The School of Law was established in 1906 as the Law Division of Legal Studies which was one of the three pillar disciplines of Shanxi Academy. The Academy was renamed as Shanxi University in 1931 and the School of Law was the largest school with most graduates. A number teachers and graduates of the Law School were renowned pioneers and experts in law both at home and abroad, such as Louis Bevan, Taibai Liu, Gongquan Ji, Ru’ao Mei, Renzhi Du and Guliang Cheng.
After the launch of Reform and Opening-up Policy of China, the School of Law was rebuilt in 1980. In 1993, it was listed as the first batch of law schools which entitled to award the Master’s Degree in Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. It gained the qualification to award Master’s Degree in all disciplines of law in 2005. In 2018, it acquired the qualification to award Doctor’s Degree in all disciplines of law.
The School of Law opens classes in a full disciplines of law. It was selected by the Politics and Law Committee and the Ministry of Education as the “Base for Cultivating and Educating Excellent Legal Personnel” in 2012. It successfully applied for the Intellectual Property Rights Training Base in 2013. It established the Research and Consulting Base for Local Legislation of Shanxi Province in 2014. The School of Law has become an important think tank for the development of rule of law in Shanxi Province.
There are 56 full time teachers in the School of Law, among which there are 13 professors, 18 associate professors, and 25 lecturers. 38 of them have Ph.D. Degree, and 18 of them have studied or carried out researches abroad. The School of Law keeps close contacts with law education institutions of universities in USA, Japan, British, Netherlands, Australia and Canada.
Members of the faculty of the law school are very active. They carried or are carrying out more than 20 research projects from National Social Science Foundation and Humanities and Social Science Projects of the Ministry of Education, and many research projects at the provincial and Ministry levels. They published more than 80 academic articles on journals collected in CSSCI or higher level index and more than 60 monographs. They gained more then 80 awards in national or provincial levels for researching or teaching.
There were more than 10 thousand graduates since the establishment of the School of Law. Most of them become leaders of judicial departments or backbone in promoting rule of law, for example, Su Qi, who was one of “10 Best Judges in China ”, Xiang Sun who was one of the “10 Loyal Guards” in People’s Armed Police of China, and Ruibin Zhang who was granted the honor of “Excellent Peace-keeping Police”. There are more then 10 graduates who were awarded honors as excellent judges or procurators.
The Law School of Shanxi University has undergraduate program, master program and doctoral program. The master degree program covers nine secondary disciplines of law, including jurisprudence, constitutional and administrative law, economic law, civil and commercial law, international law, procedure law, criminal law, legal history, and environment and resource protection law. The doctoral program covers four fields, including mineral resources and environmental protection, labour and social security law, civil law, criminal justice and legal culture.
The major of law was rated as the first batch of undergraduate brand majors of Shanxi higher education institutions. In 2010, it was rated as the experimental area of innovation of legal talents training mode in Shanxi Province. In 2012, it was identified as one of the first batch of "national application-oriented and compound excellent legal talent education and training bases". In 2013, it was identified as one of the first batch of 18 "National Intellectual property Training (Shanxi) Bases". In 2014, it was identified as the only cooperative co-construction unit of "Shanxi Provincial Local Legislative Research and Consultation Base". In 2015, it was determined as the characteristic major of Shanxi Province. With the school's educational philosophy of "connecting the East with the West, balancing wide range of foundational training with academic specializations, emphasizing ethics and legal education equally, and combining theoretical knowledge with legal practice", the school strives to become a leading and well-known base for cultivating talents with socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics within the province, as well as a legal research think tank serving the rule of law construction and comprehensive rule of law in Shanxi. The school strives to cultivate outstanding legal talents with the spirit of seeking truth and pragmatism, advocating the rule of law, solid legal theory foundation and innovative practice ability. In recent years, the postgraduate entrance examination rate (including the recommended exemption) has reached 50%. The passing rate of the national unified judicial examination reached 60%, and the number of students who passed the national unified judicial examination ranked first in the province's law majors for many years.
The major of law cultivates application-oriented, compound and innovative legal talents who are outstanding both in ethics and laws and can serve the country's legal construction with legal thinking under the rule of law. The students are supposed to study and master the basic theory and knowledge of Marxist law systematically, take the fundamental training of legal thinking and legal practice, and possess the basic ability to analyze and solve problems by applying legal theories and methods and the basic ability to engage in legal work.
Graduates from this major are expected to: (1) master the jurisprudence, constitutional law, legal history, commercial law, intellectual property law, criminal law, economic law, civil procedure law, criminal procedure law, administrative law and administrative litigation law, public international law, private international law, international economic law, environmental and resources protection law, labor law and social security law and other basic knowledge of law system; (2) possess the spirit of rule of law, and master the thinking and research methods of the legal discipline; (3) have high legal professional practice ability to comprehensively apply the basic theories and professional knowledge to legal practice; (4) have certain innovative thinking and exploration competence, and be able to carry out basic scientific research; (5)understand the latest legal theories and the development trend of legal practice; and (6) master a foreign language systematically, and the basic knowledge of computer software and hardware technology.
The school has formed a legal professional curriculum system which is based on the core courses of law and the practical courses of law. Core courses of law include jurisprudence, Chinese legal history, constitutional law, administrative law, civil law, criminal law, commercial law, intellectual property law, economic law, civil procedure law, criminal procedure law, environmental and resource protection law, public international law, private international law, international economic law, labor and social security law, etc. The teaching focuses on the combination of theory and practice, and adopts the mode of systematic teaching, case teaching and discussion teaching. The international law series is taught bilingual. Legal practice courses include moot court, legal clinic, course practice and graduation practice, scientific research training, etc.
Research Office of Economic Law
Research Office of Civil and Commercial Law
Research Office of Criminal Law
Research Office of Legal Theory
