The Faculty of Law at the University of Basel can look back on over five hundred years of history and is the oldest law faculty in Switzerland. Despite its long tradition, it has always focused its research and teaching on future legal developments. The quality of its degree programs and its attractiveness as a place to study are measured every day by its flexibility in incorporating new developments and subjects and its ability to make these accessible to teachers and students.

With various forms of teaching, the Faculty of Law offers holistic legal training that is optimally tailored to the requirements of practice. Due to its geographical location in the three-country region, teaching and research are not only nationally but also internationally networked. As part of cooperation programs, joint degree programs are offered together with the universities in the Upper Rhine region and the University of Geneva.

In the 2008 fall semester, 1279 students were matriculated at the Faculty of Law, more than in any previous year. The workload for professors has increased disproportionately in recent times. Although the teaching staff has also increased in size in recent years, it has not been able to keep pace with the administrative workload that has arisen since the Bologna reform. Between 1990 and 1995, the number of students increased by almost fifty percent. Today, teaching is provided by fifteen full professorships, ten of which mandate a full-time workload. In addition, there are four assistant professorships and around sixty assistant lecturers, including adjunct professors. The involvement of assistants in teaching has only slowly become established over the past decade and is now an integral part of group and proseminar teaching. Due to these quantitative developments as well as the introduction of the Bologna system and the associated higher number of examinations, the workload of professors has increased significantly in recent times. Although the teaching staff has also grown in recent years, this has led to a corresponding deterioration in staff-student ratios. Broader study options The changeover to Bologna not only brought more examinations, but also new options within the study structure. The studies are still divided into the areas of private law, public law and criminal law. After the bachelor's studies, in which the basic legal knowledge and methods are acquired, individual emphases can be placed on business law, administrative law or international law in the master's degree programs. Since 2006, the Basel faculty has been offering a bilingual master's degree program together with Geneva. The EUCOR Master's program, offered by the University of Basel in conjunction with the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg i.Br. and the Université Robert Schuman in Strasbourg, is also multilingual and crosses national borders.

Source: University history since 1460