Thursday 3 March 2011

Continuing Legal Education In India

Continuing legal education in India (CLE in India) is a very new field. In India, not much attention is paid to higher legal education and even lesser to PhD and other specialised courses. This is so because legal education in India is not up to the mark and there is no implemental legal education policy in India.

Legal education in India needs urgent reforms. Some of the reforms that legal education in India must have include encouragement of higher legal education, research oriented legal education, professional and contemporary legal education, practical legal education and so on.

However, of all these reforms, nothing is more pressing than the requirement to have CLE in India. Presently, neither the Law Ministry of India nor the Bar Council of India (BCI) is providing CLE in India. Of course, they are mentioning about CLE but mere mention is not enough to actually implement it successfully in India.

Even worst is the techno legal area that has not even found a mention in the works of Law Ministry and BCI. The only instance of techno legal CLE in India can be found in a private initiative started by Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB).

PTLB is providing techno legal CLE in India and techno legal lifelong learning in India. To extend its reach and educational initiatives, it has also launched many online platforms where students, professionals, lawyers, judges, CEOs, etc can be enrolled and trained.

Law Minister Veerappa Moily must incorporate necessary policy related issues of CLE in India, lifelong learning in India and higher legal education in India in an effective legal education policy of India.