The Ministry of Law & Justice, in collaboration with the Bar Council of India (BCI) and National Law University, Delhi, is organizing a National Consultation for Second Generation Reforms in Legal Education, today and tomorrow at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi (Conference).

The Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the event and the Chief Justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan will deliver a special address. The Union Minister for Law & Justice, M. Veerappa Moily, will present a vision statement for Second Generation Reforms in Legal Education, and later will present draft resolutions based on the discussions and deliberations of ten technical sessions. The next Chief Justice of India, Justice S.H. Kapadia, whose appointment was confirmed yesterday, will give the Valedictory Address and the Human Resource Development Minister, Kapil Sibal will give a special address. 

The theme of the National Consultation reads as follows, “India currently faces the major challenges in the field of providing legal education to respond to global challenges. Although, India has emerged as a leading global hub for the knowledge based service industry for the past decade, it still needs a revolution to meet and respond to global challenges in providing services particularly by the lawyers whether in litigation or non-litigation side.” 

The Law Commission of India in its 184^th Law Report in part 1 and part 2 has examined the matter relating to the legal education. The National Knowledge Commission had, in 2007, made some detailed recommendations on legal education. The Conference is expected to primarily debate on the following issues concerning legal education and practice.

Multi-jurisdictional training and best practices in teaching law

In order to be able to effectively implement the reforms in legal education in India, law teaching must focus on developing students’ critical and analytical abilities through classroom exercises and training designed for these purposes. In order to develop a framework to bring about these changes, it has been suggested that the experiences of law teachers in other jurisdictions be examined and the scope for implementing effective teaching and training methods be identified and employed successfully elsewhere. 

Legal education in the United States has extensively used classroom exercises by teachers from multi jurisdictional backgrounds. Full time professors, experts in their respective fields, at various law schools teach specialized subjects. It is also common practice in leading U.S. law schools to conduct seminars and lectures by legal and industry experts from other parts of the globe. These short-term courses are taught by experts for a few weeks or months in a year and they have been very helpful for students in gaining global perspective.  Law schools in India are now emulating some of these efforts. The National Law Schools have been conducting single credit courses on certain topics. Philip Wood, QC and Rita Dev, Allen & Overy's Head of Training, conduct short courses at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore that have been a huge success. Professor Venkata Rao, Director of National Law School India University, said, "This course puts the National Law School in a unique position by leading the way in raising awareness of international finance law in India." A student who attended this program told Bar & Bench, "I have learnt more in this program in one week than I have in the entire course in law school. It was thrilling to learn how law works in practice and only confirmed my interest in international finance. The teachers were brilliant – the approach was unique." After the success at the National Law School, now the training program will also go to Nalsar at Hyderabad.

Post-graduate degree in law

One of the neglected areas of legal education in the country is post-graduate studies in law and research. The Law Ministry is now going to look at the prospects for national and international collaboration in improving standards of post-graduate studies in law including the strengthening of law publications for quality development. Most students from the prestigious NLUs prefer going abroad than pursuing an LL.Ms in India.

Lawyer – Profession vs. Business

“The legal profession is not a business, rather it is a profession requiring certain standards to be followed by its members,” is a common recital of every conference discussing legal ethics and business practice. The BCI has laid down certain standards of conduct and etiquette for the members of the Bar. There has been debate on several grounds over the issue of information website of a lawyer being considered as advertisement by lawyers, concerns with the entry of foreign law firms and several other issues of how the BCI is active only on certain fronts and remain silent on crucial law reform processes.

While most advocates and senior advocates complain about law firms treating the profession as business, the law firms complain about the lack of transparency of the Bar members and the Bar Council of India. Most law firms complain that there is no regulation of senior advocates on whom there is any form on control or disciplines. “There are even complaints that most senior advocates charge fees and do no turn up for the hearing,” said a law firm member who wished to remain unnamed.

Corporate Law firms vs. Litigation

Upon graduation, students from the National Law Schools prefer to opt for a career in major corporate law firms as against a litigating career. At the same time, the demand for corporate lawyers in light of India’s globalizing economy is increasing at a rapid pace. The Conference considers why students from National Law Schools prefer careers in corporate law firms and how the legal education system can cater to the emerging needs of the new economy. It will also examine how to organize training and education for alternate dispute resolution systems, especially arbitration. 

This has been the most contentious issue and one of the criticisms against NLU’s. The root of the problem is financial freedom and affordability. Most NLU education costs about Rs. 10 lakhs ($ 22,000). Upon graduation, joining the Bar would mean, to survive on a meager salary of Rs. 5,000 ($110) to Rs. 20,000 ($ 445) per month as most senior advocates or practicing advocates offer to pay not beyond this sum. In some cases there may be no salary at all.

While the Bar and Bench may stress the importance of NLU students joining law practice, this decision cannot be thrust upon the students. Speaking to Bar & Bench, Rajesh Kumar a student of NLU said “there have to be easily available scholarships for completing their expensive NLU education, concessions for practicing students in order to encourage them from taking up litigation as a career. Mere stressing that joining the Bar is a better life versus joining corporate litigation may not be enough to attract the best of students.

This two-day Conference may shed some light on most of these issues. Here is a detailed schedule of the Conference.

We encourage our readers to share their thoughts on the above topics. We believe that your voices will be heard by the members of the National Consultation, and could have an impact on the future of the legal industry.