The Situation, Problems, And The Ways Of Development Of Legal Education In China

When laws are established, then people will always flourish and the government sustain. Where there is the rule of law, there is an eunomy throughout the whole country. When the rule of law develops with more and more vigor and, at the same time, with the establishment of professional legal education, the country will then become more prosperous than ever before. So, it is easy to figure out the relationship between the legal education, the establishment of the rule of law and the prosperity of the country. Under the background of the ongoing construction of the rule of law and sprouting of the faith in the laws, legal education has become one of the key words throughout this process. The development of legal education in China now, undoubtedly, has achieved a huge breakthrough, such as school size, training mode, teaching method and curriculum. Having affirmed the achievements, and at the same time analyzed the characteristics of the law, features of the reform and open era, and present situation of China's legal education, the author points out a number of crucial weaknesses, and put forward a number of problem-solving ideas and methods. The basic framework of this article is as follows. Firstly, a clear background of the times is put forward, and the commitments or missions of legal education in this era are defined as: to accelerate the initiation and development of a culture of rights, to emphasize and develop faith in law, and to strive to enhance the practical skill, to enhance integrated quality education. Secondly, the status quo of legal education in China is analyzed in light of the basic teaching models like simulated court, legal clinic, internship in danwei (unit), and case teaching. The article not only affirms the achievements of current legal education, but also identifies its main problems: lacking of practicality, staying out of line with the legal profession, weak international competitiveness, unreasonable division of educational levels, and uncertain employment prospect and so on. Then the article points out the reasons that cause the problems through in-depth analysis. Finally, the article provides some points of view on the basis of analysis above: the legal education must take the road of elitism education and become professionally oriented, and the system of educational level should be restructured, its scope narrowed, and its quality improved. In order to improve the appropriate qualities and practical skills, it also needs to re-orient the curriculum, especially to incorporate ethics, political science, history and other related major disciplines in the curriculum. Much emphasis should also be given to various kind of exchanges and the establishment of multiple inter-sectoral model, like school-school, school-government, as well as with other relevant units, such as with the judiciary, the Chinese Lawyers Association, Taking the approach of combining shengchan (production) with study and research will be helpful for connecting theoretical education with practical training. Afterward, the legal education will hopefully become integrated into the legal profession. Through this framework and analysis, it is the purpose of this article to make the whole status of legal education clearer, on the one hand, and to expose a variety of shortcomings of the current legal education, on the other hand. Understanding the status quo, exposing the problems, targetting solutions of the problems, the ways to eradicate the weakness, will help the new era of legal education in China walk on the steady and healthy way, and make the construction of rule of law develop in a rapid, scientific and effective way.