In March 2008, an 8-year old boy shocked the Brazilian legal fraternity by passing a law entrance exam, and initially enrolled by a private law school. The boy, Joao Victor Portellinha de Oliveira, attended his first class with his father. Upon realizing its mistake, the law school, Universidade Paulista cancelled Joao’s enrollment and returned his tuition fees to his family. It clarified that the mistake was made by one of its’ employees, and that a student must graduate from high school to be qualified to be enrolled.

On what inspired him to take the exam, Joao said “My dream is to be a federal judge. So I decided to take the test to see how I would do. It was easy. I studied a week before the test.”

In Brazil, students are required to take an entrance exam before enrolling into a college. Each college has its own exams, and it is commonly perceived that exams from private universities are easier than those from public universities, which offer free education.

Understandably, Universidade Paulista’s mistake of enrolling Joao has generated much uproar in the legal circles. The Brazilian Bar Association has stated that this serves as a warning about the low standards of some of the country’s law schools. Education Minister Fernando Haddad has since ordered an investigation.

Is such an unfortunate scenario possible in Malaysia? Maybe so. In Malaysia, there are no compulsory entrance exams. Both private and public law schools generally require students to have taken SPM and a foundation course (e.g. STPM, ‘A’ Levels, Diploma, Matric). But like Brazil, entry into private law schools are commonly perceived to be easier than that of public law schools.

Concerns of low standards in private law schools can be said to be mitigated by the requirement of their graduates to pass the Certificate of Legal Practice (CLP) examinations before they can practice in Malaysia. The low percentage of passes every year has caused dissatisfaction over the years amongst such students, who often believe that the evaluation system is tainted by adverse discrimination against them.

Thus, in Malaysia, the debate has always been about the requirement of CLP. On one side, it’s arguably useful as a check and balance against the practice of private law schools compromising academic standards for the sake of profit. On the other, it’s arguably an arbitrary discriminative policy that unfairly assumes all students from private law schools are poor (Note: Another justification for the CLP is to ensure that foreign law graduates are accustomed to Malaysian law).

Whatever the case may be, it is undeniable that law is a protected profession, where not any Tom, Dick and Harry can walk into the courts. On whether it should be a protected education, limited only to those with excellent academic results, is yet debatable.

It may be that in any discipline, allowing an 8-year old boy to enroll into university is a preposterous idea.  But only in law, voices are raised, knives are drawn and there will be blood…