"Legal Eagle" entrepreneurship education for law students: special reference to International Islamic University Malaysia

• Main Authors: Abd Ghadas, Zuhairah Ariff, Muslim, Herna, Hamid, Zarinah
• Format: Article
• Language: English; English
• Published: Universiti Putra Malaysia Press 2014
• Subjects: HB522 Income. Factor shares.Interest.Profit.Entrepreneurship; HF5381 Vocational guidance. Career development; KPG Malaysia
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/37477/1/zuhairah.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/37477/4/37477_Legal%20Eagle%20entrepreneurship%20education%20for%20law%20students_SCOPUS.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/37477/; http://www.pertanika.upm.edu.my/Pertanika%20PAPERS/JSSH%20Vol.%2022%20(S)%20Jan.%202014/05%20Page%2083-98.pdf

In Malaysia, entrepreneurship education in higher learning education is not new. The government has taken great effort to transform the country’s economy into the knowledge-based economy and entrepreneur has been identified as one of the key elements to the development of the knowledge economy. Lots of fund had been allocated by the government to propagate the importance of graduates to become entrepreneurs and less dependent on employers. For the law graduates in Malaysia, the job opportunities are multi structured whereby they could either be in the judiciary, corporate and banking sectors or conduct private practice. In most circumstances, law graduates will be attached to private practices and this eventually will lead to most of them opening their own legal firm. Despite the legal nature of legal firms, lawyers could not avoid the standard business practices such as preparing the cash flow report, the business and succession plan and the audited account report. There are also many lawyers who set up business of different nature than legal, such as construction and trading companies. As such, it is highly perceived that business skills are also important to law undergraduates in preparing them for the life after graduation. One of the ways to do this is through entrepreneurship education. This paper intends to discuss the perception and reception of law students on entrepreneurship education /skills. A quantitative research methodology is adopted to identify the level of interest and/or willingness of law undergraduates at the Faculty of Laws of International Islamic University Malaysia to learn entrepreneurial skills and to be involved in business once they graduate.