LDC adopts new curriculum

The Law Development Centre (LDC) has adopted a new Bar course curriculum, which will now be administered starting with the newly admitted cohort of academic year 2023/2024.

The head of the Bar Course, Ms Annette Mutabingwa, explained that the new curriculum will be “skill-oriented” with less of theory. She further said the new curriculum focuses on ethics and professional conduct.

“The new Bar Course curriculum focuses on skill impartation and less on theories. You must have skills as well as knowledge that is relevant to the legal profession. We are also emphasising ethics and professional conduct,” Ms Mutabingwa said during orientation of the newly admitted students at their institution in Kampala last week.

The new curriculum has since seen several course units undertaken by the students in the preceding cohorts dropped.

The dropped subjects are majorly electives, including taxation, accounting, management, and research proposal. These have been replaced with subjects that foster practical legal skills. These include trial advocacy, legal ethics and professionalism, a firm project that is executed by a group, and alternative dispute resolution.

Mr Frank Nigel Othembi, the director of LDC, told this publication in a phone interview last week that the old curriculum was adopted in 2015. He further explained that the practice has been that the review of the curriculum is done after every three to five years.

“LDC, with approval of the Law Council, has adopted a modern simplified curriculum. It is focused on practical legal practice skills instead of knowledge (that is taught at universities),” he said.

He said the new curriculum reduces the workload on students and is optimistic that it will greatly benefit them.

The institution has been conducting orientation of its newly admitted students, who qualified from 12 accredited law schools in the country, as published in the Bar Course provisional admission list for this academic year.

Mr Othembi cautioned students that the Bar Course requires utmost commitment and dedication.

“We have discussed mental health with the students during the induction. The Bar Course is a demanding full-time programme and a student has to balance their work and family affairs accordingly,” he said.

Under the new curriculum, Mr Othembi said the students have been cautioned on the dress code, which demands that they only dress in black suits, which, he said, represents the discipline and values of the institution.

LDC has branches in Kampala, Mbarara, and Lira.

It is the only institution in the country that provides for the postgraduate diploma in legal practice and without it, no lawyer can represent a litigant in court. It was established in 1970 by the Law Development Centre Act as a government-owned institution of higher learning responsible for research, law reform, publications, law reporting, and community legal services.