As at 5 Aug 2011, the Ad Hoc Committee on the Common Bar Course has met six times since the start of the new term. Bar Council (“BC”) set up the Committee in 2008 to draft the Common Bar Course (“CBC”) syllabus and course content. The Committee completed its work and its proposals are now being considered by the Legal Profession Qualifying Board (“LPQB”).
This term, the Committee’s activities are:
(1) Conference on Legal Education: Qualifying for the Bar – Standards Across the Jurisdictions
The Conference took place on 29 and 30 July 2011 at Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus.
The professional training of law graduates in Malaysia has reached a crossroad with multiple entry routes into the legal profession requiring different standards of entry. BC has, since 1990, proposed a convergence of these routes into a CBC. There is yet no consensus on how to move ahead with the proposed reforms.
This Conference was designed to create a forum to provoke and challenge the status quo. It was meant for those who are interested in charting a new direction in the training of law graduates for legal practice. Experts from other Commonwealth jurisdictions shared their experiences in reforms and advised participants on the way forward. There were working group discussions of legal firms, public law schools and private law schools on the first day of the Conference. On 30 July 2011, representatives from each working group presented their discussions.
(2) Reviewing the Proposed Common Bar Course Modules
On 17 June 2011, the Committee submitted, to the LPQB, a list of the basics in terms of the provisions for Criminal Procedure, Civil Procedure, Evidence, Conveyancing Practice and Corporate and Commercial modules. The Committee is targeting that the syllabus incorporates what a lawyer should know in his/her first two years of practice.
Steven Thiru
Chairperson
Ad Hoc Committee on the Common Bar Course
Dated 4 Aug 2011
(1) Steven Thiru (Chairperson)
Members:
(2) Allen Miranda
(3) Daniel S Abishegam
(4) Assoc Prof Dr Faridah Jalil
(5) GK Ganesan
(6) Hendon Mohamed
(7) Honey Tan
(8) Jayaram Sankaran
(9) Jerald Allen Gomez
(10) Ken St James
(11) Mariette Peters
(12) Murad Ali Abdullah
(13) Nik Norzrul Thani
(14) P Vasantha
(15) Assoc Prof Dr R M Fernandez–Chung
(16) Adjunct Prof R Rajeswaran
(17) Raja Kumar Raja Kandan
(18) Raphael Tay Choon Tien
(19) Dr Sujatha Balan
(20) Sulaiman Abdullah
(21) Tejindarpal Kaur
(22) Yasmeen Shariff
Officer–in–charge: Sumitra Penesar (until July 2011); Marianna Laureen Tan (from August 2011)