UiTM Faculty of Law

In 1978, the LL.B (Hons) University of London programme was discontinued and replaced by the Diploma in Law (DIL) programme. The DIL programme is equivalent to the LL.B programme offered in British Universities. It is a three-year academic programme based on the structure of British Universities undergraduate law programmes. Unlike most of the British programmes however, the DIL programme at the faculty is conducted on a semester system.

Soon after, the faculty had renamed its programmes and DIL was renamed as the LL.B (general law degree). The LL.B programme, however, was postgraduate programmes (PhD and LL.M. programmes). replaced with the Bachelor of Legal Studies (Hons) or BLS (Hons), which was introduced in 2002.

International Law lecture conducted at Auditorium

In 1982, the Faculty introduced a one-year Advanced Diploma in Law (ADIL) programme for graduates of the DIL programme. The ADIL programme is equivalent to a LL.B (Hons) degree and recognised for legal practice. It is a simulatory programme designed to provide professional training for students in preparation for their career in the legal practice as Advocates and Solicitors. ADIL then became the LL.B (Hons). This LL.B (Hons) programme is unique in which it was designed after the Inns of Court in England. The students are put in a simulated legal office environment in which they are designated in firms and given case studies.[1]

The BLS (Hons) programme was discontinued by the Faculty in the recent years. Currently, the Faculty is only offering the four-years LL.B (Hons) programme for undergraduate while still maintaining the Final-year as the professional training-course. Graduates of this programme are eligible to practice as Deputy Public Prosecutors, Federal Counsels, Parliamentary Draftsmen in the Attorney General's Chambers (AGC), or Judicial Legal Services (JLS) as Magistrates, Arbitrators and also be admitted as Advocates and Solicitors.

Early in March 2011, the Attorney-General announced that the Legal Qualifying Board was considering implementing the Common Bar Course (CBC). Court of Appeal judge Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail is chairing a working group to study its implementation. The CBC would be a 20-month course that would also focus on vocational skills. The CBC model combines the modern legal education approaches in other Commonwealth countries as well as local requirements. There will be modules not commonly seen in other courses to meet specific needs among local graduates, such as the Legal Language and Communication Skills to address the poor command of English and the Practice Management Skills to expose lawyers intending to start their own firm on risk management. Of the five semesters, the first three are full-time studies while the final two are part-time, where students will be pupils at law firms concurrently. It will also feature a Student Law Office programme where the "students-at-law" will get to practice what they have learned in a simulated legal environment, which has been successfully carried out in UiTM Faculty of Law.[2]