The second day of AIAC Asia ADR Week 2025 began with a series of insightful sessions, highlighted by a dynamic and thought-provoking plenary address delivered by Mr. Raja Singham, Founder and Managing Director of BAC Education Group. The address, titled “Nurturing Tomorrow’s Talent: Mainstreaming ADR into Legal and Business Education,” offered a deeply personal and critical reflection on the evolving role of legal education in preparing the next generation of dispute resolution professionals.
Mr. Singham began his address with a nostalgic recounting of the early days of BAC’s establishment, acknowledging the contributions of early mentors and collaborators. He shared that BAC, founded 34 years ago by him and his wife when they were just 24 years old, was built on a vision of accessible and forward-thinking legal education. That vision continues to shape the institution’s philosophy today.
In a candid narrative, Mr. Singham explained how he was initially reluctant to pursue law, discouraged by inefficiencies he observed in the court system as a youth. He described how frequent postponements and procedural delays disillusioned him, leading to his preference for more collaborative, solution-driven environments, values at the heart of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Although family expectations steered him towards completing his legal studies, including the CLP, he quickly transitioned into education, launching BAC with a mission to reform and modernize the legal learning landscape.
Highlighting the urgent need for reform in legal education, Mr. Singham critiqued the rigidity of current academic structures. He illustrated how most Malaysian law graduates undergo nearly identical academic journeys, constrained by regulatory requirements that leave little room for innovation or specialization. Elective choices are limited, and opportunities for interdisciplinary learning, such as combining law with business, technology, or sustainability are often restricted.
Mr. Singham emphasised that this uniformity has led to a bar that lacks diversity of thought and background. He lamented the discontinuation of fast-track and dual-degree options, which previously enabled professionals from other fields to enrich the legal profession with varied expertise. In his view, such limitations hinder the development of lawyers who can adapt to the evolving demands of global industries and dispute resolution mechanisms.
Pivoting to ADR, Mr. Singham asserted that the legal ecosystem remains overly courtroom-centric and adversarial, despite statistics showing that less than 10% of disputes are resolved in court. He argued that legal education must shift its focus from litigation to negotiation, mediation, and arbitration, aligning more closely with how disputes are resolved in real-world contexts. He noted the misalignment between what law students are taught and what industries actually require, particularly in areas like ESG, compliance, data protection, and sustainable corporate governance.
ADR as the Future of Legal Education
Mr. Singham stressed the urgent need to integrate ADR into the mainstream legal and business curriculum. He critiqued the current system where ADR is often relegated to an elective subject, overshadowed by more “practical” subjects like evidence law. This limited exposure results in graduates who are trained to litigate, but not to resolve.
He proposed the creation of dedicated ADR pathways, such as full ADR-based law degrees, LLMs, MBAs in ADR, and certification programs. These programs, he argued, would not only provide students with practical dispute resolution skills but also diversify their career prospects.
Education Reform: From Fighters to Peacemakers
Throughout the session, Mr. Singham advocated for a shift from the traditional, adversarial mindset of lawyers to a more collaborative, problem-solving approach. He proposed that tomorrow’s professionals must be:
Litigators, when necessary
Negotiators, to avoid conflict
Psychologists, to understand human behavior
Technologists, to leverage tools like Online Dispute Resolution (ODR)
Business Strategists, to understand organisational dynamics
He emphasised the importance of cross-disciplinary education, encouraging law and business schools to collaborate and introduce subjects like psychology, communication, negotiation, design thinking, and entrepreneurship into their syllabi.
The Role of AIAC and ASEAN Leadership
Mr. Singham praised the Asian International Arbitration Centre (AIAC) as one of the region’s leading institutions, alongside the Singapore International Mediation Centre. He encouraged AIAC to take a leadership role in ADR education, not just in Malaysia but across ASEAN.
He proposed that AIAC’s courses and certifications could be scaled regionally, catering to countries like Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam that are keen to develop their ADR capabilities. He also stressed the importance of building ADR knowledge at all levels—lawyers, in-house counsel, compliance officers, HR professionals, and corporate leaders.
Tech, Sustainability, and the Polymath Advantage
Highlighting emerging areas such as sustainability, data protection, and digital regulation, Mr. Singham pointed out the growing need for professionals who can straddle multiple domains. He promoted the idea of the polymath—individuals with knowledge across disciplines as the future of impactful leadership.
He cited examples such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, who applied cross-domain insights to revolutionize their industries.
Systemic Challenges and the Way Forward
While optimistic about the potential of ADR, Mr. Singham acknowledged systemic challenges:
Rigid accreditation frameworks that constrain curriculum innovation
Lack of trained ADR faculty in universities
Traditional mindsets among regulators and educators
Perception issues, where ADR is not seen as a primary career path
He argued for greater flexibility in law degrees, especially those not intended for CLP or BAR practice. According to him, not every law graduate must become a practicing lawyer; many can thrive in compliance, policy, HR, sustainability, and tech roles with ADR as a core skill.
Final Reflections: Changing the Narrative
In closing, Mr. Singham urged the educators, professionals, and students alike to “embrace their inner polymath” and challenge traditional boundaries. He reminded the legal community that the goal should not be to win cases at the cost of relationships and resources, but to solve problems efficiently and equitably.
He called for a paradigm shift in how the legal community perceives dispute resolution. He argued that mainstreaming ADR into legal and business education is not just a pedagogical necessity, but a societal imperative, one that fosters faster, cheaper, confidential, and relationship-preserving outcomes. His address served as both a critique of the status quo and a passionate advocacy for collaborative, future-focused education models that empower lawyers to thrive beyond the courtroom.
The session concluded with enthusiastic applause, affirming the resonance of Mr. Singham’s vision with the broader goals of Asia ADR Week 2025. His insights provided a compelling case for reimagining legal education as a driver of innovation, inclusivity, and peacebuilding through ADR.
The post AIAC Asia ADR Week 2025 | Future-proofing the legal mind: Raja Singham’s radical blueprint to mainstream ADR in education appeared first on SCC Times.