Monday, July 24, 2017

Richard Wu's Study of Ethical Values of Law Students in Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong (J Comp Law)

"A Comparative and Empirical Study of Ethical Values of Law Students in Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong: Implications for Legal Education and Law Schools in Mainland China"
April 2017, Volume 11, Issue 2, pp 258-282 
Abstract: This article investigates empirically the ethical values of law students in the Greater China Region in their final two years of legal education by surveying 1,027 students in Hong Kong, Beijing and Taipei. It first compares the demographics of law students in these three Chinese cities before examining their responses to different ethical dilemmas. Our data revealed a feminization of legal education in that women are dominating the law student population in Mainland China. It also appears that a new generation of lawyers emerging in Mainland China who attach more importance to the value of 'work-life balance'. On balance of the findings, this article argues that Chinese law schools should cultivate virtues like honesty, perspectives and fairness among their students to help them encounter ethical dilemmas. They should also nurture professionalism among law students in their 'ethics of duties', 'ethics of aspirations', and 'personal conscience'. Finally our data did not reveal any negative impact of law school experience on the ethical values of law students in Mainland China, which findings contradict the argument that legal education has diminished law students' values as suggested in some existing literature. 

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