The major proposals include the creation of an entrance test that will apply to all law colleges in India, rather than just to national law schools like the Common Law Admissions Test (CLAT).
The Government also wants to create three separate LLB programmes that specifically focus on training transactional, litigation or public lawyers, as well as to introduce a new one-year LLM degree.
Law minister Veerappa Moily (pictured), additional solicitor general Mohan Parasaran and Moily’s special adviser T K Vishwanathan announced the radical reform plans at a press conference in Delhi today (21 April).
Moily said that the law ministry was collaborating with the Bar Council of India (BCI) and National Law University Delhi to organise a National Consultation for a “second generation” of reforms in Indian legal education.
He explained that the consultation would create a road map to bring radical institutional reforms in legal education to meet not only the requirements of the bar but also the needs of trade, commerce and industry in view of the growing internationalisation of the legal profession.
Moily said: “Our aim is to focus on legal education as an instrument of economic and social architecture. The aim of this National Consultation is that the advocate in a Munsif court can have access to a system of continuing legal education and he can aspire to appear before the Supreme Court.”
Additional solicitor general Parasaran added that the Government was also proposing three specialised LLB courses, to enable students to focus on either of litigation, transactional or public law.
“The syllabus in most of the law colleges is more than 20 years old and is not relevant to present-day requirements,” said Parasaran. “Reforms are the need of the hour. We propose to have a common law entrance test for all the colleges across India just like we have a common entrance test for national law colleges.”
Parasaran also announced that India would have a one-year LLM course, just as countries such as the US and UK. “The change has been proposed and the decision to this effect shall be taken in near future,” he said.
Parasaran continued: “There is a proposal to establish a National Council for quality and standards of legal education. Experts from all the fields, namely Bar Council of India, state Bar Councils, attorney general, solicitor general and various jurists and academicians shall prescribe the syllabus for the law colleges.”
Moily also supported a compulsory entrance test to become a lawyer, mirroring the proposal by the new Bar Council of India chairman Gopal Subramaniam. “We are working in tandem with Bar Council of India and we support the proposal,” said Moily.
He also said hat in an era of globalisation there was a need to raise the standards of legal education in India. “The domain of the Indian lawyer shall be the entire world and not only this country.”
Moily also expressed concern over the fact that most law students joined the corporate sector after completing their degrees. One of the issues before the National Consultation would be why students from national law schools seemed to prefer careers in corporate law firms and how the legal education system could cater to the emerging needs of the new economy.
The National Consultation would also examine how to organise training and education for alternate dispute resolution systems, particularly arbitration.
The National Consultation first meeting will be held on 1 and 2 May 2010, said Moily, and would be inaugurated by India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh, with Moily presenting a vision document on the India’s second generation of legal reforms.
When asked about the issue of entry of foreign lawyers at today’s press conference, Moily said that the Bombay High Court had already decided on the issue and the Government would deal with the issue at an appropriate stage after consultation with all the sectors on the issue.
Comments
Come to think of it - there are about 1200 students who graduate from the national law schools and certain other reputed law colleges. Not all are good, but arguably, the education they receive and the infrastructure that their colleges have is "above average." Apart from these colleges, there are over 800 other law colleges in the country. Some fantastic talent is produced in these colleges as well. However, on a rough guesstimate, the good talent emerging from these 850 odd colleges is far less than the good talent that emerges from the 15 odd top law schools/colleges in the country. Over 90% of the lawyers emerging are muck (just to clarify - there is sheer muck produced in the national law schools and the other top colleges as well - but the percentage is not so high). Run-of-the-mill law colleges that lack infrastructure or good faculty need to be ruthlessly shut down. This will go a long way in making the study of law a more serious career option.
It is important that these law schools should be made national level institutions by giving them the status of central institutions/universities.
"When asked about the issue of entry of foreign lawyers at today's press conference, Moily said that the Bombay High Court had already decided on the issue and the Government would deal with the issue at an appropriate stage after consultation with all the sectors on the issue."
abey kitna time lagta hain tereko? rubbish excuse.
green eyed monster! seriously though, what you makes you think they are of average abilities?
Talk to any alumni from my law school and a very large percentage will agree with this view. I think best law schools deserve best faculty and surely Indian law students the best faculty for the fee they pay. Our socialist hangover prevents us from linking fee paid to quality of hires, but seriously this affects the quality of lawyers churned out.
I wish all involved in the pioneering efforts the very best.
And ya .... agree with # 13 :P
Bifurcating the existing law school curriculum into highly prescriptive transactional and non-transactional streams will actually go on to create more legal haves and have nots, as a student who chooses courses with a public law or human rights focus will not be able to join a corporate firm, even if for a limited time.
The Bar must also commit to pay at least a living wage to a junior so that they can survive independently in places like Delhi and Mumbai. I am sure this will certainly attract talented graduates to the Bar.
- A Solictor
Is it fair to impose this exam on students passing out of law this year and having had no notice or opportunity to prepare for the exam in advance?
The additional qualification is likely to impact employment contracts which expect people to be enrolled with the bar by June
Is this exam going to be an all round the year affair like GMAT or SAT or will it be conducted annually?
Kian can you please do a story on this, and give some voice to the micro interests being affected in this progressive macro agenda
but to me these nlu's should be centralized and formed IIL(Indian Institute of Law ) just as IIT's .We can have a separate exam for the rest of the Law colleges just AIEEE. I disagree that students of nlu have no experience in the field. Each nlu student have do Internship in an year which no other ordinary Law college offer you.There are many types of courses which only nlu's offer you such as sports law,space law,etc. Even many students opt litigation and do well in it.
There is semester system in five year law which is very efficient in gaining law knowledge.You need to agree that students from nlu are fare better than the ordinary law colleges. It is also said that when any student do nothing in his life than he opt law. But nlu has changed this thought by giving a new way of earning high packages.