ALI has published a report on “The Role of Legal Education in Shaping Students’ Understanding of the Law”.
Relevance of the report. In recent years, Law has been one of the most popular study programmes among applicants. In particular, during the 2024 admission campaign, more than 40,000 applications were submitted for this speciality. The degree of professionalism of a lawyer, which is based primarily on his or her understanding of the law, directly affects the quality of professional assistance provided and the ability to resolve complex legal cases, and thus the protection of inherent and inalienable human rights.
The research conducted by ALI has been primarily focused on the following area: how students perceive the law, what place law and legal education occupy in their lives, and what legal instruments they tend to use to solve practical situations. These aspects were assessed in the context of the role of legal education in this process.
In the course of its research, ALI is examining the following issues:
- Is there a difference in the perception of law among first- and fourth-year students majoring in “081-Law”?
- What factors correlate with a certain type of legal understanding?
- Does the type of legal understanding influence the choice of a future legal profession?
The process of collecting the necessary information and processing it consisted of three stages, including a questionnaire survey of first- and fourth-year students of the speciality “081-Law”. The first and fourth year students of the following educational institutions took part in the questionnaire survey:
- National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Kyiv);
- Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Kyiv);
- Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (Kharkiv);
- V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Kharkiv);
- National University of Ostroh Academy (Ostroh);
- I. I. Mechnikov Odesa National University (Odesa).
In the course of the analysis, ALI identified a number of processes that need to be the subject of systematic development:
- the study has shown that the role of higher education institutions in shaping the types of legal understanding is mainly traced only at the level of mastering theoretical material;
- the curriculum is not focused on developing the practical skills necessary for the profession;
- not all students recognise the importance of key professional values that have a direct impact on the formation of the type of legal understanding.
Read more about legal understanding and recommendations to address relevant challenges in this area in the new ALI report.
