History
The Faculty of Law of The University of Hong Kong is the first law school in Hong Kong and one of the most prestigious law schools internationally. Established in 1969 as the Department of Law and achieved full Faculty status in 1984, the Faculty currently has over 60 scholars from more than 10 jurisdictions from around the world.

Mission
Throughout its 37 years, the Faculty has been training graduates who are today distinguished legal professionals and leaders of our community. Building upon our unique position as the only common law jurisdiction in China, capitalizing on the 'one country, two systems' principle, the Faculty has an irreplaceable role to play in scholarship, research and education on common law and comparative law as well as the development of the Rule of Law in China.

Structure
The Faculty houses two Departments, the Department of Law and the Department of Professional Legal Education, and four research centres: the Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL), the Asian Institute of International Financial Law (AIIFL), the China Centre of Information Technology and Law (China IT & Law Centre), and the Peking U-HKU Research Centre.

Research centres
Of its four centres, the CCPL has a strong profile in research activities in public law and human rights, while the AIIFL has rapidly developed into a respected centre for research into financial law and securities regulation. The China IT & Law Centre, jointly housed with the Faculty of Engineering, has been very active in issues of intellectual property, and has recently established a Community Legal Information Centre, a bilingual website containing useful legal information for the general public.

Resources
The Faculty's teaching and research covers a wide variety of fields of law, and it is served by one of the best research libraries, the Lui Che Woo Law Library, in the Asian region. The resourceful environment offers excellent support for students of research postgraduate programmes including Master of Philosophy (MPhil), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and Doctor of Legal Science (SJD).

Postgraduate programmes by research
Research postgraduate students enrolling into the MPhil and 4-year PhD programmes in the Faculty of Law are required, before the expiry of the probation, to complete one compulsory LL.M. course, "Advanced Research Methodology for Law", and at least two other elective courses from LL.M. programmes relevant to their studies.