Harvey Specter of Suits, an American legal drama television series, has been the poster boy for all things Law. But, unlike what the gentleman portrays, a legal career is not all flamboyant and glamorous. It takes hard work and hours of relentless slogging to clear the boards. However, to create a name for yourself, textbook knowledge is not enough. To be a legal Einstein, one needs good mentors who can teach beyond books and classrooms; and who better than STIHPADA to provide high-caliber mentors and distinguished teachers.
The Visionary Behind STIHPADA
Prof. H. Abu Daud Busroh, SH, understood the need for quality and affordable legal higher education for all levels of society and established the Sumpah Pemuda School of Law in 1994. The institute also goes by the name Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Hukum Sumpah Pemuda aka STIHPADA. Prof. H. Abu Daud Busroh, a professor of law and a renowned advocate in the Palembang City of Indonesia, had a crystal-clear vision for the institute at the time of its inception. STIHPADA aims to become a center of excellence in the field of law by applying the values of Pancasila, which is the ideology of the Indonesian nation.
What sets STIHPADA different from its peers is that it emphasizes more on law practice education than legal theory. This is a defining factor for the institute as there are not many law schools in Indonesia that emphasize legal practice education. STIHPADA is proud to be one of the private law schools that cares about the development of legal practitioners.
Hand In Hand With IR 4.0
STIHPADA understands that the legal domain is undergoing rapid change and hence, the students need to be prepped for the industrial revolution 4.0.. To this extend, STIHPADA continues to build facilities and information systems that are relevant to the current industrial changes. Academic services use information systems and several courses use E-learning systems. The classrooms make use of the Student Centre Learning (SCL) system that focuses on solving the latest legal cases. Similarly, the Dean ensures that the course materials submitted are not only relevant and up to date, but also reference current and pertinent legal cases.
Besides, to prepare its graduates, STIHPADA has in place internship programs with related legal institutions such as courts, advocate organizations, prosecutors’ offices and law offices. These steps are in addition to the stellar infrastructure facilities like moot court room and legal practitioners such as advocates, judges, prosecutors, police, arbitrators and mediators for lecturers.
A Melting Bowl Of Legal Practices
Moreover, STIHPADA also invites legal experts from across the country and the world to provide their insights. STIHPADA also cherishes fruitful collaborations with several foreign universities. All these measures ensure that the students are not only sound in legal coursework, but also know how to perform in the industry. A clear testimony to this is that STIHPADA students are often recruited by law offices even before they finish their studies.
Till date, STIHPADA has witnessed the graduation of 4375 alumni who have set milestones after milestones in their careers in the legal profession in various capacities such as advocates, judges, prosecutors and members of the house of representatives. Almost 90% of STIHPADA alumni are accepted to work at law offices. “We know this because we have an effective Alumni Tracking System. Some of the STIHPADA graduates are lecturers on campus and become Advocates in Polis Abdi Hukum Law Office. Polis Abdi Hukum Law Office is a law office owned by STIHPADA that currently has 30 Advocates and 15 paralegals who are STIHPADA alumni,” says Dr. Firman Freaddy Busroh, SH, M.Hum, Chairman of the Board Trustees, STIHPADA.
Entrepreneurial Encouragement
Meanwhile, nearly 75% of STIHPADA graduates become advocates and establish their own law offices, thus proving that STIHPADA is also an incubation center for entrepreneurs. STIHPADA has a free social media website that is dedicated to the young entrepreneurs so that they can promote their start-ups on campus. Some such student initiatives include legal clinics, choirs, music bands and theatre performances.
Although STIHPADA has a team of experts as faculty, they are not free from supervision. At the end of each semester, a monitoring and evaluation process is carried out on the learning process, and one of the methods used is tracking by distributing questionnaires. The students are given questionnaires to assess the quality of the lecturers. These questionnaires will then be used as a consideration for the lecturers’ careers.
Igniting Minds Through Incentives
Like once mentioned before, a career in law equals rigorous training and coursework that can prove to be exhausting to students and some, if not most, might lose focus. To help those students step back into the game, every student who excels in the academic field is given an award, in the form of tuition fee relief, other prize money and oftentimes scholarships to continue post graduate legal education.
STIHPADA does not believe in learning for the sake of learning. Only those who have a passion for law can make it to the top. Hence, to fuel the fire and passion in students, the institute has in place Digital Library Café, Moot Court Room, Legal Laboratory Room, Computer Laboratory room and a legal clinic room.
Furthermore, the campus has free Wi-Fi in every campus corner and lounge rooms. One might be prompted to ask, ‘but how much good does all these privileges do?’. To that, the STIHPADA students answer by winning the fencing sport gold medal at the ASEAN University Games in Singapore in 2016 and the first winner of the moot court and the constitutional debate champion in 2017. Thus, proving that the institute is headed in the right direction.
STIHPADA as an institute has been doing justice to its students and the society by producing graduates with incomparable legal practice skills. This is because ever since a student steps into STIHPADA, they are warmly welcomed and embraced by exceptional industry personals. Moving forward, the institute plans on expanding their present campus location and open branches across the world.