Professor Kingsfield Goes to Delhi: American Academics, the Ford Foundation, and the Development of Legal Education in India

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.

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Comparing Experiential Legal Education in Canada and India

Asian Journal of Legal Education ◽

10.1177/2322005820946698 ◽

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.

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Adapting Indian Legal Education to the Demands of a Globalising World

German Law Journal ◽

10.1017/s2071832200001371 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 10 (6-7) ◽

pp. 847-858 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

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.

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From Henley to Harvard at Hyderabad? (Post and Neo-) Colonialism in Management Education in India

Enterprise & Society ◽

10.1017/eso.2018.86 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 366-400 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

ARUN KUMAR

Keyword(s):

Training Programs ◽

Management Training ◽

Ford Foundation ◽

The United States ◽

Indian Society ◽

Administrative Staff ◽

Case Method ◽

Post Colonial ◽

Education In India ◽

Management Institutions

Founded in 1956, the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) was established with the objective of professionalizing management in post-colonial India through training, research, and consultancy. It was modeled on the Administrative Staff College at Henley-on-Thames (Henley), in the United Kingdom. Like Henley, ASCI used syndicates for its management training programs. Between 1958 and 1973, ASCI received more than $1.26 million from the Ford Foundation, part of which was used to finance the development and use of the case method in ASCI’s training programs, and later more widely in its research and consultancy. This article traces the ways by which the Ford Foundation––as adominating institution––stigmatized Henley and ASCI, their institutional practices, and the wider Indian society; and legitimized the case method pioneered at the Harvard Business School. Imbricated in the Cold War’s geo-politics, Ford Foundation’s interventions in Hyderabad should be understood as part of the emergence of the United States as the dominant neo-colonial power, which required the displacement of Britain, its institutions, and their practices as the template for India’s post-colonial management institutions.

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