Legal education in Norway
Legal education in Norway refers to a graduate professional degree that qualifies the holder for the legal profession, that includes advocates (barristers/attorneys-at-law), judges and other professions that lawyers have a legal monopoly on. Norway has a united and regulated legal profession where all lawyers hold the same professional degree obtained after an integrated and comprehensive 5-year (formerly 6-year) university programme with highly competitive admission requirements, that gives the right to use the legally protected title lawyer (Norwegian: jurist) and in itself qualifies for entry-level legal practice, i.e. the entry-level positions in the legal profession such as associate advocate (Norwegian: advokatfullmektig), deputy judge (Norwegian: dommerfullmektig) or junior prosecutor (Norwegian: politifullmektig). Norwegian lawyers are organized in the trade union Norges Juristforbund (Norwegian Association of Lawyers).
Norway's legal system and education share many similarities with those of
A professional legal degree is a generalist education that offers a broad introduction to different legal fields, such as
History
The
During the 19th century lawyers played a particularly dominating role in Norwegian society, and Norway was described as a "civil servant state"[2] with civil servants, especially lawyers, as "the most enduring, consistent and visible elite."[3] The University of Oslo's Faculty of Law remained the country's only law faculty until 1980. It remains the country's highest ranked and most prestigious law faculty and one of the leading law faculties in Scandinavia, and its law programme is one of the most competitive programmes to get into at any Norwegian university, with an acceptance rate of about 10%. The Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo is therefore often considered the country's only first-tier law faculty.[4]
From 1980, the University of Bergen and the University of Tromsø also established law faculties and started to offer legal education. Admission is also very competitive, albeit somewhat behind the University of Oslo, with an acceptance rate of about 20% and about 15%, respectively.
In general, foreign degrees do not qualify for admission to the legal profession in Norway. However, since the 1990s licensed advocates (barristers, attorneys) from member states of the
Professional law programme
The professional law programme is an integrated 5-year university programme with roots dating back to 1736 and the only programme that qualifies for admission to the legal profession and the protected title lawyer (jurist). Graduates may go on to practise law as advocates (barristers), join the judiciary as judges or work as prosecutors, although many also join the civil service or corporate sector.
Students may call themselves stud.jur., a title that designates a student on a professional law programme.
- Established universities; ranked in order of admission rate/competitiveness
- University of Oslo Faculty of Law (highly competitive; admission rate ca. 10%), established 1811 based on the curriculum of the University of Copenhagen's law programme (established 1736)
- University of Tromsø Faculty of Law (competitive; admission rate ca. 15%), established 1984/1987
- University of Bergen Faculty of Law (competitive; admission rate ca. 20%), established 1980
Non-qualifying courses in legal subjects
Additionally, some new universities and colleges have started offering some courses in legal topics that do not qualify for admission to the legal profession or the title jurist (lawyer). They include the University of Agder, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Molde University College, the University of Stavanger, the University of South-Eastern Norway and BI Norwegian Business School. The admission requirements are much lower than for the professional programme at the three established universities, and they are not considered part of legal education proper in Norway. Students may not call themselves stud.jur., a title that designates a student on a professional law programme and that is directly linked to the former degree cand.jur., and are thus not generally referred to as "law students," but rather with specific titles denoting the specific programme, e.g. "bachelor's student in business law". Graduates may not give the impression of being lawyers, hold legal qualifications, offer legal advice or appear in court, and are not qualified for any of the jobs that law graduates have a monopoly on. It is a crime in Norway to use the title "lawyer" without being a graduate of the professional law programme at the three established universities.
Grade system
The law faculties in Norway have long used grades differently than other faculties in Norway. This is still the case. At the University of Oslo, where all those who are accepted to the law programme have an average grade from high school equal to or even higher than the highest grade and are usually the best in their class at high school level, most law students receive the grades C or D. Accordingly C is considered a better than average grade at the University of Oslo's law faculty, while D is considered a normal grade. Very few law students receive the grades A or B.[1] This stands in contrast to other institutions or fields of study, where A and B may be more common grades. The law faculties share the exceptionally high admission requirements with the medical faculties. In medicine there is a strong tradition in Norway of considering all doctors as part of an educational elite and placing little emphasis on university-level grades due to the very high admission requirements, and this culture of emphasizing that all graduates are highly accomplished has also become more prevalent in the legal field as admission requirements to the law programme became extremely high.
References
- ^ a b "Går fra 6 på videregående til D på jussutdanningen". Khrono. Retrieved 1 August 2023.
- ^ Jens Arup Seip. Fra embedsmannsstat til ettpartistat og andre essays (1974)
- ^ Myhre, Jan Eivind (2008). "Academics as the ruling elite in 19th century Norway" (PDF). Historical Social Research. 33 (2): 21–41.
- ^ John Peter Collett: Historien om Universitetet i Oslo, Universitetsforlaget 1999