Law and Legal Education in India: Some Observations

1965 ◽  
Vol 78 (6) ◽  
pp. 1180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Taylor von Mehren
Keyword(s):  
Legal Education ◽  
Education In India

scholarly journals LEGAL EDUCATION IN INDIA: PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
B. C. Nirmal
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Legal Service ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
Service Market ◽  
Education In India ◽  
Induced Changes

This article makes some observations about legal education in India by locating it within a wider context of legal education reform that is taking place in Law Schools across the world in the wake of globalizationled and globalization-induced changes in the nature and needs of legal profession. For being both intellectually challenging and professionally relevant, legal education should be more responsible than ever before to the legal needs of the community national as well as international , and the learning needs of students to become professionally competent to play their role in an increasingly transnationalized legal service market. Any effort to restructure and reorient legal education to attain these goals will be an uphill task for any school. This article begins with exploring the implications of globalization for legal education and then turns to nature, aims and objectives of legal education. The article then looks at the possible changes required to be made in the existing curriculum for undergraduate law students in order to make the legal education more relevant and meaningful for its consumers. The focus then shifts to issues concerning methods of teaching, clinical experience and assessment of students. This article then considers issues arising from the proposal of the Bar Council of India to reduce the period of Masters programme and then builds a strong case for strengthening a research tradition in Law Schools. The focus then shifts to measures that are necessary to attract and retain better faculty and also to the regulatory role of the Bar Council of India in the field of legal education. The article concludes with some reflections on the promise of a different vision of legal education.

Comparing Experiential Legal Education in Canada and India

2020 ◽  
pp. 232200582094669
Author(s):  
Rhea Roy Mammen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Experiential Education ◽  
Present Status ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Education In India ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Different Levels

Legal education has evolved over several centuries across the globe, and its effectiveness is a matter of significant concern not merely for legal practitioners but also for society in general. One approach that has been gaining considerable attention is the concept of experiential legal education, which is at different levels of implementation across the world. Countries such as the United States and Canada have been pioneers in implementing this form of legal education, which is also known as clinical legal education (CLE), whereas India is striving to catch up. This article attempts to inspect and compare the development and implementation of CLE in Canada and India. The findings from the comparison are then utilized to inform the way ahead for CLE in India. While pursuing this objective, the article also examines the concept of experiential education, in general, and in the context of legal education, in particular. Moreover, insights are provided regarding CLE. The status of experiential legal education in Canada is reviewed, and the author’s experience in Canada under the Shastri Research Student Fellowship (SRSF) is detailed to provide the author’s insights regarding the implementation of experiential legal education in Canada. The evolution of experiential legal education in India is also detailed, together with insights regarding the regulations of the Bar Council of India (BCI) as are relevant to CLE. Finally, the article compares the author’s opinion of the present status of CLE in Canada and India and provides recommendations to enhance the future implementation of CLE in India.

Adapting Indian Legal Education to the Demands of a Globalising World

2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 847-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nehaluddin Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Legal Education ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Global Village ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
The World ◽  
Education In India ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
International Boundaries ◽  
Globalising World ◽  
Opening Up

Half a century ago, the main purpose of university legal education in India was not the teaching of law as a branch of learning and as a science but simply to impart to students a knowledge of the black letter law, that is, certain principles and provisions of law to enable them to enter the legal practice exclusively for local needs. Gradually this perception changed and the process of reform in law and legal education was initiated. The real break came in 1990s when the new challenges posed by scientific and technological revolution and greater interaction between nations, trade in goods and services, information technology and free capital flow across international boundaries made the world a global village. Consequently, the concept of “local practice” widened to that of “transnational practice” in the context of globalisation and opening up of most of the economies of the world.

scholarly journals Empowering The Underprivileged: The Social Justice Mission For Clinical Legal Education In India

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuvro Prosun Sarker
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Legal Aid ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
The Social ◽  
Education In India ◽  
History Of ◽  
Clinical Models ◽  
Indian Law

<p>The 1960s and 1970s were an important time in the history of legal education in India, when the legal aid movement and various legal aid committees’ reports started to draw attention to the importance of experiential learning, or learning on the job, in legal education. The main aim of involving law students in the national legal aid movement was to make them feel more responsible for the considerable part of the Indian population who, because of their socio-economic status, couldn’t access justice. The history of how India’s clinical programs were introduced has a lot in common with the history of clinical programs in other parts of the world. There was a desire to create a pool of lawyers, who would serve as soldiers in the fight for social justice for underprivileged groups in the country.</p><p>While some prestigious universities started their clinical programs in the 1970s, most of the regulators of legal education took a long time to include clinical papers in the curriculum. In 1997 the Bar Council of India introduced four practical papers in the curriculum. The spirit of public service, and the widespread poverty in a country, has always been central to the push for clinical programs everywhere. But in India, the legal aid committees’ and other statutory bodies’ reports calling for clinical programs to support social justice, were always ignored. The National Knowledge Commission’s working group on legal education specifically mentioned the need to introduce students to issues relating to poverty, social change and social exclusion, through clinical legal education.</p><p>After the introductory section, the second section discusses the introduction of clinical programs with their roots in the search for social justice in the United States and India. The third section discusses the continuous deliberation by various bodies, commissions and committees about the need to introduce clinical programs with a social justice perspective in India. The fourth section discusses the social justice-based clinical programs in China and South Africa. This section tries to highlight some of the clinical models focused on serving underprivileged groups, that have been introduced and implemented in these two countries and which ~ after local modifications ~ could serve as a template for programs in Indian law schools. The fifth section tries to search for clinical models best suited to India with reference to clinical programs in China and South Africa. Several examples of clinical activities in a few Indian law schools have been highlighted in this chapter to explain these models’ effectiveness and suitability for Indian circumstances. The sixth section sets out some suggestions for law schools and stakeholders of legal education in India as to how to further the country’s social justice mission of clinical legal education.</p>

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