Author
Asst Prof Sahana Pal
Organisation/Institution
Manipal Law School, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE)
Country
INDIA
Panel
Legal Education
Title
Empathy, Ethics, and Empowerment: A Postcolonial Pathway of Continuing Legal Education in Asia
Abstract
Across Asia, legal education continues to be shaped by colonial-era pedagogies that teach and reward emotionally detached adversarial lawyering while sidelining the ethical, humanistic dimensions of law. This continues to yield generations of technically competent but ethically under-prepared legal professionals, who are now grappling with rising complaints of professional misconduct, diminishing public trust in the judiciary, increasing professional burnout, and a chronically overburdened legal system aggravated by the overall lack of empathy. The challenge is compounded by the fact that there is no standardised mandate for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) in most Asian countries, unlike USA or UK, thereby simply leaving the lawyers to their own devices after they enter the profession. Although countries like the Philippines have instituted mandatory CLE frameworks, major jurisdictions such as India still offer no structured mechanisms to support a lawyer’s ethical development or reflective professional growth after enrolment to the Bar. This paper argues that a revised postcolonial vision of CLE is indispensable to advancing sustainability, justice, and regional integration - the central aspirations of Asia’s legal and developmental future. It proposes an ethics-of-care-oriented CLE model, that is grounded in longstanding Asian intellectual traditions, including Confucian ethics, Buddhist compassion, and Gandhian moral duty, instead of blindly trying to copy Western regulatory blueprints. The author believes that a culturally resonant counter-framework to colonial-era legal formalism offers a more viable pathway for equipping modern day lawyers to navigate complex ethical dilemmas, as it shifts the focus from detached technicalities to contextual sensitivity, relational responsibility, and empathetic judgments. Through a comparative analysis of jurisdictions having mandatory CLE and those without, the paper aims to identify practical pathways for harmonising professional standards across Asia, and hopes to highlight how a regionally attuned CLE framework can strengthen public trust, enhance lawyer well-being, and promote cooperation in cross-border legal practice.
Biography
Ms. Sahana Pal completed her LLB from Gujarat National Law University, India, and LLM from Queen Mary University of London, UK. After practicing independently for a while, she entered academia and taught compulsory clinical courses (Professional Ethics and Legal Drafting) to undergraduate law students at Tamil Nadu National Law University, India, for five years. She is currently affiliated with Manipal Law School, MAHE, Bengaluru, India, as an Assistant Professor of Law.
