"MANILA, Philippines — Chief Justice Renato C. Corona said Friday the country’s law schools should upgrade their curricula by adopting clinical courses, instead of mere theoretical study of core subjects, to keep in step with globalized legal education.
Present realities, he said, “should make law school curricula go beyond theoretical study and delve more into a practical or working knowledge of the law.”
“Law schools ought to infuse more law-related courses into their programs and should not confine themselves to traditional core subjects like civil law, constitutional law and labor law, a situation geared more to ‘passing the bar’ than ‘becoming a lawyer,’” he also said.
He pointed out that law schools must start offering clinical subjects like intellectual property, information technology, securities regulation, international economics, mergers and acquisitions, environmental law, public interest lawyering, and even human rights “if they are to keep in step with the times.”
