Continuing legal education in Germany – Digitalization

• Main Author: HARTUNG, Dirk
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2023
• Subjects: Legal Education
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/4533; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sol_research/article/6491/viewcontent/Continuing_Legal_Education.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Let me begin with a brief introduction to my home institution: Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany. The school is named after Dr. Gerd Bucerius, a famous German publisher, politician and lawyer by training. Bucerius Law School, founded in 2000, is a private institution, which is atypical in Germany, where most of higher education institutions are publicly funded. In addition, Bucerius is rather small. We educate about 120 people per year and a total of 400-500 LL.B. students on our campus at any point in time. In addition, we offer a Master of Law and Business Program with 30 to 50 participants per year. Our master is a professional degree. It requires prior working experience and participants typically have one to two years of professional experience. Students can obtain either an LL.M. or an MLB, which is a Master of Law and Business. It targets professionals working at the intersection of law and business. We attract students from all over the world with Eastern Europe and South and Latin America often accounting for meaningful parts of the student population. While our LL.B. primarily targets Germany, our Master Program is also designed to add an international spirit to our campus. Bucerius Education GmbH is our for-profit subsidiary specializing in event management and continuing education. Compared to the wider landscape of higher education in Germany, Bucerius is atypically young (23), atypically organized (private) and atypically entrepreneurial as our core value is Mut (bravery). This is great for innovative topics and good for me personally, as it provides space for researchers like me with a somewhat atypical perspective on legal research and legal education.