Heads full of theory, young law grads ‘can’t draft a simple will’

Lawyers complain about the quality of law school graduates, blaming this on impractical curricula.

The Hanoi Law University

“I ask these chaps to draft a simple will, but they cannot.  Some of them could not get a word on paper after four or five days, while others wrote dozens of pages as if they were writing their thesis,” said Lawyer Tran Dinh Trien, Head of the Vi Dan Law Office.

 

Lawyer Truong Thanh Duc, Head of Basico Law Office seconded Trien’s assessment.  He said that newly-minted law graduates lack many necessary skills, from basic speaking and writing skills to the skill of collecting and synthesizing documents.

 

“In general, they have to be retrained from the beginning,” Duc said.

 

Nam, a graduate of Hanoi Law University, the biggest school of law in Vietnam, is now working for a big state-owned bank.  He confirmed that in his first days on the job, right after graduation, he had to relearn everything.

 

“Our courses were too heavy in theory. Therefore, I think that our lecturers could not provide deep knowledge, even if they wanted to,” Nam said, blaming an impractical curriculum.

 

Pham Lan Dung, MA, Dean of International Law at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV), noted that the law school curricula include too many subjects.  The one she has drawn up for the students of the institute is no exception, Dung confessed.

 

Dung said that the problem is the Ministry of Education and Training requirement that students must cover a 190-200 item syllabus, a huge volume of knowledge.  “Because we must cover so much, we cannot provide knowledge in depth; we can only give an overview,” Dung said

 

Tu, who’s a student at DAV, echoed Dean Dung’s thought.  Students have to learn everything, but they know nothing well, because they do not have the chance to learn anything in depth, he said.

 

Dung believes that the main goal of the undergraduate law curriculum should not be to provide as much knowledge as possible, but rather to teach a way of thinking that can help students in their future jobs.

 

Meanwhile, law schools, smarting from criticism that they concentrate overmuch on theory and make light of practice, have been paying more attention to practice hours in the last few years

 

Dr Nguyen Ngoc Hoa, Deputy Rector of the Hanoi Law University, says the school’s students have to do many personal exercises every week, every month and every period, and do monthly reports in teams.  These exercises cause them to practice necessary skills, especially communication and presentation skills. HLU has a number of courses that exercise which allows students to practice courtroom skills.  In moot courts, students play the roles of judges and lawyers.

 

Meanwhile, Kien, a staffer at the Havip Law Office for the last four years, said that the moots organized at law schools did not help him much. In general, Kien said, the knowledge he learned at school fell far short of meeting the demands of his present job.

 

Law schools say they are doing their best to develop practical skills, but admit they are still weak in this respect for many reasons.

 

At DAV, for example, a lot of famous persons have been invited to give lectures, share experience and teach students necessary skills. Dr. Dang Xuan Hop, who once taught at Oxford University and the National University of Singapore, and Claudio Dordi, who led the European Union group that assisted Vietnam to evaluate trade assistance needs (MUTRAP III), were among these.

 

Phu Sa

 

Tags: Hanoi Law University, Physics games

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