I feel that our legal education should produce different types of lawyers. This calls for specialization and cultivation of substantive and practical legal skills in various areas of law. Pakistan needs experts in mediation, arbitration, health, environment, natural resources, joint ventures, project finance etc. Globalization requires deepening comparative curricula. Students might better understand domestic law and indigenous values, and appreciate international differences through a deepened, pervasive approach to traditional courses.
Given the need to train lawyers to confront transnational challenges and local demands, our legal education must deal with crucial policy issues, structural problems in the legal profession, and the legal profession’s relationship with the legal training institutions. Law colleges and the legal profession should not isolate themselves. Presently, Pakistan lacks a broad-based approach. It is imperative for legal training institutions, the legal profession, and policymakers to collaborate and abolish the old inherited system and create a better curriculum to meet the demands of the present global order, and reform our legal education so that it can adequately meet Pakistan’s development needs.
HASHIM ABRO, Islamabad, June 25.