Despite being one of the youngest academic units in the history of the university, the college is making major advancements. The College is striving to create a platform where academic and policy debates and discussions would take place. The college is working to build an epistemic community that would generate fresh insights and informs discourses and decision-making. It is for this strong desire that the college launched an initiative called ‘Eve of Friday Seminar’ with the intention to stimulate debates among our staff on contemporary topics.

In addition, the College also believes that improving the capacity of the staff is crucial for the quality of legal education. To this end, the College supported the staff’s effort of capacity building as a result of which various academic staff took short and medium-term local as well as international training which enhanced their capacity.

Beyond the teaching-learning process, the College is also deeply engaged with researching a wide range of topics that are relevant to the community of the North Shewa and beyond. Among others, our staff conducted empirical studies on various issues such as on the implementation of environmental impact assessment, inclusive education, accessibility of infrastructures for persons with disabilities, human trafficking, community policing, and on prisoner’s and consumer’s rights.

Over the past few years, with all its limitations, the College worked extensively to expand access to justice to vulnerable groups such as women and children through its free legal aid service center. The College renders service ranging from legal advice to court representation free of charge and these services play a significant role in ensuring access to justice in North Shewa Zone.

So far the College provides the free legal aid service in four centers two of which are located at Debre Berhan while the remaining two are located in the neighboring towns of ShewaRobit and Chacha. In July 2013, since its establishment, the College’s free legal aid service served more than 10,000 clients and the service has an estimated value of more than 2.3 million Birr. In addition to the College’s academic staff, fourth and fifth-year law students also participate in the provision of the service with close supervision of the academic staff.

The College’s community service engagement also includes the provision of various training deemed to fill the gaps in the legal knowledge and skill. In this regard, the College provided numerous trainings to employees of various institutions of North Shewa Zone and Woredas under the Zone such as the Police; Women, Children and Youth Affairs; Labor and Social Affairs.