Abstract
Legal education in the contemporary world is changing. The main influences are linked to developments in transportation and communication and the enmeshing of diverse economies embraced by globalization. Law schools confront more mobile and more ambitious students who wish to experience different jurisdictional practices, to serve the increasingly global business community and to be more competitive. This research examines the modifications required in legal education as a result of globalization with specific reference to law schools in the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China.Research on higher education, and legal education in particular, has been growing in recent years, yet there is still a gap in the study and comparison of the specifics of legal education within the BRICS countries. This research makes an attempt to analyze and contrast the current goals, objectives, structure and quality of higher legal education in Brazil, Russia, India and China. The specifics of law schools have been studied over the past twenty years in correlation with economic, cultural and education trends in BRICS and globally.Based on research literature, practitioner literature and legislative sources, this paper outlines common and special features of lawyer training in BRICS. The prime similarity of the legal education systems in BRICS are global education trends and the influence of the U.S. and UK education systems. Each BRICS country experienced an “explosion” in the popularity of legal education and, consequently, the urgent need to reform the education process in order to attain better quality and affordability. The result of these reforms, taking place in each country from 1950 to today, has become the growing differentiator of the educational institutions, turning them into “elite” and “mass” law schools.The facets of legal education in Brazil, Russia, India and China are attributed to their national policies as well as the historical development of the educational institutions and their perception of what specific lawyer skills and competencies are demanded by the legal market and national population. We conclude that the structure and quality of legal education as well as the requirements and monitoring tools vary in each country. These are dependent on several factors: the specific country’s ideology, its economic development, its proximity to an “Eastern” or “Western” model, its ability to learn from foreign education systems and its attempts at self-identification in the global educational space.
Highlights
In an ever-increasingly globalized world, the role of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is significantly and rapidly changing.1 Originally, BRIC was introduced in 2006 as an economic and financial structure comprising the growing economies that potentially were capable of providing for a multipolar world and the global economy, and playing a leading role in global governance
In 2017, the gross domestic product (GDP) – taking into account purchasing power parity (PPP) – of BRICS was ranked in the top quartile of countries worldwide: China was first in this ranking, India fourth, Russia seventh, Brazil ninth and South Africa thirty-first
We address four BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) due to limited information being available about the legal education system in South Africa, which, as mentioned earlier, entered the group later than the other members and is not highly ranked in terms of GDP
Summary
In an ever-increasingly globalized world, the role of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is significantly and rapidly changing. Originally, BRIC was introduced in 2006 (in 2010 South Africa was invited to join the group, which became known as BRICS) as an economic and financial structure comprising the growing economies that potentially were capable of providing for a multipolar world and the global economy, and playing a leading role in global governance. Legal professions in the BRICS group face global challenges as well as challenges associated with their national legal systems They are asked to provide relevant solutions in accordance with new circumstances and legal relationships (i.e. business development, higher quality of legal services; changes in the social structure of a population; development of the digital economy and internet technologies; changes in political life, etc.). We address four BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) due to limited information being available about the legal education system in South Africa, which, as mentioned earlier, entered the group later than the other members and is not highly ranked in terms of GDP. No 1-П, Собрание законодательства РФ, 2017, No 5, ст. 866 [Ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation No 1-P of 19 January 2017, Legislation Bulletin of the Russian Federation, 2017, No 5, Art. 866]
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