Legal Education In India Rejuvenated

Legal education in India is passing through a transformation age. From mere academic nature of the education, Indian educational system is making a shift towards professionals, vocational and practical nature of education. This is a good sign as mere academic nature of education would not help us in the long run.

This is also evident from the fact that a majority of graduates are not fit for professional purposes. Naturally Indian companies are facing shortage of skilled workforce to manage skilled works. Thus, technical education and skill development in India need to be considered by Indian government on a top priority basis.

This is a mammoth task that Indian government cannot achieve on its own. Bar council of India has to play a pro active role in this regard. Similarly, a public private partnership between Indian government, BCI and private companies/individuals is also need of the hour.

However, there are very few private players who are good at providing qualitative legal education in India and abroad. Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB) of Perry4Law is one such techno legal institution that is providing world class techno legal education, courses, trainings and skills development. Perry4Law Techno Legal ICT Training Centre (PTLITC) provides highly specialised and domain specific techno legal education in India.

PTLB is also managing the exclusive techno legal institute for lifelong learning in India (TLILLI). The TLILLI manages many crucial techno legal lifelong learning courses and continuing legal education in India.

All these courses, education, training and skills development are provided by the PTLB e-learning platform in an online environment. Interested professionals can enroll for these courses from any part of the world without leaving their offices or homes.

Clearly legal education in India has been rejuvenated by the collective efforts of stakeholders like BCI, PTLB and Indian government. However, more and more private participation is needed for reforming the legal education sector of India that is presently plagued by widespread corruption.

Legal Education In India

Legal education is India is passing through a transformation phase. For a very long period of time, legal education in India has been ignored. This is more so regarding specialised courses and higher legal education in India.

If we analyse the numbers of masters in law and doctors of law in India, the figure is not very pleasant. Very few law graduates prefer to opt for master and doctorate degrees. This is largely attributable to the academic nature of our legal system that is neither competitive nor professional in nature.

If we keep on teaching theoretical aspects of law and that also belonging to the era of 1980s, little is expected from the law graduates. The resulting output of lawyers is not qualitative and a majority of them re law graduates but not professional lawyers.

Defective policy decisions are also responsible for poor quality of lawyers in India. The Ministry of Law and Justice has not yet come out with a legal education policy that can help in producing qualitative legal personnel in India.

The quality of legal education is presently managed by the Bar Council of India (BCI). However, even the BCI has failed to maintain the quality of legal education in India. Neither law universities/faculties not BCI are doing much in this regard.

Take the example of recent bar examination proposed by the BCI after getting a law degree. The proposed bar examination of India 2011 is faulty on many counts. It is just a formality with no quality testing purpose. If the test is not going to check the quality of lawyers entering the litigation stream, there is no sense in having the same.

Legal education in India needs serious reforms. Presently, the legal education is not professional in nature, suffers from being excessive academic in nature and is producing law graduates who lack good research and analytical skills.

Foreign universities and institutions are looking towards India for establishing their branches or centers but the poor quality of education and bad policies are restraining them from doing so. Hopefully Law Minister Veerappa Moily would look into the matter urgently.