Revista
de la
Universidad
del Zulia
Fundada en 1947
por el Dr. Jesús Enrique Lossada
DEPÓSITO LEGAL ZU2020000153
Esta publicación científica en formato digital
es continuidad de la revista impresa
ISSN 0041-8811
E-ISSN 2665-0428
Ciencias
Sociales
y Arte
Año 13 N° 38
Septiembre - Diciembre 2022
Tercera Época
Maracaibo-Venezuela
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Legal regulation of higher legal education: Foreign experience and
prospects in Ukraine
Vira Halunko*
Ivan Bohatyrov**
Oleh Shkuta***
Valeriia Bondar****
Dmytro Karbovskyi*****
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the research. The purpose of the article is to clarify the problems of higher
legal education in relation to transformational processes that require legal regulation. Main
content. It is determined that that it is the higher educational institution that is the main
subject of training a law professional capable of performing complex tasks of the
transformational stage of the state development. Methodology: Review of materials and
methods based on the analysis of the Ukrainian legislation regulating higher legal education.
Conclusions. Outlined are problems of higher legal education requiring application of better
foreign experience.
KEY WORDS: Higher legal education, higher education, foreign experience, education, Law,
jurisprudence.
* Professor, Doctor of Science in law, Professor at the Department of Professional and Special Disciplines of
Kherson Faculty, Odessa State University of Internal Affairs, Odessa, Ukraine. ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0563-0576. Email: vera.galunko.00@gmail.com
** Professor, Doctor of Science in law, Honored science and technology of Ukraine, Professor at the
Department of, Criminal Law and Administrative Law Disciplines of Academician Stepan Demianchuk
International University of Economics and Humanities, Rivne, Ukraine. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-
0003-4001-7256. Email: vanbogatyrov@gmail.com
*** Professor, Doctor of Science in law, Professor at the Department of Professional and Special Disciplines
of Kherson Faculty, Odessa State University of Internal Affairs, Odessa, Ukraine. ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0395-5710. E-mail: oleh_shkutа@ukr.net
**** Associate professor, Candidate of Science in law, Associate professor at the Department of
Administrative Law and Administrative Process, Lviv State University of Internal Affairs, Lviv, Ukraine.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3988-1568. E-mail: valeriai777@ukr.net
***** Candidate of Science in law, Associate professor at the Department of Professional and Special
Disciplines of Kherson Faculty, Odessa State University of Internal Affairs, Odessa, Ukraine. ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2576-6494. E-mail: karbovskyd@ukr.net
Recibido: 15/06/2022 Aceptado: 29/07/2022
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Regulación legal de la educación jurídica superior: Experiencia
extranjera y perspectivas en Ucrania
RESUMEN
El propósito de la investigación. El objeto del artículo es esclarecer la problemática de la
educación jurídica superior en relación con los procesos de transformación que requieren
regulación jurídica. Contenido principal. Se determina que es la institución de educación
superior el sujeto principal de formación de un profesional del Derecho capaz de desempeñar
tareas complejas de la etapa transformacional del desarrollo estatal. Metodología: Revisión
de materiales y métodos basados en el análisis de la legislación ucraniana que regula la
educación jurídica superior. Conclusiones. Se describen problemas de educación jurídica
superior que requieren la aplicación de una mejor experiencia extranjera.
PALABRAS CLAVE: Educación jurídica superior, educación superior, experiencia
extranjera, educación, derecho, jurisprudencia.
Introduction
In the current situation, it is extremely important to improve the system of higher
legal education in Ukraine, to define key short-term strategies concerning development of
the national legal framework and its harmonization with international standards and
recommendations in this sphere. An even more necessary point consists in implementation
of long-term strategies ensuring sustainable development and improvement of the higher
legal education system in Ukraine alongside with its recognition of it in the European and
world educational space.
Modernization of higher legal education in Ukraine requires overcoming a number of
problems, including the following most relevant ones: inconsistency of the structure of
specialist training with the real needs of the society, a decline in the quality of education,
detachment from applied scientific research in the field of law, slow pace of integration into
the European and world intellectual space.
Attempts to meet the level of development of scientific legal knowledge and the
emphasis on informative saturation while preserving traditional educational technologies
are embodied in problems of disciplinary overload of the content of higher legal education.
Given the processes of knowledge expansion, there is a continuous increase in the number
of educational disciplines, which should stimulate differentiation of educational space and
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disciplinary separation. But this is rather problematic, especially in conditions of time
limitation and it may also interfere with the formation of an integral approach in education.
The purpose of the article is to clarify the problems of higher legal education in relation
to transformational processes that require legal regulation.
1. Literature review
There are specific developmental problems of the higher education system in Ukraine
as a whole and these problems should be taken into account when analyzing the status of
legal education in particular. For example, scientists emphasize problems of economic and
social situation, deterioration of the demographic situation, which significantly affects the
recruitment of students to higher educational institutions in general and, as a result, it affects
training of qualified personnel directly for the legal sphere (Denysenko, 2010).
In particular, A. Denisenko notes that today we have two main directions of
demographic problem, which arise in higher education: the first one is related to the constant
increase in the age of highly qualified scientific and pedagogical personnel - candidates and
doctors of science; the second one is related to a decrease in the birth rate in Ukraine and
difficulties in recruiting students for studying. The problems of the first direction include a
reduction in the number of state-sponsored places in post graduate courses and an increase
in the volume of training on a commercial basis. There are also questions regarding
publication of scientific research results, because most publications today are paid and
royalty-free which sometimes becomes an obstacle on the scientific path of young talented
scientists. As a result there is a reduction in the quantitative and qualitative personnel of
scientific and pedagogical potential. Problems of the second direction are presented as
reduction of the number of pupils of final classes of schools, junior colleges and upper
secondary schools. According To A. Denisenko, the minimum number is expected in 2018-
2019 (Denysenko, 2010).
An urgent problem consists in changing the structure of the educational process
towards a decrease of classroom training and an increase of students’ independent training
and individual work. The essence, content and technologies of educational and methodical
support require significant adjustment. A student graduating from a higher educational
institution must possess relevant practical skills. Sources of students’ acquisition of practical
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skills consist in performance of individual tasks, involvement in cooperation with
organizations and enterprises during fulfillment of their orders. According To O.
Karpyshchenko, the latter source is more effective, since a person works with real tasks the
results of which will be in demand and used in the future. However, in both cases the
student’s work should be managed by their teacher, and the level and quality of training
depends on his/her professional skills. Unfortunately, some teachers are not fully familiar
with peculiarities of activities performed by specific organizations and enterprises as well as
with approaches used by employers for organization of their business and evaluation of the
efficiency of hired workers. Therefore, there is a problem of improving qualification of the
teaching staff precisely in the direction of gaining practical experience (Karpyshchenko,
2010).
As V. Zadoyany notes, the educational process of higher legal education in Ukraine is
built according to the established view of the role of a lawyer in the society; it is overloaded
with normative and theoretical training, weakly oriented to the practical training of
specialists. Curricula do not always take into account the non-legal spheres of a lawyer’s
activity, which constitute an important pragmatic component of the everyday activity of a
specialist in the sphere of law. The bottleneck is still possession of legal techniques, ability
to solve specific legal problems, ability to find alternative solutions, possession of
argumentation techniques, ability to work in a team, knowledge of Ukrainian business
language, foreign languages, applied computer programs, etc. (Zadoianyi, 2012).
2. Materials and methods
The research is based on the works of foreign and Ukrainian researchers, as well as on
the empirical material of national and international legal acts and juridical (forensic)
practice.
Comparative analysis and the dialectical method of cognition made it possible to
comprehensively investigate the legal regulation of higher legal education. With the help of
a synthetic method, peculiarities of the foreign experience of legal regulation of higher legal
education have been determined.
3. Results and discussion
In order to successfully implement such complex tasks it is expedient to study and
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borrow advanced foreign experience of training of legal personnel and to analyze the legal
basis of functioning of the legal education system in a number of developed countries.
Taking into account the European integration aspirations of Ukraine the experience
of European countries is primarily interesting.
Thus, in the Federal Republic of Germany, higher education is regulated by the federal
law of 2002 “On the Reform of Legal Education”, the Law of 2004 “On Continuing Education
and Higher Education”, the Law of 2004 “On Higher Education” and the Law of 1990 “On
Courts and Legal Services”. In accordance with these laws, the general meetings of the
association of lawyers (Bar Association) and the society of lawyers determine the
qualification requirements for access to the legal profession. The German system of lawyers’
training is currently focused on training in both forensic and broad legal protection
activities. This is partly due to the fact that only 5-10% of German graduates become judges,
while 80% become attorneys. Today, legal education in Germany is aimed at training a value-
oriented lawyer - a Eurolawyer (Minchenko, 2011). Special attention is paid to the quality of
training a lawyer as an “artificial product”. On average, more than 40 law faculties of the
Federal Republic of Germany employ approximately 900 professors and provide study for
2.5 to 7 thousand students. Graduates must pass two state exams and after that they become
lawyers. Training of lawyers in Germany is also carried out in law schools, but their
graduates cannot hold the positions of a judge, attorney and notary. In most cases, they work
as civil servants, lawyers in commercial and other structures (Proskurniak, 2016).
There are about 100 legal higher institutions in England. Annual enrollments of
students are approximately up to100 persons (Zakharov, 2014). This ensures the possibility
of using individual forms of working with students. For example, at a University in London
a teacher works on an individual plan with no more than ten students, and a teacher in
Oxford works with no more than three students. In the UK there is no unity regarding the
balance of theory and practice in curricula and programs. The dominant view is that legal
education is a kind of humanitarian education. The academic community is inclined to
consider the law as a theoretical discipline. Only after obtaining a basic academic degree in
the field of law, a student has an opportunity to perform practical tasks with the help of
relevant internship programs organized by the professional community. In addition, it
should be noted that quite a large number of university teachers are not certified lawyers and
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have quite limited experience of practical work. The most common specializations in English
universities are private law, public law, Roman law and Roman jurisprudence, history of
English law, English law, comparative jurisprudence, etc. In general, legal education in the
UK is divided into three stages. They include mastering the bachelor of law program,
mastering the educational and professional programs of professional training of lawyers and
legal practical training. Acquired knowledge, skills and abilities are reinforced by
completing an internship (usually one year) (Proskurniak, 2016).
In the USA, future lawyers are educated in law schools that appeared in the first half
of the 19th century. Today, there are about 200 schools of the kind. Higher legal education in
the USA is characterized by narrow specialization and practical direction of training. The
content of legal education is determined by law schools, American Bar Association, and large
law companies. The main competencies include: problem solving, legal analysis and
justification, studying legal literature and documents; fact-finding, communication,
consulting, negotiation, knowledge of procedures related to lawsuits and alternative dispute
resolution methods; organization and management in the sphere of legal activity,
identification and resolution of ethical problems. The main task of American law schools
consists in is preparation for gaining access to the professional community and successful
legal activity. In this regard, studying programs of various law schools are aimed at the
requirements of the lawyer’s examination. Therefore, there are no fundamental differences
between them, despite the absence of a single curriculum (Ishchenko, 2014).
It is worth noting that in the USA a graduate of a legal higher institution receives a
license for law practice.
It is very important to include non-legal subjects in the curricula. In many countries,
discussions are under way about the scope of including elements of non-legal sciences in
legal education. The structure of legal education also varies: duration of study, its division
into cycles, courses, semesters and trimesters. It is characteristic that there is no desire for
complete unification, but only an attempt to bring different structural models closer
together. Such a multivariate approach allows us to say that the procedure of borrowing
foreign experience in the sphere of training of legal personnel at Ukrainian higher
institutions does not require an absolute rejection of existing national traditions, but can be
used as separate additions and improvements to the current system (Leheza ect, 2018).
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Procedure of improving quality of legal education is related to its orientation to the
demand of the most dynamic branches of the economic complex, social and cultural spheres
of society’s life as well as to formation of innovative forms and levels of legal education,
training of legal specialists based on the correction of the content and nature of legal
education, orientation to the needs of social development. Legal profession covers a wide
range of socio-economic activities, and therefore training of lawyers at higher educational
institutions should be maximally oriented to the realization of everyday socio-political,
economic, and legal needs (Leheza ect, 2021).
The outdated format of legal education preserves the tradition of teaching legal
disciplines in a form that is directed exclusively to retelling current regulatory legal acts. In
my opinion, it is necessary to change the general paradigm of the content of higher legal
education by means of directing it to development of student’s mental abilities and critical
thinking of the student who must be taught to apply knowledge (Leheza ect, 2020).
Taking into account the multifaceted nature of this problem, the main basis for
development of scientific and methodological work consists in teaching of the methodology
of legal activity. This factor is significant, because the law school aims to prepare students
for solving both current and predicted legal problems. A separate issue of this problem is
strengthening of practical orientation of the educational process, teaching students the
means of legal activity (Leheza ect, 2021).
Regarding directions of modernization of the educational process, the guidelines
should be as follows: balancing the ratio of general legal disciplines and legal casuistry, as
well as volumes and forms of the educational process. The ratio should change in the
direction of increasing hours for practical classes depending on the year of study; active
encouragement of students’ independent work on the analysis of legal acts, judicial and
administrative practice, special literature, further discussion of identified problems under
guidance of the teacher and appropriate “crediting” in the modular system of education;
introduction of courses of simulated (game) court hearings, administrative and legal
procedures with participation of practicing lawyers; forming foundations of students’
professional activity, developing and writing legal documents, learning the ethics of
representing interests of citizens and companies in courts and other government
institutions; introduction of new forms and methods in the study of such disciplines as: legal
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business writing, legal conflictology, legal technique, etc. (Zadoianyi, 2012).
The issue concerning moral and ethical climate in the professional training of young
people is important. The mechanism for continuously updating the content of legal
education in accordance with the modern needs of the Ukrainian society is imperfect. In the
curricula of higher educational institutions do not have enough disciplines, which in their
content would be oriented towards formation of morality and political culture of future
lawyers, and especially their ability to navigate complex socio-political situations in the
state and the world as a whole. Unfortunately, the sharp reduction in the volume of non-
legal disciplines in the curricula of lawyers in recent years does not contribute to solution of
such tasks (Leheza ect, 2021).
The main tasks of high-quality legal education in a democratic society include the
following: diversification of specializations of legal profession graduates and periodic
renewal of such specialization depending on the needs of the socio-economic activity of the
society; optimization of the system of training specialists for law enforcement agencies;
establishment of unified requirements as for the content of higher legal education; increasing
the number of practically oriented educational disciplines aimed at development of
individual professional qualities of students; involvement of domestic and foreign specialists
in the field of law in the educational process; application of proven world methods
(Roskopina, 2012).
Taking into account the needs of integration of the system of higher education of
Ukraine in the European space, higher institutions are given the right to organize teaching
of disciplines in foreign languages in order to create conditions for international academic
mobility.
Conclusions
Therefore, prospective development of the legal education system involves bringing it
into line with global requirements while maintaining national traditions. Training of legal
professionals should take into account the established general standards of the legal
profession and its modern specificity. Modernization of higher legal education leads to
development of fundamentally new theoretical, methodological and organizational
principles concerning improvement of the higher legal education system. Transformation of
higher legal education should take place in a systematic, comprehensive and parallel way
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with the reform of the entire system of education in Ukraine.
When improving legislation on the legal sphere and, accordingly, legal education,
representatives of the legal community, professional associations, teaching staff, researchers,
graduate students, students, practicing lawyers and employers should be involved in the
discussion of the development models of this system. The process of preparing such
legislative acts should be accompanied by extensive information support and constant
monitoring of changes in the system of higher legal education. Unacceptable is the situation
when development of legislative acts intended to stimulate educational reforms is secret and
unofficial. This applies, for example, to the draft law of Ukraine “On Legal (Law) Education
and General Access to the Legal Profession”; the content of this draft law was critically
evaluated by the legal community. Such documents will not have the proper quality and thus
they will not contribute to the improvement of the legal personnel training system if creation
of a modern fundamental legal framework is not an open and transparent process, and the
content does not meet public needs. Only a balanced approach guarantees success of reforms,
opens up new prospects for development of the legal personnel training system.
After all, the tasks performed by legal higher educational institutions have a high level
of complexity, which requires the scientific and pedagogical staff to have an appropriate
competence and an ability to apply active and interactive techniques and methods of
teaching law, which are based on innovative approaches. I would like to emphasize that
despite the rather difficult working conditions for teachers and scientists of Ukraine, they
not only represent the elite of our society and ensure promising development of the
Ukrainian nation and our state, but also form the elite of the future, and therefore they need
support and proper evaluation on the part of the state and authorities, as well as on the part
of the society.
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