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Old 20-08-2014, 05:50 PM
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I can't speak to the quality of the degree, and I don't think anybody can either since the school hasn't been built at this point.

But, it wouldn't really matter even if the SIM law school's quality is sub par compared to the other 2. We're talking about undergraduate teaching quality here, as opposed to post-graduate research quality. I think several comments can be made.

First, it really isn't that hard to graduate a bunch of basic, competent law graduates. How many different or better ways can you teach the basic, foundational subject like contract law and torts? You just need average law professors or teachers. Competency in professional practice is gained by experience. Law school doesn't prepare anybody to be lawyers. It only teaches legal concepts. Everything after that depends on aptitude and environment. If the Ministry of Law were really that concerned about degree quality, a lot of the overseas scheduled universities shouldn't be on the list, tbh.

Second, with all the media hype about this new school, I don't think there'll be a shortage of good academics or practitioners being willing to teach in the school. So I don't think quality of education will be an issue.

Third, a good legal, or any education, for that matter, depends very much also on the quality of your peer students. This is something no amount of lavish teaching resources can overcome. If you are surrounded by bright, motivated classmates, you will have the tendency to push one another harder; the quality of classroom discussion improves; you'll bounce ideas off one another and learn from one another.

That's why the best schools in the world are also the most selective schools. Admission criteria filters out those incapable of handling the material - but let's be honest, law isn't all that difficult that most people are incapable of studying it. The quality of your classmates makes all the difference. The smarter your classmates, the better quality of your education. Hence when we talk about "better" schools, we really mean "better" students studying there. Put another way, if we transplanted the whole class of Harvard into Timbuktu University in a 3rd world country, that university will still be tops because the student body is tops.

I think any deficiency in SIM law is reputational, from the layman. But I don't think Minlaw is concerned about its reputation, otherwise I can't see them choosing to site the school in SIM as opposed to say, NTU, if they were really concerned about prestige.
What an insightful answer. Do you then think that Minlaw will go ahead & open a law faculty in SIM even after announcing that they are predicting an oversupply of lawyers?
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