Is the legal education and teaching method in Cyprus and in international law schools appropriate, are Cyprus law students satisfied from their legal background and do they feel sufficiently prepared for the challenges they face on their first job? Are employers and legal authorities satisfied with graduate’s skills?
The purpose with this article is to initiate a debate in Cyprus on the education currently engaged in lectures, seminars and group exercises, and what a change in attitude could lead to.
Currently we see that legal institutes focus on educating students to “think like lawyers” which educates students in the abstract legal method. By focusing on educating students to “act like lawyers” more likely we’ll see students learn to apply different methods to solve practical problems, from a strategic perspective, selecting the “best” method to solve problems, or to be able to contextualize the legal matter.
The newly qualified lawyers are not completely satisfied. Many do not feel sufficiently prepared for the challenges they face on the first job. They testify that their work has little in common with the training and skills they acquired during law program. This seems to apply regardless of career choices, ie. whether they are as associate at a law firm or graduate student.
How about the courts, are they completely satisfied? It is said that there are judges who have said that “there is nothing so useless as a newly qualified lawyer. The legal practice may be the most important opportunity for law students to perform more advanced tasks such as writing sentences and lead key negotiations.
How satisfied are law firms that need corporate lawyers? Several legal firms said that recruitment is done in other words to “re-educate” graduates to actual lawyers.
Several law schools teach students by transferring information to the students by lectures, case law and doctrine that are already explicitly shown in the textbook. The approach is problematic, as students adapt accordingly. The students find that it is comfortable with this type of teaching and starts to expect such teaching. One effect is that many students become passive. Paradoxically, too many students are passive during “lessons” because everything said there can still be found in textbooks and course materials.
The effect is that the newly graduated lawyer is not fully prepared to work as a lawyer. He or she is simply not enough well-trained.
A reform that will involve less “book teaching” and more “research based teaching” can promote critical thinking and can motivate students to try alternative lines of argumentation.
A key part of the reform process is also to prosper pedagogical improvements. Utilizing information technology solutions to a much greater extent than today is necessary. We all live in a technological society and students’ future careers will largely be dependent on technology. Although the main teaching resources of Law are books but to act as a lawyer means that you can use the wide range of digital mass media communication tools available on the market.
To enhance the integration of technology in education can train students in how legal issues are handled in digital media..
There is rarely a theory that explains everything, or a method that works in all situations. Through the research-based teaching demonstrate commercial complexity means that students get perspective on the law.
Source: Editorial team of lawyersincyprus.com
