Legal Education in China: Globalizing with Chinese Characteristics

Abstract

After presenting a brief history of Chinese legal education, this article describes current law training programmes, innovative efforts to incorporate global perspectives into legal education, the birth of Chinese clinical legal education, and some of these challenges facing traditional law schools and the legal profession. It identifies efforts at reform, such as young experimental law schools with emphasis on comparative law and skills training and the state’s new plan to reform and improve higher legal education with greater emphasis on practical legal training, global law and training for rural legal workers. The article concludes by recommending a number of additional responses to the challenges facing legal education, including further reforms to fund quality skills training, expand global and comparative approaches across different types of legal education, institute new incentives for faculty and teaching innovations and reduce teaching workloads and class sizes.