A 2003 graduate from NLIU Bhopal, Gaurav Chopra, has joined the still-tiny but fast-growing club of senior counsel from national law universities (NLUs) by getting bestowed the senior counsel’s gown by the Punjab & Haryana high court, in a round of 27 elevations.
Correction 2 June: 27 were recommended for elevation but only 19 were eventually approved by the court, including Chopra, as pointed out in the comments.
The news was first tweeted by NLIU alumnus Vaibhav Joshi, noting it was a “moment of immense pride for my alma mater”, in that “our very own @gaurav_chopra has been designated” yesterday.
To date, NLSIU had been the only national law school with alumni to have got the gown, which is partly just a function of time: it was the first NLU, founded in 1986.
That is more than 10 years before NLIU Bhopal, which had been established in 1997 with classes starting in 1998, making it by some counts India’s second or tied-second-oldest NLU alongside Nalsar Hyderabad (which was also started in 1998).
Senior counsel need a minimum of at least 10 years of practice at the bar and the majority will take considerably longer than that, and the vast majority of current seniors and also most of the new ones are graduates from older, non-national law schools.
NLSIU eventually broke through four years ago with 1998 graduate Akshay Bhan getting the gown in (also) the Punjab & Haryana high court in 2014; many more have followed since in his footsteps, including the most recent mammoth round in Delhi including at least six NLS graduates in the total list of 55.
Simply by virtue of having few graduates old enough (and maybe also helped by the virtuous network effects of NLS having more alumni in courts and the profession already), graduates from other NLUs have yet to join the senior ranks.
But in the coming years, they are now all but certain to do so.
And this would have likely been music to the ears of the late Prof Madhava Menon, the father and chaperone of many NLUs and the ideals, who had often bemoaned that corporate law firms were hoovering up much of the NLU talent.
That too may be beginning to change.
Comments
Kian your perspective needs to change.
Has now been corrected.
You had the likes of Sajan Poovayya and Aditya Sondhi (both NLS grads) being designated by the Karnataka High Court in 2014 and Akshay Bhan and Daya Krishnan a couple of months before them.
If yes congrats to him (and others) - I mostly remember his ferocious square cuts from college!!
I expect many more to be designated at MPHC and some at SC in the time to come.
Link to story - https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/high-court-notifies-19-advocates-as-senior-260028
Like everything in India, if someone has moved up the ladder a little too quickly one only needs to scrape a little to find some sort of privilege backing them. Not saying that Gaurav did not deserve the honor, merely pointing out his privileged position in P&H HC/bar.
One area other NLUs really need to catch up is non-law firm careers. There is too much of a law firm herd mentality in the other NLUs. By 2006, several NLSIU alumni were working in the courts/NGOs, Lawrence Liang and others had already founded ALF, many had cracked CAT/UPSC etc. This is where other NLUs needs diversify. For every CAM/SAM hire, a potential star alum is being reduced to a clerk.
So on this comparative, even post 2012, NLS is still ahead on cumulative parameters while facing more competition. If anything, the Law School brand is now even stronger as more people write CLAT today than 10 years ago. So this success and legacy becomes self fulfilling and a virtuous cycle.
Like Sonia Sotomayer said at Harvard, there is one Law School and many law schools. Same can be said about India now.
Does that mean only NLS education reduces legal education inequality?
The process for designation is still ongoing.
This part is not just a procedural formality and many upsets may occur during it. Only after the result from the same is confirmed by the CJ, the designation process will be completed.
Total 19 people have been given the senior gown.
Wishing all of them the very best. Cheers