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Law school
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A law school (also known as a school of law or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education.
United States
Law school in the United States is a doctorate level program which lasts three years and results in the awarding of the Juris Doctor (J.D.). Some schools in Louisiana also award the Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L.) together with the J.D.
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Encyclopedia
A law school (also known as a school of law or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education.
Law degrees
United States
Law school in the United States is a doctorate level program which lasts three years and results in the awarding of the Juris Doctor (J.D.). Some schools in Louisiana also award the Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L.) together with the J.D. In order to get admitted to a United States American Bar Association (ABA) approved law program a prospective student must take the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) and have graduated with, at least, a Bachelor's degree in any major. There are 196 ABA approved law schools to choose from, which can make the decision process difficult.
Canada
The typical degree to practice law in Canada is the LL.B., which requires previous college coursework and is very similar to the first law degree in the United States, except there is some scholarly content in the coursework (such as an academic research paper required in most schools). The programs consist of three years, and have similar content in their mandatory first year courses. Beyond first year and the minimum requirements for graduation, course selection is elective with various concentrations such as business law, international law, natural resources law, criminal law, Aboriginal law, etc. Some universities such as the University of Toronto, Queen's University and University of British Columbia have changed the name of their degree to that of a J.D., and the law faculties at Osgoode Hall Law School and the University of Western Ontario have recently voted to do the same. Despite changes in designation, schools opting for the J.D. have not altered their curricula. Neither the J.D. or LL.B. alone are sufficient to qualify for a Canadian license, as each Province's law society requires an apprenticeship and successful completion of provincial skills and responsibilities training course, such as the British Columbia Law Society's Professional Legal Training Course, the Law Society of Upper Canada's Skills and Responsibilities Training Program. and the École du Barreau du Québec. Although the main reason for implementing the J.D. in Canada was to distinguish the degree from the European counterpart that requires no previous post-secondary education, the American Bar Association has yet to recognize the degree as awarded by any Canadian institution. In the eyes of the Canadian educational system the J.D. awarded by Canadian universities has retained the characteristics of the LL.B. and is considered a second entry program, but not a graduate program. (This position is analogous to the position taken by Canadian universities that the M.D. and D.D.S. degrees are considered second entry programs and not graduate programs; this is in contrast to the position of U.S. universities that the M.D. and D.D.S. degrees are graduate programs.) Nevertheless, disagreement persists regarding the status of the degrees, such as at the University of Toronto, where the J.D. degree designation has been marketed by the Faculty of Law as superior to the LL.B. degree designation. Some universities have developed joint Canadian LL.B and American J.D programs, such as York University and New York University, the University of Windsor and the University of Detroit Mercy, and the University of Ottawa Michigan State University program.
England and English common law countries
In England, Australia and other English common law countries, a law degree is usually an undergraduate qualification, with the LL.B being the most common. In Australia, law may be taken as a Combined Law degree with another major as a five-year joint degree, instead of possibly six years for both degrees separately.
Asia
China
Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, which generally follows the English common law system, an undergraduate LLB is common, followed by a one or two year Postgraduate Certificate in Laws before one can begin a training contract (solicitors) or a pupillage (barristers).
Taiwan
India
India provides two form of law degrees. One is a three year LL.B. degree which can only be attained after the completion of an undergraduate degree. The other is a five year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), which is a hybrid degree which can be attained after schooling.
Philippines
Law degree programs are considered graduate programs in the Philippines. As such, admission to law schools requires the completion of a bachelor's degree, with a sufficient number of credits or units in certain subject areas.
Graduation from a Philippine law school constitutes the primary eligibility requirement for the Philippine Bar Examination, the national licensure examination for practicing lawyers in the country. The bar examination is administered by the Supreme Court during the month of September every year.
South Korea
On July 3, 2007, the Korean National Assembly passed legislation introducing 'Law School', closely modeled on the American post-graduate system.
Japan
Postgraduate and professional study
Some schools also offer a Master of Laws (LL.M.) program, offered as a way of specializing in a particular area of law. A further possible degree is the academic doctoral degree in law of Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) (in the U.S)., or the Doctorate of Laws (LL.D.) in Canada, or the Ph.D. in Law from European or Australasian universities.
In addition to attending law school, in many jurisdictions a graduate of a law school is required to pass the state or provincial bar examination in order to practice law. The Multistate Bar Examination is part of the bar examination in almost all United States jurisdictions; generally, the standardized, common law subject matter of the MBE is combined with state-specific essay questions to produce a comprehensive bar examination.
In other common law countries the bar exam is often replaced by a period of work with a law firm known as articles of clerkship.
Controversies
United States
Disputed accuracy of statistics given
Recently in the United States, critics have emerged questioning the forthrightness of some law schools in providing prospective students with accurate facts regarding alumni job placement and compensation rates, suggesting that certain law schools may be distorting their statistics in order to attract students to their institutions.
In particular, many law school graduates - particularly at lower-ranked schools - suggest that their schools utilized correct, but misleading, statistics to attract students. An example of this would be citing the mean graduate salary, instead of the median; while the median salary of law graduates in the U.S. is approximately US$62,000, the mean could be inflated somewhat by a relatively small concentration of graduates earning starting salaries well above the median. For example, the starting salary at nearly all large law firms in several cities across the country in 2008 is US$160,000 plus bonus. Also, it is very likely that even median salary statistics are incorrect, since students who are unemployed, working temporary jobs or have a low salary are less likely to submit a salary report to the school.
A common response to this criticism, however, is that it simply reflects the reality of competitiveness in legal education and in the legal market. With a limited number of top positions available, prospective law students should be circumspect about the employment opportunities that will await them after graduation—especially if they plan on attending a lower-ranked school.
At the same time, however, students at prestigious, highly regarded institutions often have a variety of options available. This discrepancy can be seen as a simple function of supply and demand, with the number of newer (and thus lower-ranked) law schools proliferating in recent years. A similar difficulty may be encountered by graduate students in other fields, although the aforementioned lack of accurate information about post-graduate employment may exacerbate the problem for law students.
Low ratio of female and minority partners
Even when students are able to find jobs at the top-paying law firms, some say that minority law school graduates have difficulty advancing their careers. The law student organization Building a Better Legal Profession generated controversy for showing the lack of female and minority partners in large private firms. In an October 2007 press conference reported in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, the group released data publicizing the numbers of African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans at America's top law firms. The group has sent the information to top law schools around the country, encouraging students to take this demographic data into account when choosing where to work after graduation. As more students choose where to work based on the firms' diversity rankings, firms face an increasing market pressure in order to attract top recruits.
Increase in law school tuition fees
Furthermore, there has been some controversy regarding the recent increases in law school tuition fees, at a time when salaries in the legal services sector are growing much more slowly than the U.S. inflation rate.
Some attribute these issues to insufficient regulation of law schools by the American Bar Association. The total number of Juris Doctor degrees awarded has been on the rise in recent years, at least partially due to the accreditation of new schools by the ABA.
Continued increase in number of law schools
The United States also continues to open new law schools at a time when it already has more than 1.2 million lawyers, possibly causing an excess of supply. Some states or cities have more lawyers than others, obviously. For example, to become a licensed attorney in California, one need not have attended any kind of law school, much less an ABA approved law school. Yet California has 69 law schools (20 ABA-approved, 18 California-bar approved and 31 unaccredited schools). California serves as the headquarters for some of the more well-known online law schools, such as Concord law school. There are 11 law schools in the Greater Chicago Area (Loyola, Depaul, NIU, U of IL, U. of Chicago, Notre Dame, IIT, John Marshall, Marquette, Valparaiso, Northwestern). New York was recently described as having a 'glut' of law schools, with a total of 15 in the state (Albany, Brooklyn, Cardozo, Columbia, Cornell, Fordham, Hofstra, New York Law School, NYU, Pace, St. John's, Syracuse, Touro (Fuchsberg), and public SUNY Buffalo and CUNY Queens College).
Alternative legal education systems
While law schools in the U.S. and Canada are typically post-graduate institutions with considerable autonomy, legal education in other countries is provided within the mainstream educational system from university level and/or in non-degree conferring vocational training institutions.
UK and Europe
In countries such as the United Kingdom and most of continental Europe, academic legal education is provided within the mainstream university system starting at the undergraduate level, and the legal departments of universities are simply departments like any other rather than separate "law schools". In these countries, the term "law school" may be used, but it does not have the same definition as it does in North America.
There are also sometimes legal colleges that provide vocational training as a post-academic stage of legal education. One example is the College of Law in the United Kingdom, which provides certain professional qualifications which British lawyers must obtain before they may practice as solicitors or barristers.
Australia
In Australia, law schools such as Sydney Law School, University of Technology Sydney and the UNSW Faculty of Law have emphasised a combination of the British and American systems, prominently known for their proliferate employment rate. However, other university such as Australia National University and Monash University are known for its intensive and practical work.
List of law schools
See also
Further reading
- Duncan Kennedy: Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy, New Edition, New York Univ Press, 2004, ISBN 0814747787
External links
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