Chief Justice urges law schools to infuse more law-related courses into their programs

Law school courses need to upgrade to clinicial rather than a theoretical study of core subjects, Chief Justice Renato Corona yesterday urged.

Present realities, Corona speaking during a forum said, “should make law school curricula go beyond theoretical study and delve more into a practical or working knowledge of the law.”

“Law schools ought to infuse more law-related courses into their programs and should not confine themselves to traditional core subjects like Civil Law, Constitutional Law and Labor Law, a situation geared more to ‘passing the bar’ than ‘becoming a lawyer,’” he said.

Corona pointed out that law schools must start offering clinical subjects like Intellectual Property, Information Technology, Securities Regulation, International Economics, Mergers and Acquisitions, Environmental Law, Public Interest Lawyering, and even Human Rights “if they are to keep in step with the times.”

The Chief Justice was the keynote speaker during a convocation on legal education, “Defining the New Paradigm of Legal Education in the Philippines,” held at the Ateneo Professional Schools auditorium in Makati City.

Starting this year, the Chief Justice said the Supreme Court “will change the way we conduct the bar examinations.”

“We had the present system for more than a century and it is time to move on to something better. The emphasis will be on knowledge of the fundamental but important legal principles and concepts, as well as the ability to spot issues, analyze situations, synthesize facts and applicable laws, and present a well-written memorandum and opinion as well,” he said.

A practical, working knowledge of the law, rather than a theoretical one, would be most advantageous, he added.

Citing “dizzying developments and innovations in the field of communications, travel, and trade…that pave the way for an increasingly unified and seamless world order,” the Chief Justice asked how would the country’s legal education cope with the effects of globalization.

“Lawyering today calls for a much higher level of sophistication in terms of access to non-legal knowledge and information, familiarity with foreign legal systems and the technological ability and capability to log on to them,” he said.

He added “lawyers and law firms all over the world respond to the internationalized practice of law by finding ways to deal more effectively with global clients, manage international relations and transactions, and handle international legal issues.”

“They continually study the laws and legal systems of other jurisdictions and the rules of procedure of international tribunals and courts, establish foreign branches, constantly upgrade their telecommunications capacity and improve international video-conferencing, observe different, and often additional, work hours to function according to the various time zones… form regional and worldwide alliances with foreign law firms…,” he said.

“Despite all these developments, however, we face an aberrant situation in the yawning gap between increasingly sophisticated lawyering and the disconcertingly antiquated system of legal education,” he stressed.

While he pointed out that much has changed in the country’s legal education programs offered by law schools, “much has also remained the same in the way we educate and train our future lawyers,” he lamented. –Benjamin B. Pulta, Daily Tribune