At least three things mark out the ANU College of Law as distinctive amongst its fellow Australian law schools (many of which are themselves very fine world-class institutions).
First, it sits inside an institution — the Australian National University — one of the world’s most highly regarded universities. It has been consistently ranked as Australia’s leading university by The Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of Higher Education and by the QS World University Rankings. This is a significant achievement for a university founded only in 1946.
This high reputation reflects in large part the deliberate design of the ANU from the beginning as Australia’s national university and leading public research-intensive institution, but the benefits of being at the cutting-edge of research and scholarship flow through to our students in many ways. Students are typically taught or supervised by world-class researchers, and even our undergraduates have opportunities to engage in research projects, via internships, honours programs and the like.
Secondly, the ANU College of Law is unique amongst the Australian law schools that have both graduate and undergraduate cohorts in having even more graduate students than undergraduate. Indeed, the ANU College of Law has the largest postgraduate program — including coursework certificates, diplomas and degrees and research degrees — in Australia. So it is an excellent place to consider undertaking law study, whether you are interested in the undergraduate LLB degree, that qualifies you for legal practice, or the graduate-entry Juris Doctor (JD) degree, that also qualifies you for legal practice, or any of our myriad of graduate diplomas or masters or doctoral degrees.
Thirdly, the ANU College of Law is widely recognised, not only for its high reputation for the excellence and quality of its educational programs, but also for its strong commitment to a broader ethos for its graduates than merely being good lawyers in a technical sense. Whether you are in an undergraduate or a postgraduate program, we endeavour to inspire you to use your legal knowledge and your legal skills, throughout your career, to work for the improvement of the law and the operation of the legal system and for the achievement of social justice.
The curriculum has increasingly more comparative and international material, and our ANU LLB and JD degrees, as with the like degrees of some other Australian law schools, are recognised for admission to legal practice, not only in Australia but also in a number of other countries (India, Malaysia, and Singapore for example, and partially in the US and the UK) as well.
Australia in general, and the ANU in particular, warmly welcome international students. International students give us cultural diversity and thereby greatly enrich our student body, to the benefit of the locals and the international students alike. Moreover, a more diverse student body is a part of the growing trend in the discipline of law to greater internationalisation.
We welcome you to join our global community in the ANU College of Law, at our beautiful campus in the heart of Australia’s capital, Canberra.
