This book is a critique of the rapidly changing nature of legal education in major Asian jurisdictions as diverse as Afghanistan, Australia, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam. It provides cross-country comparative material, including western legal education systems, and particularly detailed coverage of Japan.

Legal education systems, like legal systems themselves, were framed across Asia without exception according to foreign models. These reflect the vestiges of colonialism, and can be said to amount to imitating the style and purposes of legal education typical in Western and relatively "pure" common law and civilian systems. Today, however, we see Asian legal education coming into its own and beginning to accept responsibility for designing curricula and approaches that fit the region’s particular needs. This book explores how conventional "transplanted" approaches as regards program design as well as modes of teaching are, or are on the cusp of being, reimagined and discerns emerging home-grown traces of innovation replacing imitation in countries and universities across East Asia.

Clinical legal education has revolutionized legal education, from its deepest origins in the nineteenth century to its now-global reach.

The study of Asia and its plural legal systems is of increasing significance, both within and outside Asia. Lawyers, whether in Australia, America or Europe, or working within an Asian jurisdiction, require a sound knowledge of how the law operates across this fast-growing and diverse region. Law and Legal Institutions of Asia is the first book to offer a comprehensive assessment of eleven key jurisdictions in Asia - China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore and the Philippines. Written by academics and practitioners with particular expertise in their state or territory, each chapter uses a breakthrough approach, facilitating cross-jurisdictional comparisons and giving essential insights into how law functions in different ways across the region and in each of the individual jurisdictions.

This book describes the history, present status and possible future models of clinical legal education (CLE) in 12 Asian countries, with particular focus on the Asian character of CLE as it has evolved in different countries.

This work explores the tension in East Asia between the trend towards a convergence of legal practices in the direction of a universal model and a reassertion of local cultural practices. The trend towards convergence arises in part from 'globalisation', from 'rule of law programs' promulgated by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank, and from widespread migration in the region, whilst the opposing trend arises in part from moves to resist such 'globalisation'. This book explores a wide range of issues related to this key problem, covering China in particular, where resolving differences in conceptions about the rule of law is a key issue as China begins to integrate itself into the World Trade Organisation regime.

Globally, the methodologies of legal education have not changed in any fundamental way, some methods dating back hundreds of years. Law schools have relied, for too long, on passive learning methods such as lectures or cases. Clinical legal education provides an alternative that is more than just another pedagogical method. It provides a way for students to experience their emerging professional selves, while providing services or projects with poor and underrepresented clients. This book documents both the historical origins of clinical experiments in the earliest days of US university legal education, and the now-global reach of clinical pedagogy as a proven tool for effective training of legal professionals.