Clinical Legal Education at IILM Law School

Clinical legal education aims to bridge gap between the theory and practice of law and seeks to impart practical knowledge to the students. As legal education globalizes and research is becoming a universal trend, promoting Clinical Legal Education through institutional mechanisms is the need of the hour.

IILM Law School strongly believes that classroom learning alone cannot help students to come out as confident practitioners. “We need a generation of lawyers who will not only practice in a number of jurisdictions but also help the underprivileged to get access to justice.”- says Prof. (Dr) Ranbir Singh, Pro-Chancellor, IILM Law School. To support this belief, IILM’s Clinical Legal Aid Centre and Moot Court Society has been working effortlessly to bring the best of Clinical legal education to the students.

IILM Legal Aid Centre

IILM Law school aims to inculcate the proper curriculum, to make socio-legal services stand at the centre of young law student’s education instead of just encouraging the growth of corporate culture. IILM legal aid centre has been working actively post its inauguration in September 2021.

It has conducted wide range of activities from rural outreach to industry workshops trying to inculcate a sense of responsibility in the legal education and an endeavour to give it back to the society.

The centre works to further the importance of human right and to solidify the idea of having basic essential legal literacy for everyone, irrespective of their socio-economic standing. The activity is not just essential for the curricular fulfilment of the institution, but it also helps us make the students understand where the true purpose of legal education lie.

The Legal Aid centre has been closely working with DLSA (District Legal Services Authority), NALSA (The National Legal Services Authority) and HSLSA (Haryana State Legal Services Authority) to spread awareness on various legal issues amongst multiple nearby villages as well as semi rural areas.

Students have been actively working on variety of important legal issues such as AIDS Vaccine awareness, legal rights of labour and workmen, campaign against drug addiction, gender equality, and conjugal rights amongst many others. The Legal Aid Centre diligently contributed in the smooth functioning of the Lok Adalat held in the April, 2022.

IILM Moot Court activities

Mooting as a law school activity is one of those curricular elements which reflects all the essential ingredients of legal education. It is a platform to sharpen the skills of oration, drafting, pleading and case research in the students.

It puts to test a student’s ability to legally analyse a situation of conflict while they try to showcase their oratory skills and argumentative persuasiveness. Thus, the Moot Court Committee at IILM takes upon itself the responsibility to ensure that the students remain connected to mooting around the session.

The mooting season at IILM Law School begins with the Intra moot court competition and Novice moot court competition which function as a ranking tournament for all the speakers and researchers across all the batches.

The practice sessions and subject specific mooting exercises ensure that the teams representing IILM are well adjusted to the requirements of national and international competition. The Intra moot court competition leads to the formation of a speaker’s pool and a researcher’s pool which goes on to be the basis of formation of teams which eventually represent the institution in national and international mooting competitions.

Notably, IILM law school organized its first National Moot Court competition from 7^th - 9^th April, 2022 on the theme of Artificial Intelligence and criminal law. The moot proposition dealt with the concepts of the criminal liability of an artificial intelligence which is capable of self programming through machine learning.

The other peripheral legal concepts involved were those of hate speech and vicarious liability. The competition witnessed participation from various law schools from different parts of the country. The team representing NMIMS School of Law, Mumbai was declared the winner of the competition.

The grand finale was privileged to witness Senior Advocate Mr. Ajay Verma and the additional Advocate general of Haryana Mr. Devender Singh Saini as the judges of the round.

Their questions tested the legal understanding and mooting skills of both the finalists and elucidated on certain legal conflicts that further elevated the quality of arguments.

The grand Finale was followed by the valedictory ceremony. Hon'ble Mr Justice DK Sharma, Judge Delhi High Court and Mr Pradeep Rai, Vice-President Supreme Court Bar Association graced the valedictory ceremony in which they inspired the gathering through their pearls of wisdom.

“IILM Law School is bringing the best of Clinical Legal Education in the country as part of an effort to improve the quality of law practice, and to increase consciousness among law students about professional and public responsibility.”- says Dr Sujata Shahi, Vice Chancellor, IILM University.