NUS Faculty of Law

The National University of Singapore Faculty of Law (NUS Law) is Singapore's oldest and largest law school. The faculty was initially established as a Department of Law in the then University of Malaya in 1956, with its first batch of students matriculating the following year. It was Singapore's only law school for half a century, until the establishment of the SMU School of Law in 2007 and subsequently SUSS School of Law in 2017. The current dean is Simon Chesterman.[1]

National University of Singapore Faculty of Law
MottoAsia's Global Law School
Established1956
School typeNational university
DeanSimon Chesterman
LocationSingapore, Singapore
Enrollment1200
Faculty72
Websitehttp://law.nus.edu.sg

History
The Eu Tong Sen building and Block "B"
The slope for cars to drive up to the Bukit Timah campus. Pictured is part of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. The law school offers, among others, a concurrent degree in Law & Public Policy.
View of the law school
Inside Block "B": the corridors of the law school
NUS won the Jessup Cup four times between 1973 and 2001.
NUS Bukit Timah Law Faculty Campus from the air. 2015.

Lionel Astor Sheridan, then a law teacher in the United Kingdom, was appointed the first Head of the Law Department of the University of Malaya in July 1956. The department attained faculty status in 1959 and Sheridan was appointed its first dean, while the pioneer batch of 22 law students, featuring the likes of Chan Sek Keong and Tommy Koh, graduated on 10 July 1961.[2]

In its formative years, alumni were frequently called upon to provide leadership and expertise to the law school as it slowly expanded. Grants were also secured to increase the number of books in the law library, and students were sent to international mooting competitions as part of the legal education.[2] By the early 1990s, student exchange programmes with leading schools were established as well.[2] Over the years, with the help of grants, donations, and support from its alumni in both teaching and leadership positions, the law faculty grew from strength to strength, and is today recognised as a respected institution for providing quality legal education.[3]

The Faculty of Law is now staffed by a permanent faculty of around 80 with law degrees from more than a dozen jurisdictions.[4]

Deans

S/NNameTerm of office
1.Lionel Astor Sheridan1956–1962
2.Chua Boon Lan1962–1963
3.Harry E. Groves1963–1964
4.Leslie C. Green1964–1965
5.James Louis Montrose1965–1966
6.Geoffrey W. Bartholomew1966–1968
7.Thio Su Mien1968–1971
8.Tommy Koh1971–1974
9.S. Jayakumar1974–1980
10.Tan Sook Yee1980–1987
11.Tan Lee Meng1987–1992
12.Chin Tet Yung1992–2001
13.Tan Cheng Han2001–2011
14.Simon Chesterman2012–

Programmes

Degrees offered

Undergraduate students in the four-year LL.B. programme are required to take compulsory subjects such as contract law and tort law in the first two years, and are allowed to take up to 18 elective subjects in the final two years. Law electives include subjects on Asian legal studies and comparative law, commercial law, intellectual property and technology, maritime law, public and private international law, legal skills, and law & society. Students can also take non-law subjects for their electives, such as finance, accounting, international relations, foreign policy, and languages such as Korean, Japanese, French and German. As part of their LL.B., students can choose to take up a minor in another course of study such as economics, management, philosophy, and political science.

Apart from the traditional LL.B., the law school also offers double honours degrees in business administration & law, economics & law, law & life sciences,and a concurrent degree programme in law & public policy. Since 2013, it has also offered a double degree in partnership with the Yale-NUS College.[5]

Students who have a prior degree from another discipline may qualify for the Graduate LL.B. Programme, and will obtain their LL.B. in three years instead of four.[6]

For graduate students, the law school offers seven coursework LL.M. programmes and a research Ph.D. programme.[7] The coursework LL.M. programmes start in August and are completed the following May. Students enrolled in the International Business Law LL.M. spend a semester in Singapore before heading to Shanghai to study on the campus of East China University of Political Science and Law.[8]

Combined LL.B. and LL.M.

Building on its many exchange programmes, NUS Law enables selected students to combine completion of their LL.B. with an LL.M. from a partner institution in just four years. This is presently possible with New York University, Boston University, Erasmus University, King's College London, University of Melbourne, and University of Toronto.[9]

Exchange programme

The student exchange programme was initiated in the early 1990s. NUS Law now has an extensive exchange programme with dozens of law schools all over the world.[10]

Students usually go on the exchange programme in their third year of studies in the 4-year LL.B. Students on the exchange programme pay only tuition fees at the NUS Law rate, thus avoiding paying the often higher fees of the host institutions.[11]

Fellowships

NUS Law has also concluded agreements with the International Court of Justice, the World Bank, and the Permanent Court of Arbitration to offer fellowships for graduates to work at each institution. Students selected for the fellowship will work at the ICJ in The Hague, Netherlands, and the World Bank, United States.[12]

International rankings and graduate employment

NUS Law is ranked the top law school in Asia and among the top fifteen law schools in the world by both the QS World University Rankings by Subject and the Times Higher Education Rankings by Subject. It was ranked 12th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject in 2020 and 15th by the Times Higher Education Rankings by Subject in 2020.[13][14]

Based on a 2018 survey of NUS graduates, NUS law graduates had a full-time permanent employment rate of 92.6% and a mean gross monthly salary of S$5,263.[15]

Moot court competitions

NUS Law has won moot court competitions such as the Philip C. Jessup Cup, the Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot,[16] the Oxford International Intellectual Property Mooting Competition,[17] the International Maritime Law Arbitration Moot Competition,[18] the Asia Cup International Law Moot Competition,[19] the ICRC IHL Moot, and the Manfred Lachs space law Moot Competition.[20]

Research and publications

NUS Law publishes one of Singapore's leading scholarly publication on law and one of the oldest law journals in the Commonwealth, the Singapore Journal of Legal Studies.[21] It also produces the Asian Journal of International Law (which is published by Cambridge University Press and succeeds the Singapore Year Book of International Law),[22] and the Asian Journal of Comparative Law (also published by Cambridge University Press).[23] Additionally, the Singapore Law Review,[24] which is Asia's oldest student-run legal publication, is managed exclusively by the students of NUS Law.

Institutes and centres
Institute/CentreEstablishedDirector
Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law (APCEL)1996Jolene Lin
Centre for International Law (CIL)2009Nilufer Oral
Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS)2012Jaclyn Neo
EW Barker Centre for Law & Business (EWBCLB)2013Hans Tjio
Centre for Banking & Finance Law (CBFL)2014Dora Neo & Sandra Booysen
Centre for Legal Theory (CLT)2015Andrew Halpin & Andrew Simester
Centre for Maritime Law (CML)2015Stephen Girvin
Centre for Pro Bono & Clinical Education (PBCLE)2017Eleanor Wong
Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law (TRAIL)2019Daniel Seng

There is also a legal theory group at NUS Law known as "Jurisprudence@NUS", which organises the Singapore Symposium in Legal Theory. Notable past speakers include Joseph Raz.[25]

NUS Law also serves as the Secretariat for the Asian Law Institute, which was established in 2003, and the Asian Society of International Law (AsianSIL), of which Dean Simon Chesterman is Secretary-General.[26]

Admissions

The grade profile of the 10th percentile of 'A'-Level applicants offered places in its LL.B. programme in 2010 was AAA/A.[27] Other than obtaining good grades, applicants are required to sit for a selection test and attend a formal interview to assess their suitability for the study of law.[28]

Admissions for postgraduate studies generally require a good bachelor's degree in law.[29]

Assessments and examinations

Students are assessed in a variety of methods, including final examinations at the end of the semester (both closed- and open-book), research papers, assignments and class participation.

The top 10% of students in each academic year are placed on the Dean's List. The top 10% of the graduating cohort, taking into account performance over 4 years in the LL.B. programme, is placed on the Overall Final Year Dean’s List.[30]

A student's class of honours for the Bachelor of Laws degree is determined by taking into account the results obtained in all subjects that the student has taken over the course of study.

Prior to Academic Year 2015/2016, only students who graduated in the top 5% of their class and obtained at least 40% As were awarded First Class Honours.[31] Students who graduate in the top 55% of their class, and who do not qualify for First Class Honours, are awarded Second Class (Upper Division) Honours.[32]

From Academic Year 2015/2016 onwards, the school announced that the top 10% of each graduating class will receive First Class Honours. More students - between 65% to 68% of each cohort - will also be awarded the Second Class (Upper Division) Honours degree.[33][34][35]

Notable alumni
  • Andrew Ang – Supreme Court Judge
  • Andrew Phang – Senior Counsel and Judge of Appeal
  • Chan Sek Keong – Senior Counsel and former Attorney-General and former Chief Justice
  • Steven Chong – Senior Counsel and Judge of Appeal; former Managing Partner of Rajah & Tann and former Attorney-General
  • Ho Peng Kee – former Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Law and Ministry of Home Affairs
  • Hri Kumar – Senior Counsel and Deputy Attorney-General; former Member of Parliament for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC
  • S. Jayakumar – former Senior Minister, Prime Minister's Office and former Dean[2]
  • Kan Ting Chiu – Supreme Court Judge
  • Karpal Singh – Prominent Malaysian lawyer and Member of the Malaysian Parliament
  • Tommy Koh – Ambassador-At-Large for Singapore and former Dean[2]
  • Lai Siu Chiu – Supreme Court Judge
  • Lim Swee Lian Sylvia – Chairman of the Workers' Party of Singapore
  • Sundaresh Menon – Senior Counsel and Chief Justice of Singapore; former Attorney-General
  • Ong Keng Yong – Director, Institute of Policy Studies and former Secretary-General of ASEAN
  • Judith Prakash – Judge of Appeal
  • Indranee Rajah – Senior Counsel and Minister in Prime Minister's Office
  • V K Rajah – Senior Counsel and former Judge of Appeal and former Attorney-General
  • K Shanmugam – Senior Counsel and Minister for Law and Minister for Home Affairs
  • Sin Boon Ann – former Member of Parliament for Tampines GRC
  • Davinder Singh – Senior Counsel and former CEO of Drew & Napier
  • Tan Cheng Han – Senior Counsel and former Dean
  • Tan Lee Meng – Supreme Court Judge and former Dean[2]
  • Min-Liang Tan – co-founder, CEO and Creative Director of Razer Inc
  • Eleanor Wong – playwright and current director of legal writing at the faculty
  • Woo Bih Li – Senior Counsel and Supreme Court Judge
  • Professor Walter Woon – Senior Counsel and former Attorney-General
  • Halimah Yacob – President of Singapore

References
  1. Archived February 9, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  2. "NUS - Faculty of Law : Asia's Global Law School | History & Milestones". Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  3. Priyia Paramajothi, "Asia boom sparks demand for S'pore lawyers" Archived 2007-02-11 at the Wayback Machine, Today, 15 January 2007.
  4. "NUS - Faculty of Law : Asia's Global Law School | Academic Profiles". Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  5. "NUS - Faculty of Law : Asia's Global Law School". Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  6. "NUS - Faculty of Law : Asia's Global Law School". Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  7. "Graduate Programmes". National University of Singapore. Retrieved 2014-04-23.
  8. "Course Programmes: Master of Laws (International Business Law)". National University of Singapore. Retrieved 2014-04-23.
  9. "NUS - Faculty of Law : Asia's Global Law School". Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  10. "NUS - Faculty of Law : Asia's Global Law School". Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  11. "NUS - Faculty of Law : Asia's Global Law School". Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  13. "National University of Singapore". Times Higher Education (THE). 2020-02-04. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  14. "National University of Singapore (NUS)". Top Universities. 2015-07-16. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  15. "Ministry of Education Graduate Employment Survey 2018 - NUS" (PDF). Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  16. "Ninth Annual Willem C". Cisg.law.pace.edu. 2002-06-05. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  17. Archived December 19, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  18. Archived November 2, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  19. Archived May 23, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  20. Archived August 19, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  21. "Faculty of Law, NUS - Singapore Journal of Legal Studies". Law.nus.edu.sg. 2015-03-18. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  22. SYBIL (2008) Archived 2011-09-28 at the Wayback Machine, preface.
  23. "Cambridge University Press - Asian Journal of Comparative Law". Retrieved 2020-03-30.
  24. "Home". The Singapore Law Review. Retrieved 2017-04-08.
  25. Archived October 12, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  26. "Governing Bodies". Asiansil.org. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  27. "Office of Admissions : Indicative Grade Profile (IGP)". NUS. 2015-08-03. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  28. "NUS - Faculty of Law : Asia's Global Law School". Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  29. "NUS - Faculty of Law : Asia's Global Law School". Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  30. "NUS - Faculty of Law : Asia's Global Law School". Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  31. "Regulations on Class of Honours" (PDF). Law.nus.edu.sg. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  32. "NUS Law Grading and Class of Honours". NUS Faculty of Law. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  33. "NUS Law School to give out more first class honours to reflect rising quality of students". The Straits Times. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
  34. "NUS Law School to give out more first class honours". Singapore Law Watch. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
  35. "NUS Law School to award more 1st class honours". AsiaOne. MyPaper. Retrieved 8 March 2016.

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