Studding law in Ethiopia at undergraduate level involves the critical analysis of the fundamental legal frameworks of the country and the international arena. It incidentally touches up the legal principles of various countries by way of comparative study. Studding law enables one to fully comprehend the substantive and procedural laws of the country and practice it to the utmost extent as a judge, a public prosecutor, an attorney, an advocate, a legal advisor, etc.

Hence, this program is opened with the view to teach and train legal professionals. These professions will become among those who actively participant in creating vibrant civil society which is one of the preconditions for successful development plan. The program is accompanied by a harmonized curriculum1 for Ethiopian Law Schools which was developed under the auspices of the Justice Reform and Legal Studies Institute. The curriculum enumerates almost all necessary information regarding the program. Accordingly, those issues in relation to the vision, mission, rationale, and objectives of the program; graduate profile and program requirements; course requirement and listing; course schedule; course information, description, contents, objective; teaching methods and course policies, evaluation of student performance and grading; course evaluation mechanisms; and; list of reference material and the location of the materials are explicitly enumerated and discussed. In addition to these relevant courses, technical skills and extra-curricular activities are incorporated in the curriculum in order to equip students with required knowledge, skill and attitude.

With the view to implement this program, Department of Law was established during the 2009/10 academic year having staff members of 3 lecturers and about 40 students. Now, almost finishing its second year, the department has two batches and a staff of 12 instructors on different levels of academic rank. The department is moving on the path on which it sees itself being one of the top school of laws in Ethiopia by 2015. The department believes that if law has to be served in higher institutions then it has be served with the highest quality possible. Accordingly, it is striving to provide its students with the necessary inputs for academic achievements and further is engaging in capacity building of its staff.

The Department also has the plan to upgrade itself to a status of a School of Law by 2012/13 academic year