Legal Education Reform Index

Overview

Quality legal education is an essential element in producing legal professionals who can competently represent clients and contribute to the establishment of the rule of law. However, in many emerging and transitioning democracies, the quality of legal education does not meet international standards, and many law graduates do not possess the requisite skills to be effective legal professionals. Against this backdrop, the ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) developed the Legal Education Reform Index (LERI), an innovative tool that assesses the status of legal education in emerging democracies vis-à-vis internationally established principles. The LERI offers international organizations, development agencies, technical legal assistance providers and local reformers a reliable means to target legal education reform programs and monitor progress towards establishing quality legal education systems.

In developing the LERI, ABA ROLI relied on comparative legal traditions as well as international, regional and national standards and best practices for legal education, accreditation, degree recognition and quality assurance developed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education, the European Union, the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, the European Consortium for Accreditation, the European University Association, the European Law Faculties Association, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Council of African States and Madagascar for Higher Education, the American Bar Association and the Clinical Legal Education Association. ABA ROLI was also able to rely on 20 years of its technical legal assistance experience reforming legal education systems and promoting the rule of law in more than 70 countries worldwide.

The LERI evaluates legal education systems through a prism of 22 factors, each of which sets forth particular standards related to the following six topics: licensing, accreditation and evaluation; admission policies and requirements; curriculum and teaching methodology; evaluation of students, awarding of degrees and recognition of qualifications; faculty qualifications and employment conditions; and institutional holdings and capacities. These factors are evaluated by a neutral, independent assessment team on the basis of a rigorous analysis of a country’s legal framework that regulates higher education institutions and legal education programs (de jure analysis), and a series of in-depth, structured interviews and focus groups with law school administrators, faculty and students, government officials responsible for higher education, legal education experts, legal practitioners and other interested parties (de facto analysis). The results are collected in a standardized LERI country assessment report. Following each factor statement, a correlation value of positive, neutral or negative is assigned, and a brief summary describing the basis for this conclusion is provided. A more thorough analysis of the issues, relevant legal provisions, local conditions and mechanisms present or lacking in a country’s legal education system follows. The LERI does not make specific recommendations for reform, but rather provides a diagnostic analysis of the strengths and weaknesses surrounding a country’s legal education.

Data collected through the LERI assessment enables ABA ROLI to better understand important legal education reform elements and to target its technical assistance programs accordingly. In addition to facilitating strategic planning, the LERI can be used to monitor legal education reform over time and to systematically catalog problems and solutions. The LERI assessment constitutes a baseline against which progress, or backsliding, can be measured through periodic applications of the LERI. Repetition of the LERI in a particular country establishes upward or downward trends on individual factors. Finally, the LERI provides a platform for an unprecedented level of comparative legal research and analysis that may be used to inform a variety of audiences about the state of legal education in emerging democracies. As such, it is well suited to identifying and transferring specialized knowledge and lessons-learned.

LERI Factors

The ABA Rule of Law Initiative’s Legal Education Reform Index (LERI) is based on 22 factors drawing upon the criteria and principles outlined in some of the fundamental international instruments related to higher legal education. The LERI does not employ any numerical “scoring” mechanism; rather, it makes qualitative evaluations of specific factors. Each factor, or statement, is allocated one of three values: positive, neutral or negative. These values only reflect the relationship of that statement to a country’s legal education system. If a statement strongly corresponds to a given country’s reality, the country is given a score of “positive” for that statement. If the statement does not represent the conditions in that country, it is given a “negative.” And if the conditions within the country correspond in some ways but not in others, it is given a “neutral.” Below is a complete list of the LERI categories and factors.

I.  Licensing, Accreditation and Evaluation

Factor 1. Regulation of legal education by a duly authorized entity: Legal education is provided by institutions duly authorized by the state body, professional association or other entity responsible for regulating legal education.

Factor 2. Standards for licensing and accreditation: The standards for licensing and accrediting institutions providing legal education are clearly defined by the responsible state body, professional association or other entity duly authorized to regulate providers of legal education.

Factor 3. Licensing and accreditation procedure: Initial licensing and accreditation of institutions providing legal education includes an external evaluation process based on established rigorous, transparent, uniform and internationally accepted quality assurance standards. To ensure continued compliance with these standards, licensed and accredited institutions providing legal education are also subject to a periodic, rigorous and transparent external evaluation process.

Factor 4. Disciplinary and enforcement actions: When institutions providing legal education fail to comply with established quality assurance standards, disciplinary or enforcement actions are administered fairly, consistently and transparently, with an appeals process.

II. Admission Policies and Requirements

Factor 5. Admission examination and/or other entrance standards: Admission to institutions providing legal education is based upon passing a fair, rigorous and transparent entrance examination or a comparable set of uniform admission standards that are designed to ensure that the student body has the academic potential to complete the course of study and effectively practice law.

Factor 6. Non-discriminatory admission: Admission to institutions providing legal education is not denied for reasons of race, gender, sexual orientation, color, religion, political or other opinion, ethnic or social origin, membership of a national minority, property, birth, language or physical disability.

Factor 7. Special admission measures: Special admission measures to increase representation of disadvantaged members of society or otherwise underrepresented groups are appropriately employed, where applicable, to further a desirable goal of society or an institution providing legal education.

III. Curriculum and Teaching Methodology

Factor 8. Comprehensive curricula: Institutions providing legal education have curricula that are comprehensive and incorporate recent developments in national, comparative and international law in order to provide students with the requisite knowledge and skills to effectively and responsibly practice law.

Factor 9. Instruction in ethics and core professional values: Law students receive adequate instruction in the core values and ethics of the profession, including relevant codes of conduct.

Factor 10. Professional skills instruction: Law students receive adequate instruction in professional skills, including critical thinking, legal research, analysis and writing, advocacy skills and client relations.

Factor 11. Teaching methodologies: Faculty employ varied teaching methodologies that are appropriately geared at developing professional skills, ethics and respect for the rule of law.

IV. Student Evaluation, Awarding of Degrees and Recognition of Qualifications

Factor 12. Student evaluation and/or examination: Student performance and achievement of stated learning outcomes are assessed by fair, uniform and stringent written examinations or other objective and reliable assessment techniques.

Factor 13. Awarding of degrees: Qualifications and degrees awarded reflect that students have successfully completed all requirements and met all standards for the awarding institution.

Factor 14. Institutional record-keeping: Institutions providing legal education maintain accurate records that meet national and international quality assurance frameworks and standards in order to facilitate comparability and compatibility of qualifications.

Factor 15. Recognition frameworks and networks: Institutions providing legal education participate in national, regional and international quality assurance and recognition networks, and their participation is facilitated and monitored by the entity in charge of regulating institutions providing legal education.

V. Faculty Qualifications and Conditions of Employment

Factor 16. Faculty qualifications: Law faculty possess requisite knowledge and competence in their subjects to provide a quality education to students, as evidenced by degrees held, scholarly publications, practical experience as well as strong teaching skills.

Factor 17. Hiring, promotion and tenure: Faculty hiring, promotion and granting of tenure, or its equivalent, are based on rigorous, fair, uniform and transparent criteria and procedures, with a process for seeking appeal or review of adverse decisions.

Factor 18. Faculty compensation: Compensation for law faculty is set at an appropriate level to provide a reasonable standard of living in order to attract and retain qualified, dedicated and ethical faculty who are able to devote their time to teaching, research and public service.

Factor 19. Academic freedom and freedom of association for law faculty: Institutions providing legal education and individual law faculty members enjoy academic freedom, are encouraged to engage in research, are not punished for holding positions relating to academic debate, research or public service, and have the right to freedom of association.

VI. Institutional Holdings and Capacities

Factor 20. Access to legal materials: Students and faculty have adequate access to the full range of laws and legal materials (national and international) relevant to curriculum subjects and the eventual practice of law, with materials available in all official state languages where appropriate.

Factor 21. Physical facilities and technological capacities: Institutions providing legal education possess adequate physical facilities and technological capacities to meet the needs of their current program of legal education and anticipated growth.

Factor 22. Class size and administrative/support staff: Institutions providing legal education have a reasonable student-to-teacher ratio, appropriate class size and sufficient administrative and support staff to achieve the educational goals of the institution.