[Fall Semester Applications Open] About the Recurrent Legal Education Program

Keio University Law School (KLS), under the three principles of "internationality, interdisciplinarity, and innovation," offers numerous cutting-edge courses. We are confident that the content of these courses is not only important for the education of our law school students but also beneficial for practicing legal professionals. Therefore, starting from the 2014 academic year, we have decided to accept practicing legal professionals into some of our courses, providing them with the opportunity to participate in classes alongside our law school students. We call this educational program the Recurrent Legal Education (CLE: Continuing Legal Education) program.

In the inaugural 2014 academic year, we plan to accept legal professionals into a total of 69 courses: 33 courses in the Spring Semester (April–September) and 36 courses in the Fall Semester (September–March). For a list of course titles, instructors, and other details, please refer to this link.

Legal professionals who participate in the classes can earn credits for the course by demonstrating their performance as instructed by the course instructor. Furthermore, they can receive a certificate for the credits earned.

Please note that even individuals who are not practicing legal professionals, such as those working in roles related to the course subject matter at companies or public institutions, may be admitted to classes in the same manner as legal professionals, at the discretion of the course instructor. If you believe you fall into this category and wish to apply, please provide a detailed explanation of the professional necessity for taking the course, along with your reasons for applying, in the "Statement of Purpose" as described in section "2."

For courses that accept legal professionals, a small number of professionals will be admitted to each.

Participants can take as little as one course or freely combine multiple courses according to their interests and schedule.

For the admission of legal professionals to classes, the course instructor will decide on acceptance based on the documents submitted at the time of application (the "Statement of Purpose"). Some courses may require legal professionals to have certain abilities or experience in advance, and for such courses, this will also be judged based on this document (for the presence and content of requirements for each course, please refer to the list in "1."). If applying for multiple courses, please write a separate "Statement of Purpose" for each course on a separate sheet of paper. Note that there is no specific format for the "Statement of Purpose."

Legal professionals taking Law School courses will be registered as "Non-Degree Students (For Credit)." To take Law School courses as a Non-Degree Student (For Credit), the fees shown in the table to the right are required.

In addition to this, a screening fee of 18,000 JPY is required at the time of application. This fee covers screening for one academic year. Therefore, the amount does not change even if you apply for multiple courses in the same semester, and those who paid this screening fee when applying for the Spring Semester do not need to pay it again when applying for the Fall Semester.

A 2-credit course generally consists of one class per week for a total of 15 classes. As a rule, classes are held on a fixed day and period, but some may be rescheduled due to holidays or other reasons. For the specific class schedule for each day of the week, please refer to this link. For the timetable of days and periods for each course, please refer to the list in "1."

The class times for the 1st to 6th periods are as shown in the table to the right.

The class times for the 1st to 6th periods are as shown in the table to the right.

Furthermore, all classes will be held on the Keio University Mita Campus (2-15-45 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo).

You can earn credits for a course by attending every class and achieving results, such as by writing reports as instructed by the instructor. Even in courses where law school students are required to take a final examination and achieve a certain grade to earn credits, the course instructor may direct you to write a report instead of taking the exam.

Regardless of whether a final examination is taken, the performance of legal professionals who have taken the course will be assessed as either "Pass" or "Fail." To earn credits, you must receive a "Pass" grade.

Please note that Law School classes presuppose that students will do a certain amount of preparation and review. This also applies when legal professionals take the courses.

If you wish to take Law School courses through the KLS-CLE program, the following procedures are required: ① Application by the applicant, ② Decision on acceptance by the course instructor, ③ Sending of acceptance notification and procedure documents, and ④ Registration by the participant (see the diagram below).

① First, please download the application guidelines and necessary documents from the KLS website (click here to download).

② Next, fill out the downloaded documents, enclose the necessary documents and a postal money order (for the 18,000 JPY screening fee) as per the application guidelines, and mail them to KLS by registered express mail within the application period.

③ After internal procedures, if your participation is approved, an acceptance notification and procedure documents will be mailed to you.

④ Within the registration period, fill out the procedure documents and return them to KLS, and transfer the registration fee, etc., using the designated transfer form.

After steps ①-④, the course will begin on the start date.

The application period, acceptance announcement, registration period, and course start date for the 2014 academic year are as shown in the tables below.

In addition to the program for admitting legal professionals to the courses described above, KLS plans to launch a program starting in the 2015 academic year that will grant a "Certificate of Completion" in several legal fields. This will be awarded to those who ① earn credits for a certain number of courses belonging to that field, and ② write a research paper on a related topic that passes review.

To take specific courses and earn credits in the 2014 academic year and have those credits count toward a future "Certificate of Completion" program, you must take the final examination for courses where one is administered and obtain a certain grade.

Details of this program will be announced in the future, but if you wish to use the "Certificate of Completion" program, please consult with the course instructor about the method of credit certification.