Changing how lawyers are educated

In all the discussions on the effect of ASEAN integration on business and agriculture, most people, including myself, have overlooked the effect of this integration on the professional services.

The Philippines  agreed to integrate, with other ASEAN countries, the following professions: Accountancy, Civil Engineering, Geodetic Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Mining Engineering, Sanitary Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Environmental (Urban ) Planning, Computer related professions, and Interior Designing. The Philippines also entered into mutual recognition agreements on medical and dental professions.

Supreme Court Justice Arturo D. Brion, a week ago, gave a speech before the officers and members of the Philippine Association of Law Schools. He brought up the intriguing question of whether the Congress or the Supreme Court “can by rule or decision, determine whether, to what extent, and under what terms foreign (ASEAN) lawyers can engage in the practice of the legal profession in the Philippines.”

His answer was: “It only remains for us  to determine, how, when and to what extent we shall open up the practice of the legal profession to foreign participation.” Brion’s most important query was whether the Philippine legal profession was prepared “to cooperate, collaborate, and compete with our  peers in the ASEAN region .”  He  stressed that the Philippine legal profession must be ready for a shift that will entail not only new knowledge and awareness, but also a new set of skills for the Philippine lawyer.”

In proposing areas for improvement and adjustment, Justice Brion focused on radical improvements in Legal Education. Even without the ASEAN integration, his analysis and recommendations, on the Philippine legal education, should be taken seriously as a major step for the improvement in the judicial system which we have long been advocating as necessary  to institutionalizing the rule of law in this country. Here two paragraphs, in his speech, that graphically describes the state of legal education in this country:

“ Numerically, perhaps, we may currently have enough law schools to fill our needs, In 2013, 120 law schools sent 5,292 bar examinees to the BAR examinations. Sad to state, many of these law schools performed dismally and cannot live up to the ideal standards we would wish to see in a regionally-open law practice environment. In 30 (or 25%) of these law schools not one Bar candidate passed..  in 67 (or 55.83% of these same law schools, 10% or less of their graduates passed, while in 93 (or 80,83%)  out of these 120 law schools, 20% or less of their graduates made it.

In terms of the percentage of the Bar examinees who passed, from years 2000 to 2013, only 24.55% on the average passed, with a low of 17.76% in 2012 to a high of 32.89% in 2011. Thus on the average, 3 out of 4 Bar examinees failed. In 2013, only 22.18% passed the highest success rate then among law schools was a 78.89% passing rate, and only 2 other law schools had a passing rate of more than 70.%”

By any standards, even a non-lawyer can see that these are dismal results reflecting a deeply flawed legal education system. Justice Brion proposed five major changes in the system which hopefully will address these issues:

First , rethink law school accreditation standards including faculty and facilities. Also stricter performance standards beyond a passing record of one successful examinee for every three years. My own thinking is they should close those 93 law schools that had a passing average of less than 20% of their Bar examinees. But as Justice Brion said this requires the political will to close down law schools.

Second, Brion says that a mandatory aspect of law school regulations is the requirement for teachers based on the awareness that teaching law and practicing law, although related, are distinct disciplines with their own respective qualifications. Teaching law should require more than just passing the Bar. Law schools also need a reasonable number of full time faculty members.

Third, there is a need to rationalize the law curriculum which has been in place for several decades. Legal competence in this globalized age requires a wider range of talents, among them legal research advocacy, counselling, problem solving, and decision making. Brion emphasizes legal education should teach students how to function as competent and responsible lawyers, not merely to qualify as lawyers under the Bar examinations.

Fourth, the time has come for radical changes in the BAR exam. He believes that the present system of examination – relevant to the practice needs and environment decades ago – is badly outdated because it is still largely knowledge based and does not properly test for skills and other competencies now demanded by current realities.

Fifth, he proposes that the present Legal Education Board should be transferred from the Department of Education to the Supreme Court in order to improve the interaction between legal education and bar admission regulations currently under the Supreme Court.

There are radical changes in most areas of education caused by the rapid changes in technology and the increasing globalization of knowledge and economies. Best practices and innovation have become common terms in business, government and education. In almost all professions like management, engineering, accounting, medicine, adapting to a rapidly changing world is becoming a fact of life.

 The Philippine legal profession must learn to accept that they cannot continue to operate in a cocoon of protectionism while the society around them is embracing change. For example, in all other professions – in terms of time – services are now rendered in a matter of weeks, days or even hours. But our lawyers and judiciary still think that they are immune to change and society will accept justice in terms of years or even decades.

Philippine justice, and the education of its lawyers, requires radical changes now and not in some distant future.

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