The Faculty of Law is one of the professional schools at the University of Otago. Otago is New Zealand's oldest law school, lectures in law having begun in 1873. The Faculty of Law is currently located in the Richardson Building at Otago's main campus in the city of Dunedin.
The Faculty of Law awards the degrees of Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), Master of Laws (LL.M.), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). A Bachelor of Laws Honours program also exists and is reserved for approximately the top 10% of LL.B. students. In 2007, the Law Faculty had approximately 800 equivalent full-time students. Approximately 200 students are in each of second, third, and fourth-year law, and over 700 students are enrolled in the first-year LAWS 101 course, which is a prerequisite to being admitted into full-time legal studies as a second year law student. Approximately 60% of the law students are female.
The first law lecturer at Otago was Sir Robert Stout, who went on to serve as Attorney-General, Prime Minister, and Chief Justice of New Zealand. Otago's law library is named the Sir Robert Stout Law Library.
Mark Henaghan is the current Dean of the Faculty of Law. The Faculty is composed of 27 full-time academic staff members, with 10 full professors, 3 associate professors, 10 senior lecturers, and 4 lecturers.
The faculty leads the Human Genome Research Project, sponsored by the New Zealand Law Society, which considers issues in the regulation of human genome-based technologies in New Zealand, on a legal and ethical basis.
Famous quotes containing the words university, faculty and/or law:
“It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“To write well, to have style ... is to paint. The master faculty of style is therefore the visual memory. If a writer does not see what he describes—countrysides and figures, movements and gestures—how could he have a style, that is originality?”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length even become the laughing-stock of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)