Overview of College of Law
Welcome to the College of Law of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), a spot-light of Legal Education in Nigeria. The College is simply unique. It provides very practical, rigorous but highly exciting legal education in an environment that guarantees academic and leadership excellence. It combines clinical learning methods with very current and highly relevant curriculum that reflects the multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional nature of the 21st Century legal challenges.The core of its uniqueness lies in its peculiar advantages which include the fact that the College is the only College of Law in Nigeria that has the rare privilege of being established by one of the foremost living legal scholars in the world today.
The founder, Aare Afe Babalola, B.Sc Econs (London), LL.B Hons (London), LL.D, FCIArb, FNILAS, OFR, CON, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), is a jurist of distinction and sound educationist with about fifty years experience in university education and administration. He is a member of various distinguished academic bodies in Nigeria and overseas and has won several awards, including two times best Pro-Chancellor in Nigeria. He is also a renowned philanthropist and has the mastery of building enduring legacies. His life has been described as an impossibility made possible. It is these achievements and his core values of selflessness, integrity, industry, determination, focus, undying passion for service and excellence that define our philosophy and perspective to legal education.
Our mission is to lead education reform in Nigeria by example through the provision of world-class legal education in a most suitable learning environment. This is reflected in our level of human and infrastructural investments and other giant strides we have taken so far including our fast-pace expansion programmes being presently executed. Our investment in ICT is unparalleled. These include electronic interactive boards for lectures, a digital law library which integrates the LexisNexis Academic On-line Library with the CompuLaw© digital library in addition to the traditional hard-copy library. This means that research on any conceivable legal issue, local or global, can be carried out right from the College Library.
The College has a carefully selected academic staff with the right mix of both teaching and senior practising lawyers (including the founder) who have distinguished themselves in their various areas of specialisation. This ensures that the students do not merely learn legal theories but combine it with practical knowledge of the law. Presently the College is working out modalities for formal attachment of its students to law offices and courts during their summer holidays throughout the period of their study as students. The College is also working out modalities for foreign exchange programmes with other top universities, especially in United Kingdom and USA for the students to learn global best practices from other jurisdictions.
The College also maintains a structure which is equally unique and comparable to none in Nigeria. Presently it has approval for the award of LL. B Degree like other law faculties, but in addition to this it has also concluded arrangements for the establishment of another school under the College, the School of Criminology and Social Justice, which will award B.Sc degrees in Criminology, Police Science, etc. These are courses not presently taught as degree courses in Nigerian universities. When established, the school will institutionalise multi-disciplinary research and provide the much needed synergy between law and sociology, criminology, economics, philosophy forensic medicine, etc. as a holistic approach to crime prevention and control in Nigeria.