WHERE DID WE COME FROM? WHERE DO WE GO? AN ENQUIRY INTO THE STUDENTS AND SYSTEMS OF LEGAL EDUCATION IN INDIA

Abstract

The face of post‐independent Indian legal education has altered dramatically since the inception (and consequent replication) of the five‐year national law school model. Whereas traditional Indian universities offered (and in some cases continue to offer) law as a three‐year full or part‐time graduate programme, the new national law schools have sought to foster, through an intensive five‐year model, a combined degree in law and the arts with a strong commitment to improve existing legal infrastructure. Indeed, with this ambition, these schools have spearheaded critical changes in syllabi and structure to challenge a new generation of lawyers to think critically, analyse comprehensively, and argue articulately. But more than twenty years after the Bar Council of India started the first law school dedicated to the multidisciplinary, socially influential teaching of law, now is the time perhaps for retrospection and analysis. What was the initial impetus that fostered the need for these law schools? And mor...