Law graduates facing bleak job prospects

Reality gap

For those with the chance to be employed by a law firm, salaries at the beginning are also not great, "as they must be lawyers' assistants at first, researching and learning how to handle specific cases," Yi said.

The current impractical legal education deserves some criticism, he said.

In career training lectures at law schools, Yi tells students that the legal theories they are learning are not necessarily what's found in actual practice. He used his own assistants as an example, saying they sometimes had no idea how to search for judicial materials or how to talk with litigants in their first working year.

Liu Xing, a senior official at the Beijing Dongcheng District People's Procuratorate, said about 100 graduates apply for jobs as prosecutors every year, but only 15 are hired.

"The newcomers should be copy clerks at first, but some of them sometimes are not qualified for this simple job," Liu said. "They have legal background, but what we need is someone with combined majors."

For example, a law graduate with medical knowledge can deal more easily with cases related to hospitals, he said.

"In other words, our law education in universities hasn't been geared to reality for a long time, and most students have little time for internships at legal organs," he said.

He prefers the approach of Taiwan to law education. Law school students are required to put what they learn into practice during their four years of university study, he said.

"Being an intern for several months isn't enough to understand judicial work, let alone to follow specific legal cases," he said.

Deng, the teacher at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, said that while the number of universities offering law majors has risen sharply in recent years, most offer nothing unique.

"Some teachers who are qualified lawyers intend to share practical cases with their students, but the details of cases they are handling sometimes can't be disclosed," he said. He suggested that each law school select a specific branch of law as its specialty.

"For example, laws dealing with medicine or that aim to solve medical disputes are the key course at our university," he said. "Our students can be both legal consultants for medical bodies - including hospitals and medical supervision organs - and lawyers specializing in medical cases."

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn