THE EVOLUTION OF LEGAL EDUCATION IN SINGAPORE

Legal education in Singapore has, until 2007, been provided exclusively by the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore (“NUS Law”). This has made curricular policies and changes undertaken in NUS Law the only point of reference when assessing the way in which the experience of reading law in Singapore has evolved. Despite being the only law school in the country, NUS Law has demonstrated its ability to innovate and reform the legal curriculum in order to respond to the needs of the profession and more broadly, of globalization. NUS Law is therefore a highly unusual institution since the major reforms to the curriculum and the entire law school experience were introduced at a time when there was no competing provider of legal education in Singapore. Of the various reforms implemented, this article will focus primarily on the changes introduced to the core curriculum. The impact of a compulsory course on any graduating class as a whole is likely to be more profound than that of an optional course which cannot and does not aspire to reach the entire student population. In this regard, this article traces the possible reasons for and student reception of three courses which were introduced to the core curriculum fairly recently: Legal Analysis Writing and Research (“LAWR”), Legal Theory and Comparative Legal Traditions, and the implications of a legal education that encompasses both skills and academic learning. The Singapore experience should be of interest to law schools that intend to reform an existing curriculum or create a new one. It has certainly been a very exciting period for law students and legal academics in Singapore