law schools have converted to the National Law School's five year model, Krishnan, supra note 80 at 55.

87 Krishnan, ibid. at 45.

88 Ibid. at 54.

89 Thiruvengadam, supra note 1 at 44.

90 Virtually all examinations are “open book” in nature.

91 See, for example, Hounsell, D., “Understanding Teaching and Teaching for Understanding” in Marton, F., Hounsell, D. and Entwistle, N. eds., The Experience of Learning (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1984) at 189–210 Google Scholar.

92 See also Jacobson, M.H. Sam, “A Primer on Learning Styles: Reaching Every Student” (2001) 25 Seattle University Law Review 139 at 143–145 Google Scholar; Yip, Y.K., “Active Learning” in Ideas on Teaching (Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning, National University of Singapore, February 2003) at 2–3 Google Scholar; Glickman, M., “Five Active Learning Techniques” in Ideas on Teaching (Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning, National University of Singapore, February 2003) at 6–7 Google Scholar.

93 Hess, G.F., “Principle 3: Good Practice Encourages Active Learning” (1999) 49 Journal of Legal Education 401 at 402 Google Scholar.

94 D. Oliver, “Teaching and Learning Law: Pressures on the Liberal Law Degree” in Reviewing Legal Education, supra note 71 at 77-80; W. Wilson and G. Morris, “The Future of the Academic Law Degree” in Reviewing Legal Education, supra note 72 at 102; Mien, Thio Su, “The Role of the Law Schools in the Developing Nations” (1969) 11 Mal LR 250 at 254–257 Google Scholar; Loke, supra note 46 at 336. Twining, supra note 45 at 60 states that many of the so-called transferable skills of reading, writing, analyzing and arguing, enquiring, etc can be developed through the study of any number of subjects.

95 Brownsword, “Law Schools for Lawyers, Citizens, and People” in The Law School - Global Issues, Local Questions, supra note 51 at 27-28.

96 Tan Cheng Han, supra note 7 at 561-562. See also Oliver, supra note 94; F. Bennion, “Teaching Law Management” in Reviewing Legal Education, supra note 72 at 9-12; Yee, Tan Sook, “Legal Education in Singapore” (1979) 21 Mal LR 58 at 67 Google Scholar; Loke, supra note 45 at 334-335.

97 Supra note 81.

98 Jacobson, supra note 92 at 145 states that many law students have achieved academic success prior to law school primarily through memorization.