‘The primary responsibility of inculcating strong research skills in a student lies with the legal educational institutions of the country.’- says Prof. (Dr.) Ranbir Singh, Pro-Chancellor, IILM Law School.
Legal research is an indispensable and integral part of legal practice. Over the last few decades, there has been increasing demand for legal research in academia.
A good practitioner who has an impressive career of appearing and winning in courts would not have been able to do so had the research skills not been at their absolute best.
The dynamic nature of law and legal issues associated with every case, would push the advocate to use the research skills not only at the time of presenting his arguments in front of a judge but also while drafting the submissions. To put it briefly, legal research is the starting point of preparation for any practicing lawyer.
As law as a disciple became more and more popular over the years, varieties of career options opened up for students who became law graduates. Aside from litigation, early law graduates opt to become transactional corporate lawyers, judges, work in NGOs, in-house legal counsels, policy organizations and think tanks etc.
IILM Law School provides a plural environment, enabling policies, supportive governance as well as state-of-the art infrastructure to facilitate knowledge creation through socially relevant research by its faculty members and students.
IILM’s Law Library has a rich collection of electronic databases, journals and books in relevant disciplines. Currently it possesses over 2500 titles and subscription of all major legal databases, magazines and journals. Students are oriented on how to make a correct use of a law library from the first semester in the law school.
Students are mandated to spend a dedicated amount of time every day in the library to explore newer areas of law, outside classroom discussions. They are also encouraged to opt for library internships in their initial semesters. Aside from subscribed sources, the students are also trained to use free legal online databases such as MOOCS, Swayam, E-pathshala, SAGE Journals, DOAJ, National Digital Library of India etc.
The academic curriculum of IILM is enriched with research-based evaluation components. For every course that a student studies in a semester, he or she has to undertake a research project that will account for twenty percentage of its evaluation component.
Students collaborate with faculties to get their papers published in reputed journals. The focus on student publications is equally significant for post graduate students and doctoral students. It is mandatory for students pursuing a LL.M degree to write a dissertation in their final semester.
To further encourage student research, the law school publishes a newsletter- ‘causa causans’ quarterly that comprises of interesting thought pieces by students. A similar platform is provided to faculties who contribute to IILM blog on any socio legal issue of interest.
The Law School has a dedicated Centre for Excellence in Legal Writing (CELW). ‘We aim to provide training to students to hone their writing skills, train them in doing legal research, judgement analysis, and inculcate in students the habit of reading and writing on contemporary legal issues.’ says Aditya Verma- Asst. Prof. and Convener, CELW.
The CELW conducted a National Case Analysis Competition on the Pegasus judgement in December 2021 that received an overwhelming participation from reputed institutions. In February 2022, a workshop on ‘Introduction to Legal Research and Research Paper writing’ was conducted under its auspices for inculcating research interest in our students.
IILM Law School has been actively promoting a strong emphasis on interdisciplinarity in research since the very beginning as the former understands the relevance of multidisciplinary education and interdisciplinary scholarship in a global world.
‘As a private law school dedicated to promoting public service, we aim to consolidate our past experiences and knowledge, invest greater resources and efforts to enlarge our research programmes, promote greater interdisciplinary research, incentivize research projects, strengthen research collaborations, and participate actively in global knowledge creation opportunities.’- says Prof. (Dr.) Asha Verma, Dean IILM Law School.