| Legal education in Indonesia has been introduced since the Dutch colonial period. Although legal education was first run at secondary level, later it was transferred to the Rechthogeschool, a tertiary education institution, located in Jakarta, then, Batavia. At the early indepence period, the number of people who had interests to study law grew rapidly since there were needs of competent legal professionals in the young Republic of Indonesia. In the beginning, legal education was mostly offered by state universities, such as University of Indonesia and Gadjah Mada University. Most of public law schools are funded completely by the government of Indonesia. Therefore, their views and policies are mostly parallel with the government of Indonesia’s policies and views. Later, private institutions participate in providing legal education to Indonesian people who are interested being legal professionals. Using data collected from four leading Indonesian private law schools and secondary data, this research would like to discuss the role of private law schools in shaping legal education in Indonesia. This research confirm that the existence of private law school in Indonesia is significant as an alternative for people who cannot enter public law schools for many reasons (e.g. intellectual incompetence, age limit, racial and religious discrimination fears, and political views). Even though Indonesian private law schools teach the same national curriculum with public law school, with their own methods to deliver the curriculum, they have built unique characters of their alumni which also bring different colors to the face of Indonesian legal professions. After 1998, when Indonesia entered the Reform Era, private law schools in Indonesia play more important role since many of their alumni fill prominent position in the central government. This is a recognition for Indonesian private law schools that they are no longer only alternative institutions which provide legal education. |