Law school
A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction.
In Brazil the legal education begins between 1827/28 in Olinda/PE and São Paulo/SP where the first Schools of Law were established by the new Empire using as educational model the Coimbra Faculty of Law.
Nowadays the legal education consists in a 5-year-long course in which, afterwards, the scholar is granted a bachelor´s degree.
Therefore, it is considered part of the higher education, hence the educational system is regulated as: i) basic education - primary, middle anda high school; and ii) higher education: licentiate, bachelor and vocational ed.
The practice of law is conditioned upon admission to the bar of a particular state or other territorial jurisdiction (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil - OAB ).
Public attorneys, public prossecutors and magistrates (judges) admission is made, mainly, through an entrance examination and a constitutional mandatory three years of legal experience. Starting from the second degree courts it is mandatory a 1/5 of its composition to be fulfilled with members of the lawyers/attorneys/barristers association and also from federal/state/labour processcutors (ministério público) regarding the court jurisdiction (it is not applied for electoral and military courts).
After achieving the bachelor´s degree of laws it is possible to follow an i) specialization or follow ii) academically (or both), in either case it is called postgraduation: i) lato sensu; or ii) stricto sensu; respectively.
The postgraduation, stricto sensu, consists in a: a) master´s degree, which is usually a two-year degree; and a b) doctorate´s degree, which can take up another four years.
The oldest civil law faculty in Canada offering law degrees was established in 1848 at McGill University in Montreal, and the oldest common law faculty in Canada offering law degrees was established in 1883 at Dalhousie University in Halifax. The typical law degree required to practice law in Canada is now the Juris Doctor, which requires previous university coursework and is similar to the first law degree in the United States. There is some scholarly content in the coursework (such as an academic research paper required in most schools). The programs consist of three years, and have similar content in their mandatory first year courses. Beyond first year and the minimum requirements for graduation, course selection is elective with various concentrations such as business law, international law, natural resources law, criminal law, Aboriginal law, etc. Some schools, however, have not switched from LL.B. to the J.D. – one notable university that still awards the LL.B is McGill University.
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