LSG Brief History

With its establishment in the year 2014, the Law Student Government’s aim and primary purpose was to render unbridled service and support to UNP Barristers. For at least a decade, the Board of the Law Student Government implemented policies and initiatives that catered the well-being of law students in the realm of instruction, production, research, and extension.

Most students that took the helm of leadership of the Law Student Government has found success in passing the bar, moved on to practice their own specialization in the legal profession, and some became mentors or professors to our law students, to wit:

The Covid-19 pandemic put a halt on the normalcy in the study of law and the taking of the Bar Examinations. Everything has to be done online or electronically, including the delivery of instruction. For the first time in history, the Supreme Court opted to implement a new mode in administering the bar examinations. This is to address the limitations imposed by the pandemic. The Law Student Government and the College of Law followed suit and delivered the only Virtual Bar Operations to our barristers. This era began the efficient use of social media and online tools. The Law Student Government organized its first ever watch party which saw the greatest number of bar passers the University has produced.

Academic year 2022-2023 saw the rise of technological innovations spearheaded by the Law Student Government Board – the establishment of the College of Law website with an alumni and bar passers repository, the establishment of the law community group chat and Legal Aid Clinic Facebook page, extensive utilization of extension programs by law student practitioners, administering law-related academic competitions, novel activities such as the law movie night and first ever law quiz bee and debate, and the list goes on.

In the academic year 2023-2024, we witnessed a historic occurrence in governance where a former member of the Law Student Government Board became its adviser in the person of Atty. Benmar O. Tabuso. This domino set into motion a series of activities and accolades that would change our landscape – a bar operations where the bar ops committee stayed for the entire bar week at the local testing site to render untethered support to our barristers, the implementation of the use of official examination booklet, honesty store, the aggressive utilization of income-generating projects, winning a Mr. and Ms. UNP crown, students joining and winning academic competitions, students joining for the first time a national debate competition, the establishment of the Moot Courtroom, the plebiscite for the proposed amendments to the Law Student Government Constitution and ByLaws, and the initiation of the first send-off/alumni and awards night.

The Law Student Government focuses all its efforts for the Academic Year 2024-2025 in implementing the new provisions of the 2024 Constitution and ByLaws and in streamlining all student policies as manifested in this manual. This year saw the separation of the Bar Ops Corps from the Law Student Government, granting the former autonomy in administering the bar operations. The initiative doubles the aid and support to our barristers and gave the Law Student Government the ability to focus on drafting and implementing student policies. Further, all energies are put into creating new cultures and making them into traditions, and implementing the policies until they become best practices.

Fast forward to today, the Law Student Government deviated from practices that no longer serves the law community and incorporates contemporary changes that matter and that better serve the students.