China’s Legal Education: Problems and Strategic Countermeasures?
Liu Renshan

1. Background
　　1.1 Firstly, the premise to understanding the current practice of law and legal education in China is that China is a multi-ethnic country with uneven political and economic development.
　　This uneven development can be found in three aspects. The unequal development in urban and rural areas is most apparent. Half of the Chinese population is farmers who live mainly in the overwhelming rural areas. In general, as the result and development of the industrial and commercial society, the modern legal knowledge and skills can satisfy its social needs. However, there exists the tension between the demand for legal services in rural "acquaintance society"[1] and the legal knowledge and skills taught in the legal education. Due to the influence of the market economy, many rural areas began to change from "acquaintance society "into" semi-acquaintance society ".[2] In some areas, the traditional village orders even collapse, which makes the current legal demands in rural areas more complex and diverse. Apart from this, uneven development lies also in the imbalanced regional development between the east coastal areas and inland areas. The third uneven development refers to the ethnic differences in terms of the understanding of and the need for the legal services. The three aspects of the uneven development mentioned above contribute to the complexity and arduousness of the task of China’s legal education.
　　1.2 Secondly, China is transforming gradually from traditional society to modern society, so the practice of law and the legal education must respond to the problems of social transformation.
　　The rule of law is mainly applicable to the modern industrial society. It means that laws will play a more and more important role in the process of social transformation. Usually it is common to see various problems or even the plight arising from the social transformation. However, if we fail to deal with those problems properly, it is likely to exert some impact on and even intensify those social contradictions. Therefore, our legal practice and legal education must demonstrate a stronger capacity to render better understandings of and solutions to those problems arising from the social transformation. In fact, the social transformation of China will certainly last for quite a long time because of its uneven development. For those who are still in the traditional society or in the process of transforming from the traditional society to the modern society, our legal practice and legal education can never sacrifice easily the order and the interests of the vast rural and remote areas during the period of social transformation.
　　In conclusion, the national conditions mentioned above offers us a broader view of China’s legal education, which requires us that the strategic orientation of Chinese legal education be in connection with and in caring for the real needs of and the solutions to the realistic problems in the social transformation of China.

2. Problems and causes
　　2.1. The major problems
　　2.1.1. The population and quality of law students
　　At present, the quality of law students is far from being satisfactory compared with its huge population. Both the practical legal skills and theoretical legal knowledge of law students are generally very weak and inadequate. As to the legal personnel structure, the supply of legal talents constitutes an olive shape. On the one hand, the top-level legal talents as well as excellent legal talents in rural areas and other underdeveloped regions are terribly needed; on the other hand, the average legal professionals are too many.
　　2.1.2. The legal education system is too bulky
　　Now there are many educational institutions offering the legal education programs, such as comprehensive universities, multidisciplinary universities featuring in political science, colleges of public security and police, institutes of judges and procurators, judicial and administrative colleges, institutes of the China Academy of Social Sciences, Party colleges, and the military system. As to the degree programs, there are degrees of law at all levels offered in China now including secondary, tertiary, bachelor, master, and doctoral. Take the master’s degree for example, there are Master of Laws (LL.M), Juris Master (J.M) with a bachelor of law, Juris Master with a bachelor degree other than law, double degrees of law. The tertiary degree legal educational programs are more diverse. They include full-time colleges and universities degree education, full-time and short-term vocational colleges, universities of correspondence, higher education self-study examinations, and etc. Numerous legal education and personnel training systems seriously affect the quality of the legal education.
　　2.1.3. The disconnection between theoretical teaching and legal practice
　　The dominant legal theory in China is largely a replica of the Western rule of law and legal theory, and it lacks of adequate care and response to the practical issues of legal problems. Many scholars unilaterally pursue the dialogue with the scholars of Western countries, and introduce the Western legal theories without critical thinking. The current academic evaluation mechanism emphasizes too much the citation rate of academic papers, making it as an important indicator of the scholars' academic achievement. On the contrary, many lawyers in China neglect the significance of legal practice and the work experience in law department. As a result they insist that the practice of the law department should comply with the ought-to-be standard in legal theory. This worsens the disconnection between the teaching and practice of Chinese legal education.
　　2.1.4. LL.M. education falls short of its reputation
　　The goals of LL.M. education are to cultivate academic lawyers, rather than practicing lawyers. With the expansion of the college enrollment, the number of graduate enrollment keeps rising. A large number of students with little academic potential or research desire enter the ranks of Master of Laws program, so LL.M education, unworthy of the name, has become a popular education.
　　2.1.5. Pre-doctoral training in law is dummy
　　In view of the current situation that LL.M education does not live up to its name, the research requirements for law students actually begin from the doctoral program, and the doctoral stage of education is positioned for the education of legal researchers. This positioning is basically correct, but the education in the doctoral program does not reap very much due to the unsuccessful experience of the undergraduate and graduate education before doctoral stage.
　　2.1.6. The quality of law professors varies greatly
　　The number of full-time law professors in China’s universities continues to rise, but their academic excellence varies greatly.
　　Firstly, there exists the big difference in terms of the quality of law professors among different levels of law schools. Excellent law professors are more likely to be found in elite law schools. The law schools formerly affiliated to the Ministry of Justice have a large number of law professors but their quality is comparatively not satisfactory. On the contrary, there is a large number of outstanding faculty talents in the very few elite law schools in the national key comprehensive universities. Other non-key law schools suffer both the serious shortage and the poor quality of law professors.
　　Secondly, the uneven regional distribution of law professors is getting worse. In last few years, many elite law professors have gradually moved from the former prestigious law schools located in the central and western regions of China to the more developed coastal areas, making the unequal distribution even worse.
　　Thirdly, the quality and excellence of law professors varies greatly in different department of law within one law school and the top talents is very rare.
　　2.1.7. Lack of top-quality law textbooks
　　Firstly, a large number of low-in-quality and repetitive law textbooks have been produced and published. The qualification and effective discipline of law textbook writing is missing. Law schools in different levels are devoted to editing law textbooks and hence the quality of lots of textbooks cannot be guaranteed.
　　Secondly, law textbooks edited for undergraduate level and graduate level are not clearly distinguished. Many textbooks handle poorly theoretical-framework-oriented basic theories for undergraduates and below mixed with the legal-research-oriented materials suitable for graduates.
　　Finally, as some scholar has pointed out, typical problems are flooded in the current law textbooks, undergraduate law textbooks in particular, such as: self-contradictory, divergent and mixed examples, illogical concept division, tediously long expression, lack of concentration and conception, improper punctuation and wording etc. [3] As a consequence, these problems seriously interfere students in learning the basic theories of legal science.
　　2.1.8. General education is more in name than in reality
　　Modern general education in American universities is comparatively successful and its core is to render western civilization courses with an emphasis on the reading of western classics. This mode of education helps lay a common ground of cultural recognition in American modern society. In China, many colleges and universities offer the curricula in the name of general education or liberal education, but some have deviations on the understanding of general education so that in reality they do not live up to its name. A typical example is that many colleges and universities simply take it for granted that general education is to offer curricula of general theories or introductions to other disciplinary studies. In teaching, they usually center on the textbooks and seldom lay the emphasis on the reading of classics.
　　2.1.9. Absence in legal ethics education
　　A great danger in legal education in China now is that the current mode of legal education is likely to lead law students to constant alienation or even departing from the standards of common social ethics. In my view, professional legal ethics can be divided at least into two categories: specific technical operational ethical requirements and political ethical requirements. However, in China, in the view of many lawyers, the understanding of professional ethics is more often to be confined to the specific technical operational ethical requirements and they usually neglect the importance of political ethical requirements. As a result, it is very possible for us to depart from the correct direction of social development if we emphasize too much and only the specific technical operational ethical requirements.
　　2.2 Causes for above problems
　　The primary cause for these problems lies in the inaccurate positioning of undergraduate legal education. The key to the positioning of undergraduate legal education in China is the positioning of undergraduate legal education of those key law schools.
　　There have been long arguments in China on the nature and positioning of legal education –general education or vocational education, mass education or elite education? Many scholars are inclined to the idea that undergraduate legal education is simply a vocational education. However they ignore the distinctions of different types of law schools and neglect the structural disparities of demands of social legal talents.
　　2.2.1 Firstly, at national level.
　　Currently, most of the state legal educational resources are concentrated on the key law schools while little has been invested in the non-key law schools and non-undergraduate legal educational programs. This phenomenon further aggravates above problems. Most high-end legal talents turn their faces to legal professional market in the large and medium-sized cities. The state shall carry out effective policies to direct those key law schools to combine market force in order to improve the quality of its faculty and educational level. For those non- key law schools and non-undergraduate legal educational programs, their primary focus is legal services and job opportunities in the middle-sized and small cities, rural areas and other underdeveloped areas. Unfortunately in these areas it is not possible to satisfy the massive needs for the legal services if we rely only on the market force. Hence, the government shall make new changes in policy and give more financial support to these disadvantaged law schools as well as those key law schools in order to relieve the situation of imbalanced allocation of teaching resources by pure market force.
　　2.2.2 Secondly, at each college own level.
　　Out of the pursuit of the short-term interests, many colleges and universities have established law departments or law schools without holistic considerations of their long-term planning and careful evaluation of their own teaching conditions. Those disqualified law departments or law schools in fact disturbed the development of legal education. Each law school has problems of its own. Some key law schools have improper positioning of the undergraduate legal education, while some others fail to understand the essence of general education, putting too much emphasis on vocational legal training. Although they have better matriculates, they seldom cultivate many excellent legal talents that can live up to the expectations of the society.

3. Strategic repositioning of China’s legal education
　　3.1. The specific strategic repositioning of China’s legal education
　　Based on the above discussions, the new strategic positioning shall contain the following points:  Firstly, all the law schools nationwide shall be at least reclassified into two major groups: elite law schools and non- elite law schools. Different types of law schools should adopt different teaching modes. Secondly, the key to the strategic repositioning of China’s legal education lies in the positioning of the undergraduate legal education of those key law schools. The author of this paper maintains that the undergraduate legal education of those key law schools be positioned as elite legal education and general education. Thirdly, other law schools shall adjust their positioning to the vocational legal education and mass education on the basis of better understandings of their own features and conditions in order to cultivate legal talents meeting the requirements of different hierarchical structure and social needs.
　　3.2 Considerations on the legal education strategy
　　3.2.1. Firstly, the basic national conditions and social transformation call for legal talents meeting the requirements of different hierarchical structure and social needs.
　　High-end legal talents who excel in international economic law, intellectual property law and financial law are in great need in the developed eastern coastal regions while in the massive rural areas of Midwest of China legal talents full of strategic wisdom and disputes conciliation skills are more likely to win the popularity. The monotonous legal educational pattern and only access through judicial examination can’t meet the diversified requirements for the cultivation of legal talents. We can reclassify law schools into different levels, adopt new patterns of legal education in accordance with the need of knowledge and skills of relevant law departments, and make discriminating and flexible regulations on the access standards of legal profession at different levels.
　　3.2.2. Secondly, different types of law schools may have different social functions.
　　Take the law firms in the developed coastal areas as an example, these law firms usually require applicants have foreign legal education background, or graduate from an elite law school or good command of foreign language and so on. For most graduates of an average law school, it is impossible to fulfill the requirements mentioned above. Considering that the requirements for legal talents in the massive rural areas of Midwest are noticeably different from that of in the developed areas, and that the unique requirements can’t be fulfilled through the regular process of legal education, we propose that law schools need reclassifying on the one hand and the pattern of legal education need repositioning in consideration of the local features on the other hand.
　　3.2.3. Thirdly, the social function of the undergraduate legal education determines the strategy of legal education.
　　The undergraduate legal education not only cultivates legal talents, but also undertakes the responsibility of cultivating modern citizen. To build a socialist country under the rule of law needs not only the hard work of the entire legal profession, but also the joint efforts of the whole society. Therefore, the goals of undergraduate legal education cannot be confined to cultivating practicing lawyers only. They shall also include cultivating non-legal talents competent enough for government agencies, businesses and so on, such as government employees, journalists and policy makers. A good command of legal knowledge is based on the profound understanding of society. The two effective approaches to getting to know the society better are more contacts through first hand personal experience and general education via second hand experience. The guarantee to promoting general education is high-quality law faculty, so it’s necessary to better the general education of undergraduate students in the key law schools first and then to process the legal knowledge and skills later on. For the non-key law schools, the priority of legal education shall be given to the vocational education with general education as subsidiary. The non-undergraduate legal education shall be more vocational-oriented. 
　　3.2.4. Fourthly, general education is significant to the cultivation of high-end legal talents.
　　“If the vocational education is the basic requirement of legal education, general education can be regarded as a higher level requirement of legal education”. General education helps students perceive the complexity and enhance the ability to analyze. “Law is the science of what is justice and what is injustice.” It’s very complicated to answer how to realize justice. Therfore, the content of general education should reflect the complexity of the world. In the modern society, the access of the political truth of state-governance is not oriented from knowledge of daily life, but from education, which includes specialized abstract knowledge and idea, such as politics, economy, culture and society. Hence, we must pay attention to the reading of classics since it helps us to grasp the political truth of state-governance, and helps lawyers to judge and weigh among interests.      
　　3.2.5. Fifthly, it is unrealistic to abolish the undergraduate legal education, which is also a powerful factor to the strategic positioning of the development of legal education.
　　Currently, several scholars have raised the proposal to abolish the undergraduate legal education,[4] some scholars hold the opinion that it may become the future orientation of the reform for legal education in China. But it is still too early to cancel the undergraduate legal education. From the perspective of instructors in universities, it may lead to the instability of the instructors and also influence the normal order of teaching in universities, and even worse than that is to affect the stability of social order if the undergraduate legal education is canceled.
　　3.3 Concrete operation for strategy of legal education
　　The following discussion of concrete operation will concentrate on the bachelor education of key legal universities. #p#分页标题#e#
　　3.3.1. Time limit of teaching and the curriculum design
　　At present, the four years length of schooling of legal bachelor cannot fulfill the need of the quality of high level legal talents, the key law schools which aim at cultivating high level legal talents would try to transfer the time limit of teaching of legal bachelor to five years.
　　The time limit of teaching in key law schools and universities should be appropriately extended in order to meet the need of the society for quintessentially legal talents. The time limit of teaching of ordinary law schools retains, or even be appropriately shorten. The key law schools and universities can adopt the mode of continual education with seven years, which combines the legal education consisting of a bachelor’ degree and a master’ degree. The first two academic year concentrate on general education (including humanities, social science and natural science and so on), assisting the curriculum of constitution and jurisprudence. In the following three academic year the students will be received the concrete education of law (the department of law, the method of law and the legal history). On the basis of above, the students can participate in the National Judicial Examination in the six academic year. The last academic year, the students can take part in exercitation and compose graduate thesis, and the standard of their graduate thesis should be heightened at the level of the master’ degree. This mode links up the bachelor education in law as well as the master education in law, in which the bachelor education adopt the system of the time limit of teaching with five years and the master education with two years. After the graduation of the bachelor’ education, the students will receive a bachelor’ diploma, which also means that the students obtain the qualification to participate in National Judicial Examination. When the bachelor’ degree awarded, there are different choices on employment by students, students who would like to work (the occupation does not need to pass the National Judicial Examination and acquire the legal qualification) can finish their college study. Students who wish to participate in the National Judicial Examination have to continue their study in the next step. Students who have acquired a bachelor’ degree can take part in the examination hold by universities in order to obtain the qualification for LL.M. if one wish to join the academic research. Students who wish to acquire the JM which is professionally oriented can take part in the examination hold by universities in order to obtain the qualification for further education. The students of other majors need to participate in the examination for undergraduate students should obtain the studying qualification of LL.M. and JM, only when the students acquire the legal master’ degree can they take part in the National Judicial Examination. As for the right of the choice for examination, it should be awarded to the students who will make decision based on the difficulty of the examination, the cost of opportunity and the prospective income.
　　The four years system of teaching in average law schools and universities should concentrate on the need of excellent talents who deal with practical legal affairs concerning middling and low levels. The setting of the curriculum in ordinary law schools and universities should be pay attention to concentrating its power on teaching with professionally oriented direction, As far as the setting of the curriculum, the ordinary law schools and universities should cancel the foreign language in appropriate time in order to concentrate its energy on professional training of law.
　　3.3.2. The writing of textbooks
　　First of all, the problem of legal textbooks is critical. The key law schools and universities should be allowed to compile textbooks according to their own characteristics, and the Ministry of Education should strictly control the quality of the textbooks which be written. The legal textbooks in ordinary law schools and universities should be written in unification by authoritative scholars who are organized by the Ministry of Education. Secondly, the general education in key law schools and universities should not only involve ordinary courses in virtue of summarized textbooks for instruction, but also the classic literature for reading and reference book for introduction.
　　3.3.3. The faculty and staff of law schools
　　As for key law schools and universities, there are two essential points, one of which concerning the control of enrollment scale, the other involve raising the requirement of the admittance for teachers. If there are not enough excellent teachers, any strategic orientation and systematic setting are useless.
　　3.3.4. The implementation of general education
　　The effective administration of general education not only require relevant curriculum, but also excellent teachers. The general education should pay more attention on leading students to reading classic literature. The selection of classic literature can be partitioned as two parts, the first part concerning the reading of classic books and articles in china and foreign countries in nowadays as well as in history, law schools and universities should organize excellent teachers to compile the relevant anthology. The second part should involve the classic literature of humanities, social science and natural science. The work of compiling such classic literature is much more difficult, it is reasonable for the Ministry of Education to organize authoritative scholars in relevant disciplines to compile.
　　3.3.5. National Judicial Examination
　　Currently, it is detrimental for the improvement of the teaching quality of the bachelor education if allowing senior college students participate in the National Judicial Examination, it severely reduce the teaching time and the students unable to receive the strictly legal education in specialization. Nowadays, the probability of the students who majored in law pass National Judicial Examination is not higher than the students who are not majored in law. So it is advisable for students to participate in the National Judicial Examination after they have acquired a bachelor’ degree in law. The different levels of legal talents need different legal knowledge, so the National Judicial Examination can be divided into type A and type B, by which selecting the legal talents of the different levels. In addition, it is necessary to set up the linking system of the two types of the National Judicial Examination in order to fulfill the need of fluidity of legal talents in different levels.  
　　3.3.6. The Examination for undergraduate students and the cultivation of research talents
　　The researching ability of legal talents is closely related with the good academic training in the phase of undergraduate and graduate courses, the cultivation of researching talents should concentrate on the phase of doctoral and postdoctoral education.
　　3.3.7. The relationship between applied and academic legal talents
　　The applied type of talents can be distinguished into quintessentially legal talents and ordinary legal talents, which are respectively cultivated by the key law schools and the ordinary law schools. The academic type of legal talents are mainly cultivated by the key law schools and universities, and the ordinary law schools and universities should concentrate on the applied type of legal talents, the legal education which blow the undergraduate level should be established in cultivating applied type of legal talents.
   3.3.8. JM and the double- degree of legal science
   It is proper to gradually reduce the quantity of enrollment of legal master, and gradually transfer the cultivating center of LLM to the JM, which is more professional oriented. The practical departments of law also need the talents who qualified with correspondingly researching ability in theory,[5] as for the reasons in aspect of the position of JM as well as the setting of curriculum, the center of possessing the theoretic quality can not be at the phase of JM, but should begin at the phase of undergraduate. According to this arrangement, the source of JM has two parts, one of which come from the undergraduates majored in law who have passed the examination which organized by law schools and universities inside, the other come from the undergraduates with other majors who have passed the examination for graduate students. The above two different examination with different difficulties, the undergraduate students who are not majored in law have to pay out more energy to read up the courses of law if they wish to work for a JM’s degree.
　　At the present time, the double- degree of legal science is basically inoculate with legal knowledge intensely in short time. Under the condition of limited energy and time, the double- degree of legal science is difficult to cultivate the high quality of legal talents that the society needed. Therefore, it is advisable to cancel the education of the double- degree of legal science.
　　3.3.9. The cultivation of professional abilities in law
　　Both the legal education in colleges and in society of cultivating legal talents has its own characters. Compared with the practical department, such as law office, court and procuratorate, there is no predominance for law schools to instruct the professional ability in law of the students, what’s more, the practical departments possess more impetus to improve the professional ability of its legal graduate students who work for them. In addition, the professional ability is easier to improve in practice. The existed design of system also requires the practical departments to take on the corresponding responsibility to cultivate the professional ability of the students who are majored in law.[6]
　　3.3.10. The Examination for civil servant If the students pass National Judicial Examination in the six academic year, thus they can enter into the interview phase and there is no need for them to participate in written examination for civil servant in the systems of police, procuratorate and court. If the students take part in the examination for civil servant of other systems, they have to participate in written examination, and the right of choice concerning examination should be awarded to the students.
　　3.4. Several important issues
　　3.4.1. The orientation of legal education in other undergraduate university
　　Non-key law schools shall undertake the task of cultivating appropriate levels of legal talents. And this shall be combined with its own characteristics to pinpoint exact position in the development of grass-roots-oriented legal talents.  Since the majority of central and western regions and rural areas have a very wide range of needs for legal practitioners, the vocational school education, self-taught examination, correspondence courses and other non- undergraduate legal education mode should be improved instead of being simply cancelled. Limited by the teaching conditions, the implementation of the general education in the non- key law schools and other vocation-oriented legal education can not just simply copy the practice of those key law schools. A more practical approach is to strengthen the teaching of such courses as jurisprudence, legal history, juridical ideaistic history as well as constitutional law and other disciplines on legal education.
　　China's legal education should be a mass education as well as elite education.  In addition, it ought to establish and improve all kinds of the legal education of vertical convergence together with horizontal communication mechanism.  The key law schools should do its own work well according to the new strategic positioning. At the same time, it’s appropriate for them to play a backup role in the development of legal education in minority areas.
　　3.4.2. The fairness of the legal educational strategy
   Will this consolidate and worsen the social disparities in terms of imbalance of legal resources allocation?  Yes, it is possible. But the social needs for legal knowledge and skills are of a different hierarchy.  If we rely only on a single cultivation approach, it is difficult to satisfy the social needs for different structures of legal talents. It is necessary for us to set up the supporting mechanism for talents flow which needs to be studied further.
   3.4.3. Legal educational strategy should be step by step
   Drastic changes may lead to more resistance, so it is wise to apply the policy of “different approaches to different people”.  The new strategic positioning will involve such issues as complex arrangements of personnel, technical problems of convergence mechanism of the transition, and the guarantee of the value of the equity.  It is very important to adopt a pragmatic attitude to deal with all these problems.

4. The significances and challenges of new strategic positioning of the legal education
　　4.1 It helps to cultivate outstanding legal talents of different levels
　　Such a new strategic positioning of legal education helps to cultivate more high-quality legal talents who are able to meet the high demand for legal affairs and train a large number of outstanding legal workers to adapt to the work of grass-roots legal practice. In addition, it helps to train the lawyer-statesman, which goes beyond the limits of the legal profession.
　　4.2 It helps to cultivate modern citizens satisfying the needs of democracy and rule of law
　　Firstly, it is required to cultivate the citizens to grow with healthy personality in order to build a country under the rule of law. Combining the general education with legal professional education helps law students understand the complexity of legal pursuit of justice by weighing process, enhance political and legal wisdom and improve personality of law students. Secondly, it helps law students foster the correct world point of outlook and conception of history required by socialist legal construction, enhance the law students’ historical consciousness, national identity and develop the ability of mastering and judging the fundamental realities of the country.  Finally, it also helps to develop the ability of public participation necessary for modern citizens.
　　4.3 It helps to improve the level of scientific research in legal studies
　　The key law schools will combine a solid general education with the learning of theoretical knowledge, which helps to train the law students with higher academic literacy and lay a solid foundation for academic accomplishment in the doctoral  legal research in the future.
　　4.4 It helps to the preservation and innovation of the culture of the rule of law
　　Preservation and innovation of the culture of the rule of law cannot be separated from our grasping of the Chinese history and the reality of legal practice, as well as absorbing and learning from rule of law culture in foreign countries.  First of all, this requires the education of law to be able to correctly understand the historical traditions of the Chinese nation, and inherit our ancestors’ wisdom that created in the long history of the legal system.   Secondly, this requires that legal education should be guided to enhance students' ability to grasp the actual situation and the rule of law practice, and guide students to recognize the legitimacy of the history of the current practice of the rule of law.  In addition，it should guide students to recognize the legitimacy of the history of the current practice of the rule of law. Finally, this also requires us to have more in-depth and comprehensive understanding and master Western civilization and its historical evolution of legal practice and the reality of the situation. Therefore，Legal education should be “beyond the law” perspective instead of being limited to jurisprudence and vocationalism, which work is largely undertook by the general education.
　　4.5 The challenges to the traditional key universities of political science and law       
　　The strengths of the prestigious key law schools is traditional science of law.  However, some new departments of law (such as the legal department of patent law, which requires the background of science and engineering) and general education are not superior, even in a disadvantageous position.  If the traditional key university of politics and law locates in cultivate high-end legal person, it may bring a series of changes.  These universities have to limit the enrollment scale and step toward the elite law school, or they may be squeezed into schools other than key ones.  Several key universities of politics and law should pay high attention to the strategic positioning of legal education, in order to face the challenges resulting from it. There is a long way to march ahead.

【标题简介】
This article is a part of the Chinese Law Association’s Research Project Issues of the Studying on the Reforming of Legal Education in P. R. China.
【作者简介】
Doctor of Law, Professor and Dean of Law School, Zhongnan University of Finance and Law.

【注释】
[1] see Fei Xiaotong, Rural China , Beijing University Press in May 2005 , the first edition .
[2] See He Xuefeng, The new Rural China, Guangxi Normal University Press, the first edition in March 2003.
[3] See Ma Rong Chun, Seven Taboos of Undergraduate Law Textbooks – On the Background of Criminal Law Textbook, Published in the third volume of Legal Education.
[4] This opinion has been accepted by legal scholars and other scholars. Legal scholars’ opinion can see Liu Cheng, Between the Professional Education and the General Education: A Preliminary Thought on Legal Education, ZHong Shan University of Law Review, vol.8, 2010; He Weifang, Bachelor and Post- Bachelor: the Shunting Experiment of Legal Education, Business Review of 21 Century, vol. 15. Other scholars’ opinion can see Gan Yang, General Education and Morality: the Humanities Dimensionality of Legal Education, Business Review of 21 Century, vol. 15.
[5] Some legal graduates who just participate in practical legal affairs have the same feeling. A undergraduate majored in law who works at procuratorate has told writer that legal education in the phase of undergraduate should return to the theory. Because when they come to work, there is no time for thinking, the practical experience maybe can only be summarized in work. In fact, what have learned from practical course in college is useless, which will be easily forgotten. We benefit a lot from the simply theoretic course, which teach us how to thinking and analyzing, insisting on the principle of a legal person. So the curriculum in the phase of undergraduate should set up more courses on inspiring the wisdom of legal person, and cancel the so called practical courses. Learning the practical ability should be assigned to work and the colleges should take the responsibility to train the thought of law, shape the perspective of value. Only in this way can we seize a collect direction when we dealing with legal problems without misled. Therefore, it is beneficial for legal course return to theory and thought.
[6] Law of the People’s Republic of China on Lawyers article 8: A person who upholds the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China and meets the following conditions may apply to obtain a lawyer’s practice certificate: (1) possessing the qualification as a lawyer; (2) having had practice training at a law firm for a full year; and (3) being a person of good character and conduct.