The Bachelor of Laws (LLB)

At the moment, the department of law offers one undergraduate degree programme — the Bachelor of Laws (LLB). The programme is aimed at producing competent lawyers of character, equipped for legal practice and other law related careers. In Kenya, the LLB is the basic requirement to enter into legal practice.

The Africa Nazarene University mission statement calls for graduates to go into the world well-prepared to meet the challenges of their time, which include personal and organizational corruption, violence, disunity, poverty and unemployment, disease, and a crisis of leadership. The LLB programme will therefore prepare graduates to address these challenges of their time in a number of ways. First, the University Common Courses include units in Bible, Christian Beliefs and Christian Ethics to provide a foundation for moral and ethical knowledge and values. Secondly, the LLB programme itself envisages not only training in key legal knowledge and skills to prepare them for success in legal practice, but also preparation for being a positive influence through required and elective units.

Because of its vision and mission and because of the need on the continent, the LLB programme, based firmly in Common Law, will train graduates who have the skills and knowledge to support themselves and their families, and who also have skills and knowledge that would allow them to identify and address needs in their local and regional community.

Programme objectives and expected outcomes:

At the completion of the LLB programme, graduates will be able to:

1. Apply legal theory, principles and rules in political, social and economic contexts;
2. Demonstrate skills in legal research, logical argumentation, vigorous analysis of legal principles and courtroom techniques;
3. Analyze the challenges facing Africa and the role of the legal profession in addressing them;
4. Formulate and defend a robust and thoughtful code of professional conduct consistent with the guidelines of the profession and their religious and/or moral values system(s);
5. Compare and evaluate the relative merits of different legal and policy arguments as articulated in case law and legal scholarship;
6. Communicate effectively using appropriate legal terminologies and also be able to discuss legal materials— statutes, cases, academic papers, court summaries— which are written in legal technical language;
7. Conduct effective legal research which contributes and enhances legal knowledge base.