Introduction to Department of Law
In July, 2016, the School of Law was newly formed by merging the former Law School of Shanghai Lixin Accounting College and the former School of Law of Shanghai Finance University. The School of Law has three programs [Law (Financial Law Direction), Law (Economic Law Direction) and Social Work] and many research and practice institutions, such as the Financial Law and Policy Research Center, the International Tax Law Research Center and the Legal Clinic.
There are 54 faculty members, including 10 administrative counselors and 44 full-time teachers. There are 3 specially appointed professors at home and abroad, more than 10 visiting professors and more than 20 part-time teachers from practical departments. Among the full-time teachers, 81.4% have a doctoral or higher degree, 53.8% have overseas study experience for more than one year, and 74.4% are double-professionally-titled teachers. The School of Law now has about 800 high-quality students, as the admission scores were generally a few dozen points higher than local minimum passing scores; with good performance in various competitions, the students have won the second and third prizes in the English Moot Court Competitions of the International Criminal Court, the third and first prizes in the Chinese Moot Court Competitions of the International Criminal Court, the Best Defense Pleadings Award, the Special Honor Award, the champion of Shanghai Small Town Cup Public Interest Creative Litigation Competition and the third prize of Shanghai Moot Court Competition. The passing rate of the division examination is relatively high, with 43 applicants (above 60%) passing in 2018. Many students have been admitted to domestic and foreign graduate programs, and half of them are enrolled by overseas universities. Besides, the School enjoys a high graduate employment rate, which is about 20 percentage points higher than the national average of law majors.
In the aspect of student training, the School is characterized by the cultivation of compound, application-oriented and high-quality financial and legal talents with international visions. One of the characteristics is to train financial and economic legal inter-disciplinary talents, with the Economic Law program for compound talents who are familiar with law and understand accounting, the Financial Law program for compound talents who are familiar with law and understand finance, and the Social Work program for talents who are knowledgeable in social work and understand law. In addition to completing the core courses of corresponding programs, the students should also systematically study the core courses of accounting and finance programs, and carry out the practice of compound programs. The training of applied financial and legal talents is the second characteristic. Adhering to SLU’s tradition of integrity and the equal emphasis on learning and research, the programs of the School emphasize the training of applied talents. The practical experimental courses account for a high proportion in the teaching plans. In particular, the School have trained and introduced a high proportion of double-professionally-titled teachers, employed more practical practitioners as part-time teachers, and provided trial practice courses and lawyer practice courses by front-line judges and lawyers.
Organizing personnel to compile characteristic case textbooks, developing and constructing a large number of practice bases, cooperating closely with the bases for personnel training, and constructing practice bases with China (Shanghai) Free Trade Zone Court can be regarded as a replicable and popularizable training model for applied talents. Case analysis competitions are held regularly; students are often organized to participate in moot court competitions and subject competitions at home and abroad; and moot court invitational competitions are held regularly by using in-campus laboratories. Internationalized financial and legal personnel training is one of the three characteristics. The School of Law has carried out cooperation and exchanges with many overseas universities, regularly organized teachers and students to participate in overseas study tours, and carried out student and teacher exchanges with overseas universities. Famous overseas teachers are invited to give lectures at the School. Students are regularly organized to participate in overseas discipline competitions and moot court competitions. Overseas colleges and universities are invited to offer lectures and recruit students for postgraduate studies. Specifically one of the Ivy League schools once admitted four students of our School and gave them full scholarships. The Summer Program of International Financial Law and Master’s Program of Transnational Commercial Law launched in the cooperation with the China-US Foundation for Legal and Cultural Exchange and the China-EU Foundation for Legal and Cultural Exchange is becoming an important platform for training senior talents in international financial law.
Under the context of constructing Shanghai into the five centers (an international economic center, an international financial center, an international financial trade center, an international shipping center, and an international S & T innovation center), constructing China (Shanghai) Free Trade Pilot Zone, and implementing the national strategy of the Belt and Road, all kinds of financial, economic, fiscal and trade activities are becoming in an increasingly frequent and profound way; legal affairs involving different fields are constantly emerging; and various forms of enterprises, financial institutions, law firms, accounting firms and international organizations have the most urgent demands for high-end legal practice talents (especially those with knowledge and skills in accounting, finance, international trade and taxation). It has increasingly become an urgent task in the field of legal services in Shanghai to train high-end legal professionals with international vision, solid legal skills, financial knowledge and the ability to understand law and finance, as the talents equipped with knowledge of law, accounting, finance, taxation and foreign languages as well as the international operation practices of financial services are scarce. By virtue of the granted honor of a highland university, the School will seize the opportunities of the era and build itself into a high-level application-oriented School with distinctive characteristics.
