58 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.

1 : 2009]

LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS

SUPRIYA ROUTH*
Unlike the prevalent discussion in the established
scholarship associated with legal education, this article
presents an alternative to the prevailing notion of the
‘Legal Education’ on the whole. The present discussion
reviews different aspects of legal education for example
pedagogy, curriculum design and institutional
framework. It further argues that since its inception,
legal education in India has been catering to the needs
of a particular classification of lawyers and not the
legal profession in general. In order to substantiate its
position, this article further traces the evolution of legal
education in India through various stages while
analyzing the approach adopted by the different
Government appointed committees has been very
much limited due to the political considerations and
lack of vision. Also there have been problems
associated with the institutional framework of legal
education as autonomy and conservative regulation
has been major hindrances in the evolution of “Legal
Education” to its desired levels. This article suggests
that a way forward after the initiation of National law
Schools needs to happen otherwise the vision and all
the endeavours behind the setting up of the National
Law Schools, for example the introduction of multi
disciplinary approach towards studying law with the
introduction of social sciences and case-discussion
model in law subjects might all remain a futile exercises
without achieving its purposes. This discussion apart
from upgradation of infrastructure and revision of
curriculum design further urges the policy makers,
academicians and the members of the legal profession
to address the issues raised through this article and to
broaden the horizon of legal education.

*Assiatant Professor of Law, The W.B. National University of Juridical Sciences,

Kolkata.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 59

Let me embark on the task of evaluation of the legal education

scenario in India from a very fundamental assertion of what law is, and
what is its role in the society. A discussion on legal education is drifting
without a sense of the ends it seeks to achieve. The diversity of ideas that
have been thrown up through contemporary debates around legal
education is a poignant reminder of what needs to be achieved – a major
overhaul in the way we think of and institutionalize legal education across
India. Such debates, occasionally informal but mostly formal, carried out
in classroom spaces, faculty seminars and processed through committees
and commissions, have traversed a whole range of issues in pedagogy,
curriculum design, institutional architecture and autonomy. Together, they
have sketched out a roadmap for reforms that could serve us well in the
future. However, this reforms agenda cannot be complete without imbibing
adequate flexibility to suit the context and detail in which legal education
is needed and brought to operation. It is going to be the case that a
meaningful reforms agenda would require remarkable sensitivity towards
diverse practices, ideas as well as competing narratives of law. Borrowing
from my association with a major law university, this paper is an attempt
to weave together ideologies and experiences to supply a context against
which we could weigh our reforms agenda.
Law is a mechanism of social engineering – it is a mean to an end.1
Now if law is a mechanism of social engineering then viewing lawyers (or
Advocates) as only legal practitioners in law courts would be extremely myopic
and overshadow the true nature of law. Of course a lawyer or an advocate’s
more orthodox role is to plead in a court of law. But that role cannot deny the
range of other role either played or could be played by a lawyer; for example,
a lawyer is a potential politician (a role significantly played by lawyers throughout
the world), community organizer, policy-maker, professor, rights crusader. A
lawyers’ role in society is multifaceted and boundless.
The legal education system anywhere in the world should have
the characteristic features that promotes and inculcates in students the
range of skills that is necessary to realize the embracing role of lawyers in
the society. What then should a world-class legal education provide for?
A world-class legal education system should institute a ‘system’ that
qualitatively and quantitatively caters to the larger role of law in the society.

1
BRIAN Z TAMANAHA, LAW AS A MEANS TO AN END: THREAT TO THE RULE OF LAW
(2006).
60 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

By “qualitative” I mean the quality of students coming out of the law

school and working in different capacities. By “quantitative” I mean
presence of sufficient number of students in each of the lawyering vocation.
In other words, there must be a heterogeneous working population coming
out of the law school. Any law school that produces a homogeneous
working population can never claim to be promoting the legal education
scenario or catering to the gradual upliftment of the overall legal education
scenario. All the great law schools in all ages and locations are testimony
of the above fact. All the law schools and the legal education systems
having a claim on greatness produces a variety of professionals catering
to a range of vocations on a regular basis. This variety is the result of in-
depth examination, appropriate planning and honest execution.
If the abovementioned are the basis of a world-class legal
education system, how many Indian law schools can lay claim to that
class? Does the legal education system in the country come anywhere
closer to that class?
The law schools as individual units and the legal education system
as a whole in the country comes nowhere close to the elite league of
world’s legal institutions and legal education systems. Moreover, if one
takes into consideration the variety of law colleges, university law
departments, national law schools and all other law institutions one would
conclude that law is taught in an extremely hap-hazard manner in the
country – previously, it was one of the most neglected branch of study
and now, after the mushrooming of the private law schools, it has become
a business with low investment and high returns.2
Great lawyers and judges around the world, astute politicians,
social activists, brilliant academics, diplomats and lobbyists are product
of the legal education system of the country. These people achieved
greatness not because of the legal education system, but by their own
initiative and zeal. The “system’s role” is only marginal and cursory in

2
The Yash Pal Committee in its report though mentions of such colleges and
institutions in engineering and management, but falls short in identifying such
law colleges established for business. See, THE C OMMITTEE TO A DVISE ON
RENOVATION AND REJUVENATION OF HIGHER E DUCATION 5 (2009) available at
www.academics-india.com/Yashpal-committee-report.pdf.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 61

their personal endeavor. It is not because of the legal education system,

but in spite of it that these people have succeeded.3
II. WHAT IS WRONG?
Prof. Upendra Baxi remarked in 1975:
“It is simply not possible to think of “modernizing”
the syllabi or infusing them with social relevance (and
these two are not identical objectives by any means)
without an inter-disciplinary or at any rate multi-
disciplinary awareness.”4
Knowledge Commission in 2008:
“The curricula and syllabi must be based in a
multidisciplinary body of social science and scientific
knowledge. Curriculum development should include
expanding the domain of optional courses, providing
deeper understanding of professional ethics,
modernizing clinic courses, mainstreaming legal aid
programs and developing innovative pedagogic
methods. Legal education must also be socially
engaged and sensitize students to issues of social
justice.”
Did we take a single step forward? Both the Reports at a gap of four
decades are couched in aspirational terms. One of the principal problems
with the legal education scenario in the country is not substantive, it is
procedural and psychological. Despite the Committee and Commission
Reports, Law Commission Recommendation, Supreme Court insistence
hardly has the legal education scenario improved, because who can act
choose not to act. There exists a peculiar mind-block in favour of status
quo howsoever ineffective and failed the status quo is. The other block
in favour of status quo is inaction due to lack of initiative. Because of
these basic problems the 70s activism did not fetch much, and it remains
doubtful as to how far would the 2000s initiative go.

3
Upendra Baxi, Notes Towards A Socially Relevant Legal Education in TOWARDS
A SOCIALLY RELEVANT LEGAL EDUCATION 5 (1979) available at www.ugc.ac.in/pub/
report/1.pdf.
4
Id.
62 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

One of the very basic substantive problems is the determination

of the nature and purpose of legal studies. The way it is argued and pursued
as to whether law is a professional course of study or an academic
discipline, there seems to be an apparent conflict between the two
propositions.5 The debate apparently seems to be tilted in favour of viewing
law as a professional course of study. This is clear from the fact that the
Bar Council of India is the most significant ‘body’ in the legal education
sphere. They determine the rules of the game and decides what would be
taught and to what extent it would be taught as part of the law degree. A
perusal of the compulsory courses prescribed by the BCI would further
reinforce the ‘law as profession’ belief. In doing so they substantially narrow
down the scope of legal education as a whole, and ends up with a half-
hearted measure that neither produces the best lawyers nor creates lawyers
who can be instrumental in social engineering.
A. Curriculum Of The Law School
BCI prescribes the syllabus for the LL.B. degrees (both for 3
years’ and 5 years’ integrated LL.B.). The LL.B. curriculum can broadly
be divided into Compulsory Subjects and Optional Subjects. Compulsory
subjects have the further variation of Theoretical papers and Clinical Legal
Education.
The BCI Rules on “Standards of Legal Education and Recognition
of Degrees in Law for admission as advocates, 1998” prescribed in
pursuance of the Advocates Act 1961 has recently been replaced by the
“Rules on Standards of Legal Education and Recognition of Degrees in
Law for the purpose of enrolment as advocates and inspection of
Universities for recognising its degrees in law, 2008”. Thus, the BCI
regulates the standards of legal education for only would be enrolled
advocates, and they (BCI) are the sole Body to regulate (including
prescribing legal educational standards and the curriculum) legal education
in the country. Hence the premise of the legal education scenario in the
country is based on extremely myopic considerations emanating from
perceiving legal education as generating court practitioners only. Such an

5
At a later stage of the paper I would argue that there is no conflict between the
two propositions and they can harmoniously coexist. Such coexistence would
however, depend upon the fact as to how the legal education system is planned
and executed.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 63

outlook is evident from the compulsory curriculum prescribed for the

LL.B. degree.6 Though the Rules (including the nomenclature) have been
repealed in 2008, hardly has anything changed from the previous Rules
so far as the curriculum is concerned. There still is the compulsory
requirement to study 20 subjects focused on different branches of law,
giving an impression of mutual exclusiveness of each of these subjects.
The overall emphasis of study in each of these courses is positive law and
its different legalistic interpretation given by the courts. The interdisciplinarity
and multi-disciplinarity is buried under the weight of the compulsions
imposed by the BCI. The focus of legal education regulated by the BCI
purports to inculcate the overview of all these compulsory papers to the
students, rather than instilling research skills and jurisprudential
understanding of the “is” and “ought” of law.7
Reducing the number of compulsory course requirements and
thereby increasing the optional courses would lead to a ‘crossing’
wherefrom students can steer their career in different directions, rather
than the present ‘unidirectional highway’ they are made to walk. I revert
back to this issue sometime later in the paper.

6
The 1998 Rules provided for the following compulsory subjects: Jurisprudence,
Contract I & II, Tort and Consumer Protection Laws, Family Law I & II, Law of
Crimes, Cr P C, Juvenile Justice and Probation of Offenders Act, Constitutional
Law, Property Law, Law of Evidence, CPC and Limitation Act, Legal Language/
Legal Writing Including General English, Administrative Law, Company Law,
Human Rights and International Law, Arbitration, Conciliation and Alternate
Dispute Resolution Systems, Environmental Law, Labour Law, Interpretation of
Statutes, Land Laws.
The 2008 Rules provides for the following compulsory subjects:
Jurisprudence, Law of Contract, Specific Contract, Tort including MV Accident
and Consumer Protection Laws, Family Law I & II, Law of Crimes, Cr P C,
Constitutional Law I & II, Property Law, Law of Evidence, CPC and Limitation Act,
Administrative Law, Company Law, Public International Law, Principles of Taxation
Law, Environmental Law, Labour & Industrial Law I & II.
7
I am particularly tempted to look at the United State’s legal education framework,
wherein only 5 to 6 law courses are prescribed as compulsory papers, thereby
leaving larger part of the degree programme flexible, enabling students to choose
from a variety of legal, non-legal and socio-legal courses to choose from. Such a
legal education framework produced lawyers, academics, judges, activists,
government servants and presidents no less than any other legal education system
has produced – definitely not less than the Indian legal education system has
produced.
64 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

A perusal of the clinical legal education as it exists today would

suggest that the “clinical” or “practical” instruction is only an extension of
the classroom teaching, and not practical in any real sense of the term.8
There requires to be a six months practical training on the four clinical
compulsory courses prescribed by the BCI. A closer look at the BCI
syllabus for these papers would suggest that most of the papers are actually
not designed to give students the required experiential learning opportunity.
The curriculum only becomes an extension of the classroom teaching
component. Students actually don’t have to do anything by themselves –
they are to be observers in most of the cases. This is however, except for
the paper on ‘Public Interest Lawyering, Legal Aid and Para-Legal
Services’. That is the only practical where the students are expected to
‘practically’ do something.
The BCI syllabus on practical papers is fractured and
compartmentalized – most of which is taught in the classrooms like other
substantive law classes. A much better job can be done by the universities
and the law schools with the practical papers if a holistic and purposive
view of the same is taken. I also intend to visit this issue later in the paper.
B. Teaching Pedagogy
When the global legal education scenario debates whether the
Socratic ‘case-dialogue’ method of law teaching is worth the importance
it is given,9 Indian legal education scenario overwhelmingly trusts the
lecture-method imparting ‘provision-ingredients’ knowledge of law.
The law teacher (in the majority of law schools in India) would
come in a class and base her lecture on the bare provisions of law
supplemented by the decided cases of the Court of Records (ratio
decidendi and obiter dicta, without ever discussing the ‘why’ element
of the decision). The classroom lacks any kind of discussion, analysis
and understanding of the range of other variables that operates on the
positive law.

8
Supriya Routh, Providing Legal Aid: Some Untried Means 50(03) JOURNAL OF
INDIAN LAW INSTITUTE 375-390.
9
For a very interesting discussion on the law school ‘case-dialogue’ pedagogy
and it’s limited effectiveness, see generally WILLIAM M. SULLIVAN, ANNE COLBY,
JUDITH WELCH WEGNER, LLOYD BOND & LEE S. SHULMAN, EDUCATING LAWYERS –
PREPARATION FOR THE PROFESSION OF LAW 47-86 (2007).
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 65

The question papers are testimony of the pedagogy adopted by

the different law schools. In majority of the institutions, the end-semester
or annual question paper are flat and enquires merely of the different
provisions of statutes and case decisions on the subject. The nature of
questions lacks any kind of legal analysis or jurisprudential debates.
Classroom teaching lacks any kind of innovation, and students’ participation
is only passive. Hardly do they contribute to the issues under discussion.
This fails the very purpose of a higher educational institution, which is
generally recognized as generation of knowledge, pooled through different
opinions and perspectives.
C. Law School Faculty
Competent and committed faculty is another weak link of the legal
education system of the country. Admittedly, and sometimes allegedly,
many of the faculty members choose to join because law teaching is widely
perceived as the least demanding career option. Despite a mandatory
minimum entry-level requirement national eligibility test for law teachers,
many of the law schools choose to appoint faculties who did not clear the
test. This trend, however, is motivated by considerations totally different
from each other for law schools situated differently. At times, it is often
the case that these minimum entry requirements are not representative of
the roles and responsibilities that a law teacher in a present-day law
university is expected to manage. Though one agrees that there needs to
be some basic minimum requirement for entry into the legal profession,10
a good deal of debate needs to happen before we discover these threshold
standards. Moreover, these standards are indicative and not determinati
ve of the quality of a law teacher. The gap between what the law schools
expect, in the quality of their teaching staff, and what they finally get through
the current framework of NET, poses a kind of paradox which is deeply
troubling for the future of legal education
It may not be far from truth to suggest that academic achievement,
rigour, research potential etc are not the only considerations on which a
law school is accredited by the main regulatory bodies. There are other

10
Here I want to emphasize a phenomenon that though not directly, but indirectly
affect the legal education scenario of the country. A basic minimum entry level
requirement is mandated for almost all professions related to law, but strikingly
there is no such requirement to enter the Bar and practice law in the courts.
66 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

considerations and these are well-reflected through the number of law

schools in the country that get the Bar Council of India’s recognition despite
poor academic and infrastructural standing. In most of such cases, these
are schools where “trusts” are the garb of business and profit. Many of
these law schools employ people who did not clear the threshold test to
become a law teacher. This is often a strategic ploy to pay these law
teachers as less as they can and squeeze as much work as possible, both
through teaching commitments and administrative obligations, Because
of the inherent insecurity about their tenure, these teachers can hardly
speak or protest, thus making legal education the biggest loser. As a
consequence hereof, it is difficult for these teachers to manage well with
these different responsibilities.
On the other hand, excellent institutions with demonstrated academic
achievement, appoint extraordinary teachers who did not clear the threshold
test. Most of the world renowned legal academicians that the country has
today never cleared any threshold test to become a law teacher.11 Thus, for
people who have authored influential books, or proved their brilliance in their
teaching, the formal threshold can hardly hold any significance. But use of the
same mechanism to subvert a regulation while at the same time upholding its
essence and spirit is problematic and dilutes the very mandate of the regulation
in the long run.12 It needs to be strictly taken care of that the sole consideration
for appointing law teachers who did not clear the threshold test is teaching
and research, and not any other extraneous consideration.
Whereas teaching and research are to be t he determining criterion
of a good faculty, we adduce overwhelming importance to the classroom
teaching. This, to a great extent, acts as an impediment to the idea of
generating knowledge within a university. Granted that teaching is the most
important function of a teacher, but an academic’s worth is justified by the
research that she engages herself in. It is time to realize that none of these

11
For most of this lot there was no mandate of clearing a test before they ventured
into legal academia.
12
Referring to the trend common in a few national law schools, wherein it becomes
imperative to relax the minimum entrance regulations to attract bright and
promising teaching staff. At the end, it becomes obvious that the essence of
this regulation (which is to ensure a minimum standard of teaching) is realized
more through its violation.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 67

aspects run contrary to each other and equal space must be carved out in
pursuit of both good teaching and research. Thus, there needs to be an
adequate scheme of incentive and disincentive. Apart from the regular
refresher programmes, there needs to be faculty development programmes.
D. Institutional Autonomy
In most part India’s law schools13 are generally parts of a university
– a department in a university or a college under a university. The national
law universities are the only dedicated universities of law. In all these
places exists a hierarchiezed decision making process that gives least
importance to the people who are actually performing the job on a day to
day basis. Learned judges, learned advocates, learned politicians, who
have grayed long back decides the goals and modus operandi of legal
education in the country. Sometimes, however, some legal academicians
are also given a say in some of these decision making committees. People
who would implement a policy is given the status of instructors – who
would just follow the orders – convinced or not. There is hardly any
autonomy at the law school level. At each and every stage one needs to
take down what is given. The curriculum is determined by the BCI, the
budget is determined by the funding bodies (or for self financing institutions,
their corpus), how to spend the budget is determined by the Executive
Council or the Finance Committee of a university. The faculties, the
students or educators would have no say in these matters. The Committees
that decides these issues often operate on diverse considerations
extraneous to welfare of the legal education system. However, allegation
of lack of autonomy would be somewhat misplaced for national law
schools. The Vice Chancellor is the single most powerful person in the
national law schools life, despite the presence of the different policy
determining Committees.
III. A RENEWED INITIATIVE
The 21st Century ushered in new challenges, novel perspectives
and greater opportunities for legal education in the country. As a result
the new century brought an unprecedented activism in the legal education
scenario in particular and the overall higher education scenario in general
in the country. Beginning from the 184th Report of the Law Commission

13
I am using the general term “school” as a generic substitute for all the other
formations, i.e., college, department, institution, academy etc.
68 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

of India there has been three other initiatives in the sphere of legal education
and the overall higher education in this decade, the latest of which being
The Committee to Advise on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher
Education, more popularly known as the Prof. Yash Pal Committee Report.
Though there have been incremental approaches to improve the legal
education scenario in the country, what is significant for the reports
prepared in the present decade is their approach of taking a holistic look
at the legal education scenario of the country. I don’t wish to burden this
section with what each of the Committees have to say, but I do want to
take a look at their approach and suggestions in the present context. I
focus my attention specifically on the recent reports.14 However
occasionally I will go back to some of the earlier Committees so far it
relevant for the present discussion.
The 184th Report was technically termed as: The Legal Education
and Professional Training and Proposals for Amendments to the Advocates
Act 1961 and the University Grants Commission Act, 1956. One would
have expected a broader understanding and interpretation of “legal
education and professional training” from the Commission than they have
actually come up with. The report though paid lip service to every aspect
of the legal education system in the country, the overwhelming (and to a
great extent, the only) purpose of the Report was to attune legal education
in the country to the necessities of the Bar. With an attempt to justify the
overwhelming significance of the report prepared, the Committee heavily
resorted to the erstwhile attempts to improve and revive the legal education
system. While such a phenomenon goes on to point out the open-minded
approach of the committee, it also suggests inaction on the part of the
implementing agencies for a long time. Since, most of the previous initiatives
were not acted upon, those still constituted “novel” suggestions to improve
the scenario. The Report of the Commission was myopic to the extent of
its concentration on legal education only from the court practitioners’ point
of view. Within the limited focus of its operation, the Commission however,
came up with significant recommendations that would go a long way to
uplift the education system. One of the prime point of the Commission’s
recommendation is the constitution of a committee by the University Grants
Commission (UGC). This committee would be a representative committee
of the Universities imparting legal education, which would make

14
I thereby exonerate myself from looking into the pool of other reports purported
to improve the legal education scenario in the country.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 69

representation to the BCI in matters of legal education.15 Constitution of

a Legal Education Committee of the BCI had also been by the Report to
facilitate meaningful discussion with the other committee (UGC
Committee) and regulate and “standardize” legal education in the country.
The Commission took some time to explain the significance of alternative
dispute resolution mechanisms and proposed its compulsory inclusion in
the law syllabus. While recommending compulsory inclusion of the clinical
method of legal education the Commission throws its weight behind the
problem-method of law teaching. To facilitate pedagogic innovation and
teaching skills the Report recommended establishment of law teachers’
training institutes in the country. As part of same agenda the Commission
promoted the idea of involving more and more adjunct teachers in regular
law teaching in the universities. This was seen by the Commission as an
initiative capable of improving teaching of law. BCI was called upon to
cautiously approve and recognize new law teaching institutions, and they
were also urged to make compulsory a one year training programme for
all law graduates before they could join the Bar. Here one must note that
the entirety of the BCI proposals was based on the “Report of The Task
Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap”,
formally titled “Legal Education and Professional Development – An
Educational Continuum” (more popularly known as the MacCrate
Report, on the Chairperson’s name) prepared by the Legal Education
and Admissions to the Bar section of the American Bar Association.
MacCrate Report was prepared to bridge the “gap” between
practice of law in the court and legal education at the universities.16 It did
not take a holistic view of legal education for the purpose of satisfying the

15
The Commission also suggested amendments to the Advocates Act, 1961 and
the University Grants Commission Act, 1956 to make this mechanism possible.
See, LAW COMMISSION OF INDIA, 184TH REPORT ON THE LEGAL EDUCATION AND
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING AND PROPOSAL FOR AMENDMENTS TO THE ADVOCATES ACT,
1961 AND THE UNIVERSITY GRANTS COMMISSION ACT, 1956 (2002) available at http://
lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/184threport-PartI.pdf.
16
“It has long been apparent that the American law schools cannot reasonably be
expected to shoulder the task of converting even very able students into full-
fledged lawyers licensed to handle legal matters. Thus, a gap develops between the
expectation and the reality, resulting in complains and recriminations from legal
educators and practicing lawyers. The lament of the practicing bar is a steady
refrain: “They can’t draft a contract, they can’t write, they’ve never seen a summons,
the professors have never been inside a courtroom.” Law schools offer the traditional
70 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

needs of the society outside the courtroom – their terms of reference

were very narrowly construed.17 Having such an unidirectional objective
at the back of their mind the Task Force came up with “The Statement
of Fundamental Lawyering Skills and Professional Values”18 for
lawyers. The Statement lists the fundamental lawyering skills as: problem
solving, legal analysis and reasoning, legal research, factual investigation,
communication, counseling, negotiation, litigation and alternative dispute-
resolution procedures, organization and management of legal work and,
recognizing and resolving ethical dilemmas.19 The identified professional
values were: provision of competent representation, striving to promote
justice, fairness and morality, striving to improve the profession and,
professional self-development.20 Though these skills and values are
essentially projected as lawyering skills from the practitioners’ point of
view, many of the components so identified are essential for the variety of
law professions other than a practicing lawyer.

responses: “We teach them how to think, we’re not trade schools, we’re centers of
scholarship and learning, practice is best taught by practitioners.”
However, the Report asserts that there is no “gap” between the law
school education and the legal profession: “[W]e have concluded that there is
no “gap”. There is only an arduous road of professional development along
which all prospective lawyers should travel. It is the responsibility of law schools
and the practicing bar to assist students and lawyers to develop the skills and
values required to complete the journey.”
See SECTION OF LEGAL EDUCATION AND ADMISSION TO THE BAR- AMERICAN BAR
ASSOCIATION, LEGAL EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT - AN EDUCATIONAL
CONTINUUM, REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON LAW SCHOOLS AND PROFESSION: NARROWING
THE GAP, 4-8 (1992) available at http://www.abanet.org/leagled/publications/
onlinepubs/maccrate.html.
17
To broaden the perspective on the issue of the preparation of lawyers for
practice, a subcommittee of the Task Force conducted four public hearings between
February 1990 and June 1991. Participants in the hearings were asked their opinion:
on whether newly admitted lawyers were prepared to practice law without
supervision; as to what should be taught to improve graduates for practice; on
how any additional training, if desirable, should be accomplished; and whether
they favored a skills training requirement and performance testing for bar
admissions.
See Id. at xii.
18
Id. at 135.
19
Id. at 138 – 207.
20
Id. at 207 – 221.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 71

A far more balanced Report (and a far more relevant Report

from Indian legal education perspective) was the Report prepared by the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2007. The
Report is technically termed: Educating Lawyers – Preparation for the
Profession of Law (popularly Carnegie Report). Appraising us of the
nature of law schools the Report observes:
“Like other professional schools, law schools are
hybrid institutions. One parent is the historic
community of practitioners, deeply immersed in the
common law and carrying on traditions of craft,
judgment, and public responsibility. The other heritage
is that of the modern research university. These two
strands of inheritance were blended by the inventors
of the modern American law school, starting at
Harvard in the 1870s.”21
Beginning from such a premise the Foundation took upon itself
the task of providing the merger of these two goals of the law schools in
the best possible way:
“We are convinced that this is a propitious moment
for uniting, in a single educational framework, the
two sides of legal knowledge: (1) formal knowledge
and (2) the experience of practice. We therefore
attempt in this report to imagine a more capacious,
yet more integrated, legal education.”22
Such a merger of professional educational goals with that of the
academic disciplinary goals should result in three broad elements for the
law school curriculum. The three-pronged approach of the law schools
should constitute of teaching of legal doctrines and analytical skills,
inculcation of lawyering skills and ethics, and orientation on the fundamental
principles, purposes and values of the profession of law in the society23.
The next initiative to improve the legal education scenario in the
country came in the form of the National Knowledge Commission (in

21
SULLIVAN supra note 9, at 4.
22
Id. at 12.
23
Id. at 194 - 202.
72 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

short, the Commission), constituted by the Prime Minister, which submitted

it report on legal education in 2007.24 The Commission constituted a
Standing Committee for Legal Education to take an in depth look at the
issues and challenges of legal education in the country. The Commission
recognized “legal education as an important constituent of professional
education”.25 Thus, the legal education construct, as identified by the
Commission is “professional education”. Such a construct would determine
the discourse of legal education that the Commission sought to steer
forward. There is, however, a problem with such a construct of legal
education. In formulation of such a construct of legal education the
commission does not view legal education as an academic discipline, or
knowledge generating field – to them the legal education discourse is a
professional educational endeavor. They are, however, aware, unlike the
Law Commission, that such a professional educational endeavor needs
to produce not only practicing lawyers but also academics, legislators,
judges, policy makers, civil society activists etc.
Identifying the purpose of legal education as incorporating spirit
of public service and emphasizing on legal research to create new legal
knowledge, the essence of the commission proposal was modernization
of the law curriculum. Such modernization initiative, on one hand, needs
to have a multidisciplinary and comparative curriculum, on the other hand
such education must be socially engaged. Apart from the doctrinaire
analysis-based classroom law teaching, the Commission emphasized on
clinical legal education, especially to deliver justice to the poor apart from
educating the students. To attain these ideals the Commission appropriately
emphasized on the two-prong infrastructural development of the law

24
The National Knowledge Commission (“NKC”) was established by the Prime
Minister of India in 2005 to recommend and undertake reforms in order to make
India a knowledge-based economy and society. In the Prime Minister’s words:
“The time has come to create a second wave of institution building, and of
excellence in the field of education, research and capability building.” As part
of the Commission a Working Group on Legal Education had been constituted.
See NATIONAL KNOWLEDGE COMMISSION, REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP ON LEGAL
EDUCATION (2007) available at http://knowledgecommission.gov.in/downloads/
documents/wg_legal.pdf.
25
See NATIONAL KNOWLEDGE COMMISSION, REPORT TO THE NATION 2006-2009 79 (2009)
available athttp://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/reports/report09.asp.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 73

schools; one, law school resources in terms of the library, use of technology,
and second, law school resources in terms of appointing and retaining
competent faculty. The Commission did spend adequate time to think of
the law faculty. While emphasizing on the research culture in the law schools
and the faculty, they proposed right to practice, and other consultancy
privileges for the law faculties in addition to the teaching job. The
Commission did this based on an understanding of the salary differentiation
amongst different law professions.26 The other substantive proposals
related to the improvement of the teaching pedagogy and examination
system, which the Commission proposed to be ‘problem-based’. The
Commission proposed the reintroduction of the Bar Examination to
improve the quality of legal practitioners in the country.
The Commission vehemently argued for institutional autonomy
and reduction of the role of the BCI,27 specially with matters of curricula
and syllabi. While proposing a very marginal role for the BCI the
Commission recommended a new regulatory mechanism for legal
education – a Standing Committee on Legal Education, to be established
under the Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education
(IRAHE) with much wider representation than any other committee had
proposed.
Then came the Committee to Advise on the Renovation and
Rejuvenation of Higher Education, instituted by the Ministry of Human

26
The issue reminds me of a very informal talk I had with my American supervising
professor, Frank Bloch. On being asked why the American law schools pay so much
to their faculties, compared to anywhere else in the world. Frank’s simple answer was
that the law schools see us as otherwise practicing lawyers (through a good practicing
lawyer would earn much more), and therefore tries to compensate us at par.
We, however, in India of course don’t think that way. Our premise is
based on the understanding that law teachers are teachers because they did not
have anything else to do, and hence pay them as less as you can.
27
The Commission has tried hard to break the legal education system free of the
shackles of the BCI controlled unidirectional system catering to the needs only of
the Bar. It was observed that the BCI is exercising more powers than was intended
by the Advocates Act 1961. There is no effective consultation between the faculties
and the BCI – there are more than 700 law schools in the country but the faculty
has no say in legal education. Moreover BCI has granted permission to law schools
that are maintaining very poor standards of legal education (something observed
by the Justice Ahmadi Committee, 1994, and reiterated by this Commission.
74 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

Resource Development and headed by Professor Yash Pal. The Committee

submitted its report in 2009. The Committee began its journey with a
fundamental question: what is the role of a university in higher education?
Finding that the role of a university cannot be limited to only consumption
of knowledge, but also generation of knowledge, not only for the university
learners, but for the society as a whole, the Committee came up with a
holistic reformation proposal of higher education in the country. The
Committee observed that if the principal role of a university is to create
new knowledge, the artificial disciplinary boundaries should get blurred
at some level. There needs to a multidisciplinary approach for generation
of new knowledge. Such multidisciplinarity should not only be there in the
syllabi and curriculum, it must also be evident from the university’s
approach in solving real-life problems in its immediate vicinity, and its
initiative to work with other research and academic institutions of a diverse
specializations. The Committee came down heavily on the variety of
deemed and ‘stand alone’ universities.28 The national law schools are
thus at the receiving end of the Committee. If the Committee’s
recommendation are to mean anything, the national law schools are to
diversify their range of subjects in addition to incorporating
multidisciplinarity in their curriculum. A perusal of the report would suggest
that the premise of the report has been fundamentally academic – to them
the role of the university is more of a (inter) disciplinary study than a mere
professional school, though generating professionals is one of its ardent
duty. In such a context the Committee suggests of higher standard for the
stand-alone universities to get approval or recognition as a deemed
university. Like its predecessors this Committee was also irked with the
role of the different regulatory bodies and Councils. It proposed the
abolition of all the Councils (Bar Council of India, Medical Council of
India etc.) for regulation of higher education, and suggested one
Commission of Constitutional status – the National Commission for Higher
Education and Research (NCHER) to regulate higher education in the

28
While commending the role of the IITs and IIMs in the country’s development,
the Committee suggests these stand-alone universities to diversify their disciplines
and increase their role in the overall societal development. It gave example of
universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and CALTECH, which
though had a stand-alone beginning now caters to a range of disciplines and is
the melting pot of interdisciplinarity. See, THE COMMITTEE TO ADVISE ON THE
RENOVATION AND REJUVENATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION 15 (2009) available at
www.academics-india.com/Yashpal-committee-report.pdf.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 75

country. The Committee was of the view that all these Councils end up
interfering into the activities and initiatives of the higher educational
institutions. Such a phenomenon is wholly undesirable. Autonomy of the
universities in its policy determination, curriculum delineation and
improvement should be religiously preserved. Finally, the Committee was
of the view that there must be an independent evaluation of the performance
of the universities on a regular basis, and such evaluation should be the
basis of recognition or derecognition of the universities.
IV. NOW WHAT?
The problems have been identified, solutions prescribed, but then
what? Someone needs to act now. But can we be hopeful considering the
number of committee reports that has been submitted so far, and the
extent of inaction those are met with.29 Then there are additional problems
of the conflicting recommendations and different approaches taken by
the different committees. Whereas on one hand the 184th Report of the
Law Commission encourages the national law schools and the like
institutions, the Yash Pal Committee vigorously opposes such an idea and
recommends diversification of disciplines in every university. The 184th
Report of the Law Commission proposes revival of legal education
principally from the perspective of the court practitioners. The Knowledge
Commission takes a wider approach in terms of the law professionals.
But the premise of the Knowledge Commission was based on an
understanding that perceived legal education as only a ‘professional
education’ endeavor. There are however, unanimities amongst the different
reports on the issue. All the reports of the decade are unanimous that

29
A not so exhaustive list of the Committees would include FIRST INDIA UNIVERSITY
COMMISSION REPORT 1902; REPORT OF THE CHAGLA COMMITTEE, 1955; REPORT OF THE
BOMBAY LEGAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE; REPORT OF THE INTER-UNIVERSITY BOARD,
1950; REPORT OF THE ALL INDIA BAR COMMITTEE, 1953; REPORT OF THE RAJASTHAN
LEGAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE, 1955; 14TH REPORT OF THE LAW COMMISSION, 1958;
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE GEJENDRAGADKAR COMMITTEE, 1964; FORMULATIONS OF
ALL INDIA SEMINAR ON LEGAL EDUCATION, 1972; TOWARDS A SOCIALLY RELEVANT
LEGAL EDUCATION – A CONSOLIDATED REPORT OF THE UNIVERSITY GRANT COMMISSION’S
WORKSHOP ON MODERNIZATION OF LEGAL EDUCATION 1977; UGC CURRICULUM
DEVELOPMENT REPORT, 1988-90; JUSTICE AHMADI COMMITTEE REPORT, 1994; UGC
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT REPORT, 2001.
76 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

multiplicity of regulatory mechanism seriously disturbs the academic

environment of the law schools. The BCI has over lived its life so far as
determination of the legal education policy of the country is concerned.
The Council should only regulate the entry into the Bar for practicing
lawyers. Accordingly suggestions have been put forth for the amendment
of the Advocates Act and the University Grants Commission Act. From
amongst such a web of recommendations and counter-recommendations,
proposals and counter-proposals arises the difficulty of choice. So
previously we had one problem, and that was of inaction; now we have
two, inaction coupled with the difficulty of choice.
With regard to the first problem I stand nowhere to correct; if I
were I would not have been writing this paper. With regard to the second
part of the problem, if one is to formulate a course of action what would
it be? I here take the onus on myself to delineate a course from amongst
the web sketched above.
To me legal education is not ‘only’ a ‘professional education’;
neither is it ‘only’ a ‘disciplinary education’. It is a fine blend of
‘professional’ and ‘disciplinary’ education, resulting in a tentacle extension
of each one into the other. An advocacy for a group of contract workers
would require sound ‘professional’ knowledge of the Contact Labour
(Regulation and Abolition) Act for the ascertainment of the rights and
liabilities of the various parties; the Industrial Disputes Act for the
ascertainment of the appropriate tribunal; the Civil Procedure Code for
the rules of drafting and conveyance; actual drafting of petition; fact-finding;
counseling; ethical dilemmas and decision making etc. But such
‘professional’ knowledge would be incomplete (and hollow) without a
solid grounding on the Theory of Justice, Role of Welfare State,
Constitutionalism and the law and development movement. This was just
a rough example to establish my stand – it can separately be developed
as an argument for another paper. I therefore would like to begin from
where the Carnegie Foundation did. A blend of professional and academic
legal studies must have a three pronged approach: (i) teaching of legal
doctrines and analytical skills; (ii) imparting of lawyering skills and ethics;
and (iii) orientation on the fundamental principles, purposes and values of
the profession of law in the society.30 Placing these three elements in the

30
SULLIVAN supra note 9, at 194-202.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 77

law school context would need elaboration as to what does it mean for
the curriculum of the law school, teaching pedagogy adopted to execute
the curriculum, role and responsibility of the faculty, and infrastructure
and autonomy of the law school. I accordingly deal with each one of
these in the following paragraphs.
A. Curriculum Of The Law School
One of the first things that need to be done with regard to the
curriculum in the law school is to reduce the number of compulsory courses.
Reduction in the number of compulsory courses would give more flexibility
to the school to integrate interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity in its
curriculum. We as a legal-education-community need to shift our
understanding of the nature of law teaching. The crux of legal education is
not to impart knowledge of as many provisions as one can. The quest
should rather be on ‘how and where to find the law’; ‘how to analyse the
law and apply it in the appropriate context’. Such an understanding would
help us streamline the compulsory courses and leave more scope to
multidisciplinarity in legal education. The existing syllabus prescribed by
the BCI does pay some lip-service to interdisciplinarity by incorporating
some social science papers in the law school curriculum. These papers
are, however, taught in the first two years of legal education and are
taught in an extremely abstract manner. The popular notion amongst the
law students is to somehow ‘clear’ these social science papers in the first
few semesters, and that these have no role in the actual study of law. One
way to address the issue is to teach the social science papers in such a
way that makes their relation with law explicit. This can be done either by
the teachers themselves, or innovative changes could be brought in within
the syllabus. Another way may be to teach these subjects jointly by a
social science teacher and a law teacher, wherein each of them could
bring in new perspectives from diverse fields. Unfortunately the prevalent
practice in most of the university based law colleges is to invite faculties
from the other disciplines to teach a few classes in social sciences for the
law students. Because of the disciplinary limitations these faculties ends
up giving narrative overview of the subjects without drawing any link
between the subject and legal studies. However, a positive initiative in
this regard is taken by the national law schools atleast in appointing full
time faculties for social science subjects.
A reduction of the number of compulsory courses would allow
more slot for optional and seminar courses. These should be the papers
78 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

that should act as the melting pot of different disciplines. Each law school
must therefore devise their own ways to approve of the optional courses
to be offered to the students. Constituting a ‘Curriculum Development &
Approval Committee’ in each of the law schools in this regard should be
a worth initiative in itself. This committee should look into the formulation,
structure, materials, pedagogy etc. of not only the optional courses but
also the compulsory courses and approve them before offering it to the
students. There must be periodical review of all these courses offered to
the students.
Students should be writing a project paper for the optional and
seminar courses; whereas this a feature of the national law schools,
most of the law schools throughout the country are indifferent to such
an approach.
A progressive legal education system should gradually move from
‘only’ doctrinaire legal analysis to a more complicated problem-solving
approach. The second approach is not devoid of the first one, but
incorporated and addresses the complex variables of the society in which
law operates. Here lies the significance of clinical legal education. As I
have already pointed out that the BCI have four distinct compulsory clinical
papers for the first law degree, but the way these papers are ‘taught’
suggests of no interrelation between these papers, or any other courses
studied along with them. These are treated as four distinct papers to be
offered during the last two years of the degree.
I argue that instead of serving to the categorical distinction between
the practical papers, the law schools should attempt to meet the
requirements of the papers by devising a real client clinical structure and
placing each of the practical-paper requirements within such structure.
To develop the idea further let me use a community development clinic
model as example in Indian context. Community lawyering initiative uses
legal as well as non-legal mechanisms to attain their goals. It is characterized
by collaboration with the client community, partnering with client,
networking with individuals and institutions and forming bargaining units,
generating political power and plethora of other strategic initiatives. And
it is a long term business. In a community lawyering clinic students assist
pro se litigants, teach the community, pursue legislative reform and perform
a plethora of other conventional and non-conventional lawyering jobs.31

31
Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, Learning Through Service in a Clinical Setting: Te
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 79

All these community lawyering works purported to be done by the students

involve the skills that BCI prescribed practical papers intends to impart.
But the difference is that instead of being taught in class students learn
these skills by working amongst the community and learn by doing it
themselves. This would also constitute a significant pedagogic
improvement over the case-discussion method or the lecture method that
is commonly followed. Such an initiative would also cater to the social
justice promotional activities of the law schools.32 That takes us to the
next issue for consideration.
B. Teaching Pedagogy
Indian legal education suffers from “narration sickness”.33 This
lecture based narration methodology cripples the legal education system
in the country. Such pedagogy is to a large extent an obstacle in any
attempt of multidisciplinary approach to legal education. As I have

Effect of Specialization on Social Justice and Skills Training, 7 CLINICAL L. REV.

311-312 (2001).Also see Katherine R. Kruse, Biting Off What They Can Chew:
Strategies for Involving Students in Problem-Solving Beyond Individual Client
Representation, 8 CLINICAL L. REV. 405, 408-409 (2002). Kruse argues that the
functions performed by the community law clinic students are actually identical
to that of the social justice lawyers constantly struggling for the causes of their
clients: “These efforts mirror those of legal service providers, who daily confront
the challenge of doling out a limited commodity of lawyers to a growing number
of poor and socially marginalized persons in need of legal assistance. Through
fundraising, activism, triage, heightened caseloads, pro bono networks of
volunteer lawyers, and “unbundled legal services” like legal advice hotlines,
legal services organizations try to piece together some combination of strategies
to reach out to unrepresented persons who desperately need lawyers to handle
the most basic of life’s problems.”Also see Sameer M. Ashar, Public Interest
Lawyers and Resistance Movements, 95 CAL. L. REV. 1879, 1895-1907, 1915-1916
(2007); It is a classic fact of the community lawyering concept that the immigrant
worker issues were not resolved by litigation; it was rather solved by outside
court settlement effected through the campaigning and other pressures exerted
by the “community” of workers.
32
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION supra note 16, at 238-245; SULLIVAN supra note 9, at
120-122; THE COMMITTEE TO ADVISE ON RENOVATION AND REJUVENATION OF HIGHER
EDUCATION (2009) available at www.academics-india.com/Yashpal-committee-
report.pdf.
33
PAULO FRIERE, PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED (1972).
80 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

argued that a progressive legal education system should gradually move

from ‘only’ doctrinaire legal analysis to a more complicated problem-
solving approach. This movement has to be reflected in the teaching
pedagogy of the law school. The Langdellian case-discussion model,
which is largely followed in the American universities though an
improvement over the lecture-method, however aims at imparting only
doctrinaire legal knowledge amongst the students. In the case-dialogue
method, unlike the lecture-method, the students are not only passive
recipients of legal knowledge; they are also active participants in the
process of learning. But however, such a method has been criticized as
foreclosing reflections from other variables that influences a case decided
by a judge. A case decided by a judge at the apex court is taken to be
a self-sufficient methodology in itself. This is quite in keeping with Dean
Christopher Columbus Langdell’s idea of law being a self-sufficient
science in itself. The Socratic case-dialogue pedagogy has been found
to be quite effective in imparting doctrinaire legal knowledge among the
students. On the other hand the pedagogy has been challenged as being
incomplete in imparting a complete legal education. Further improvements
are suggested over the case-dialogue method of law teaching.
Increasingly the problem-solving method is being put forth as an
incremental substitute of the case-dialogue method. The problem-solving
method involves contextualizing a legal problem in the society, so that it
can be studied from as many different perspectives as actually exist in
the society. Such a pedagogy recognizes the inclusive nature of legal
education and rejects the exclusivity of legal studies. Instead of studying
law in a vacuum, the problem-solving method purports to study law in
all its complexities. Proponents of this pedagogy claims that it is the
most complete form of teaching pedagogy, wherein students are taught
to consider all possibilities surrounding an issue. Picking up the issue
from here I would suggest extensive use of the clinical methodology of
teaching in the Indian law schools. But, I wish to add couple of
clarifications to this assertion. When I argue the use of clinical pedagogy
of law teaching, I mean “experiential learning” – learning by doing, and
not classroom teaching of practical papers. I argue for such a pedagogy
in addition to the doctrinaire Socratic teaching of the classroom, and
not in exclusion of the same. Such a pedagogic improvement would
depend to a great extent on the faculty who are to execute the
methodologies; and that brings us to the role and responsibilities of the
faculty in the law schools.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 81

C. Role And Responsibility Of The Faculty

Nowhere else is the lack of appropriate and competent personnel
felt as much as in the law schools in the country. The country does not
produce adequately qualified (not in the degree sense of the term, but in
the competence and commitment sense) faculty to serve the needs of
700 odd law schools that the country has. Thus the Knowledge
Commission has appropriately identified ‘attraction and retention’ of
competent faculty as one of the basic problems with the legal education
system. Under such circumstances the law schools need to have enough
flexibility to appoint competent teachers even if they lacks some of the
formal criterions to become a law professor. Another deterring factor for
brilliant law students not joining the academia is the lack and delay of
material benefits that the academia characterizes. However, after the
implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission proposals things have
improved manifold. There can be further improvements in this regard.
Law Schools capable of better funding can think of incentivizing faculties
excelling in teaching and research consistently with additional increments
over and above the regular scale. I am particularly drawn to a suggestion
put forth by Kausik Basu in his dissent on the Yash Pal Committee Report.
He suggests 20 universities in the country should be declared as centre of
excellence, and therefore should receive better funding to incentivize
faculty. There will therefore be an incentive for the faculties to perform
better to become part of these universities, and receive better packages.
The list of the 20 universities should be periodically undated at regular
intervals. For him, the other alternative would be to pay the performing
faculties three or four times the regular salary received by any faculty in
the same designation.34 Though these suggestions were not part of the
unanimous view of the committee, can suo motu be acted upon by the
universities to incentivize their faculties.
So far was the brainstorming to attract and retain talented faculty.
How to improve the present lot, instead to showing them the door. There
needs to be regular orientation and workshops for the faculty, in addition
to the UGC refresher courses. Such orientations and workshops can

34
Kaushik Basu, Report of the Committee to Advise on Renovation and
Rejuvenation of Higher Education in India – A Note of Dissent available at
http://prayatna.typepad.com/education/2009/07/full-text-of-kaushik-basus-
dissent-note-to-the-yashpal-committee-report.html.
82 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

either be centralized through the UGC or the law schools can take individual
initiative. There can be teacher training institutes also to train law faculties
in different pedagogies.35
Apart from training the teachers in teaching pedagogy,
inculcation of a research culture is the call of the day. Workshops and
sessions on research techniques, publication should be regularly
undertaken. Teachers should not be overburdened with teaching and
other administrative assignments. In almost all the good universities
throughout the world, teachers are not required to teach on all 5 or 6
days a week. Each teaching session involves substantial preparation
and planning; and this requires quality time. Research, on the other
hand involves substantial quality time, and more often than not the
researcher needs to be in her elements, secluded from the worries of
the teaching session to produce something qualitative. Thus the teaching
days in the law schools for each faculty should be reduced to 2 or 3
days. Each of the teaching sessions in these 2 or 3 days can be of 2 to
3 hours, with a 10 minutes intervening break. Such formulation would
allow some quality time for the teachers to concentrate in the class
and experiment with Socratic and Problem-solving pedagogy; the
mechanism would also leave the teacher with ample time to do their
own research. Initially teachers might find it difficult to adjust with
such a mechanism, but once the shift is made it would go a long way
to faculty improvement in the law schools. A popular concern of the
‘people in power to implement these changes’ (and also some people
outside such power framework) with regard to such a mechanism is
that the teacher might not use the free time (free of classes) to do
research, instead they might engage in other activities unrelated to
academics. One needs to understand here that the teachers are not
bonded workers, and each and every activity of theirs cannot be
controlled. Once they are taking their classes in the present mechanism
of 5 to 6 classes of 45 minutes a session, no one can regulate the rest
of the hours for the teacher. However, the proposed mechanism along
with the incentive for performance would create atleast the minimum

35
LAW COMMISSION OF INDIA, 184TH REPORT ON THE LEGAL EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL
TRAINING AND PROPOSAL FOR AMENDMENTS TO THE ADVOCATES ACT, 1961 AND THE
U NIVERSITY G RANTS C OMMISSION A CT , 1956 (2002) available at http://
lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/184thresport-PartI.pdf.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 83

framework for a better faculty inventory in the law schools. All these
proposals would naturally take us to the final issue to be addressed
for the paper, i.e., infrastructure of the law schools and its autonomy.
D. Infrastructure And Autonomy Of The Law School
To execute some of the abovementioned ‘outside the box’
proposals and to improve the infrastructure in the law schools, one of the
basic precondition is the autonomy of the law school. This is a moot issue
where all the erstwhile committees of the decade on legal education are
unanimous.
Infrastructure of the law schools are so unevenly distributed across
the range of institutions that whereas some of the law schools have
multistoried library buildings; some others don’t even have their own library;
and for some, one medium-sized room makes a mockery of library. All
these institutions, however, receive BCI approval, for reasons untenable
and inexplicable by a common man’s prudence. For some law schools
development of infrastructure is a burden in itself, because of paucity of
funds. Some trust-based law schools run in such fund crunch that provision
for faculty salary also becomes a difficult proposition. Funds need to be
pumped in these law schools for the improvement of their infrastructure.
Otherwise the students studying in these institutions are the ultimate losers,
and the BCI cannot avoid its responsibility of being an active participant
in the process.
For law schools that do not fall within the above category, the
hurdle is the hierarchized decision making and the lack of autonomy. I
have already pointed out the problems with the hierarchized decision
making process, hence, I am not repeating myself here. What needs to
be done is to allow as much of autonomy to the law schools as is required
for the smooth functioning of the law schools. While lack of autonomy is
a problem with the university based law colleges and the law departments,
it is not so with the national law schools. Perhaps, the national law schools
enjoy over autonomy. The national law school mechanism is Vice
Chancellor (VC) centric, and the office of the VC enjoys a significant
quantum of autonomy than his counterparts in other institutions. Thus,
working of the national law schools is dependent essentially on an individual.
Since, autonomy vests in one person rather than a group of individuals,
the scope of misuse of such autonomy is enormous (because of the simple
proved fact that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts
84 JOURNAL OF INDIAN LAW AND SOCIETY [Vol.1 : 2009]

absolutely).36 Thus while the law schools throughout the country should
be allowed more autonomy in their functioning, a single individual-centric
power would bring too much of subjectivity in the operation of the schools.
Therefore, instead of vesting autonomy on an individual, a far more
appropriate approach would be vesting of autonomy to a small group
within a university. Representation of the law schools in different education
policy determining bodies should not only be made the senior professors,
or office bearers of the university or the law school, it should be a mix of
teachers from all levels (Assistant, Associate and Professors). While this
will ensure a counterbalance against anarchy, it would also bring in new
perspectives and diverse reflections for future action.
V. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences Act
1999 in section 4 states its objects:
“The objects of the University shall be to advance
and disseminate learning and knowledge of law and
legal process and their role in national development,
to develop in the student and research scholar a sense
of responsibility to serve society in the field of law by
developing skills in regard to advocacy, legal service,
legislation, law reforms and the like, to organize
lectures, seminars, symposia and conferences, to
promote legal knowledge and to make law and legal
processes efficient instruments of social development,
to promote inter-disciplinary study of law in relation
to management, technology, international co-
operation and development, to hold examinations and
confer degrees including joint degrees in law combined
with other disciplines and other academic
distinctions, and to do all such things as are incidental,
necessary or conducive to the attainment of all or
any of the objects of the University.”

36
The famous quote from John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton expressed in a
letter he wrote to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887. I am however, not using the
second part of the quote that says: “Great men are almost always bad men”.See
The Phrase Finder, available at http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/288200.html.
 LEGAL EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS 85

I cannot think of any object that the Act might have left outside its
statement of object. This, I take as true for almost all of the other law
schools established in the country (without any research on the same,
though). Thus the inception of the law schools are premised on a broader
view of the purpose of legal education. What we need to do is to narrow
and eventually obliterate the gap between the objective and its actualization.
We need to do this with urgency for the non-elite law schools of the
country. Therefore, we have a dual task at hand. On one end we need to
narrow the gap between the national law schools and some other first tier
non-national law schools on one hand, and the rest of the 650 or so law
schools imparting legal education in the country. On the other end we
need to continuously strive to bring our legal education at par with the
best educational systems in the world. I am particularly tempted to
conclude with part of the Foreword observation of the Chairman of the
National Knowledge Commission: the exercise is “… really a call to
action. It is time to act and implement …”. Is anyone listening?