Legal education in the BRICS countries in the context of globalization: a comparative analysis

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 agap 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.