Since its inception in the year 2010, the Faculty of Law of the General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) has earned a national reputation for educational excellence, academic potency and high professionalism. At the Faculty of Law of KDU, students from diverse backgrounds around the country learn together readily supporting each other in a spirit of comradeship, and in a disciplined and inclusive environment in a unique setting of military and civilian cooperation.
The extensive curriculum of the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree programme offered by the Faculty contains almost all fields of Law, including both substantive and procedural subjects. It has been designed based on the rationale that the theory and practice of Law are complementary rather than conflicting. The objective is to produce graduates not only well conversant with theoretical underpinnings of Law but also imbued with other skills such as reading, writing and research required to be a competent legal professional.
The Faculty of Law of KDU gives primacy to experiential learning with an emphasis on care and concern for others. It demands high standards, not simply diligence but also intellectual integrity and openness. It also stresses professional responsibility with service to others throughout the curriculum. Many of the academic and co-curricular activities relate directly to ensuring justice and fairness, repeatedly considering the impact of human actions on the poor, underprivileged and marginalized segments of the society. The students are also given opportunities to participate in a wide array of extracurricular activities.
Though, the importance of pro bono services has been emphasized, it does not in any way diminish the Faculty’s commitment to a broad range of legal scholarship and learning, which continues to gain national and international recognition for its work in numerous areas of Law. The academic staff of the Faculty remain primarily focused on teaching and research but are open and accessible to the students even outside the lecture halls for support. Thus, the students excel in their studies, advocacy, and involvement in various community services.
At Faculty of Law of KDU, the students are groomed to meet the many challenges of a successful legal career as they study in a mutually supportive, academically conducive and collegial atmosphere. The goal is to prepare them not simply to manage the many roles that the legal professionals play but also to fulfill the responsibilities that clients entrust and that the society places on the profession: It is to prepare them to overcome the challenges that they will encounter, to improve the lives of the clients they represent, to make the public institutions grow stronger, and to help the society to find solutions that are fair, effective, principled and practical.
With the grant of exemptions from the Preliminary and Intermediate Examinations of the Sri Lanka Law College by the Council of Legal Education in December 2020, a long drawn issue faced by the KDU LLB Graduates came to an end. Such exemptions will enable them to become Attorneys at Law within one year of graduation.
I wish all students an intellectually exciting yet a most rewarding educational experience in the years to come at the Faculty of Law of KDU. When the students complete their legal education and take their own place as members of the Bar, whether it is in the courtroom, the boardroom or the classroom, KDU lawyers will be there to welcome them.
Mr. WS Wijesinghe,
Dean – Faculty of Law