Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
I Introduction
3. G.B. Patil, "Legal Education in India: Few Suggestions for Consideration and
Experiments", Id. at 403.
classroom teaching, practical training and skills, court visits, moot courts,
legal aid work and other practical training programmes for law students.
The required reforms could not reach the field of legal education
because of the pressure of the part-time teachers, the Central Government
and state governments. The issue was discussed at different levels. One
committee was constituted under the chairmanship of Justice A.M.
Ahmadi, Judge of Supreme Court of India. The committee recommended
that:
(i) The legal education committee of the Bar Council of India
should be reconstituted in a manner that reflects participation
of representatives of judiciary, Bar Council of India and the
University Grants Commission.
(ii) The practice of granting provisional admission before affiliation
must be stopped.
(iii) High level committee should be set up to review affiliation
already granted.
(iv) There must be entrance examination at the admission stage of
law colleges and the university and the affiliated law colleges.
(v) The committee recommended for a 5-year law course
immediately after 10+2.
(vi) Rule 21 of the Bar Council Rules directing that every university
shall endeavour to supplement the lecture method with case
method, tutorial and other modern techniques of imparting legal
education must be amended in a mandatory form and it should
include problem method, moot courts, mock trials and other
aspects and make them compulsory.
(vii) Participation in moot court, mock trials and debates must be
made compulsory and marks awarded. Practical training in
drafting, pleadings, contracts etc. can be developed in the last
year of the study and the students' visits at various levels to
the courts must be made compulsory so as to provide exposure.
(viii)In each state, a National School type of college should be
established.
However, Mr. O.P. Sharma, the then Chairman of the Bar Council of
India has expressed that though the Bar Council of India is making
sincere efforts to improve the standard of legal education, the situation
has not changed much due to various factors which include lack of
coordination among the concerned authorities and absence of concerted
efforts. It is amazing that though the law ministers met-twice in the year
1955 and came heavily on this and also made a number of
recommendations for improvement in legal education, the BCI did not
utter even a single word with respect to availability of funds to the legal
education despite the clear pronouncement of the apex court in the case
of State of Maharashtra v. Manubhai P. Vashi & Others,5 regarding
extension of grant-in-aid to law colleges on the same terms as are
applicable to other professional courses. There is need for improving
the status and service conditions of law teachers or academic lawyers.
The law teachers are required to devote full time in teaching. They must
also be provided with adequate facilities for research. No compromise
should be made with the high moral value of law teaching.
The BCI should periodically review adequacy and prospects of pre-
legal, legal and continuing legal education. The new curriculum
prescribed by the BCI has enlarged the scope of legal knowledge and
caters to the needs of both academic and practical aspects of legal
education. It must be enforced well by providing for the availability of
sufficient practicing advocates to teach the practical papers. Care should
be taken that under the new syllabus students do not acquire an over
stuffed feeding due to enormous curriculum or else, it will only produce
more information, more details and more cases within the time available
for law study without significantly expanding the students' genuine
insight or increasing the range of their academic and professional skills.
The emphasis should be on the creativity and intellectual discipline of
students rather than on the selection of particular subjects without any
reference to the way in which they are taught. The BCI must ensure
that all the law colleges are full-time professional colleges preferably
morning colleges to enable the students to attend the practical training
in the court after morning session of class room teaching. Bar council
should ensure that a coordinate post be created in the court for instructing
the students during practical training.
The legal education in 2 1 s t century should also consider the
globalisation and its implications on legal field at national and
international levels. The BCI should explore the new avenues in the
areas of computer applications and information technology in the legal
fields and potential uses of the Internet m the practice of law and legal
education. The BCI should also provide quality improvement programmes
for teachers. Legal education cannot be said to be entirely under the
control of bar councils. It is the universities who are responsible for
implementation of any scheme of legal education.
Since all law teaching is undertaken by the universities and colleges
affiliated to the universities and a recognized university law degree is
itself sufficient qualification for entry into the profession, a heavy duty
lies with the university to take appropriate steps to enhance the prestige
of the legal profession by ensuring high quality legal education.
5 AIR 1996 SC 1
As per rule 4 of Bar Council of India Rules (part IV), the students
shall be required to put in a minimum attendance of 66% of the lectures
on each of the subjects as also at the moot courts as practical training
course. This norm of compulsory attendance remains on paper and is
hardly enforced. All law colleges must be made full time colleges and
regular attendance must be ensured by making students accountable in
the form of internal assessment marks-consisting of orals, tutorials and
projects throughout the year. The students, who neither attend any classes
nor perform any assignments like project work, tutorials, moot courts
and practical training should not be allowed to fill-up forms for appearing
at the university examination. Accountability should be fixed on the
principals of law colleges in case the examination forms of these students
are forwarded to the university in order to make them eligible to appear
in the university examinations. Necessary guidelines in this regard should
be given both by bar councils and universities to all law colleges for its
strict implementation.
In order to compel the students to attend the classes regularly and
apply their minds in various legal problems, weekly assignments should
be given to them. The papers produced by the students in the said
assignments could be corrected and marks should be awarded. The said
marks should be taken into account at the time of final examination.
This would not only improve their performance, but also improve the
attendance in the classes. The bar council and the universities should
see that the above system is implemented during teaching.
one hour. On the other hand, use of overhead projectors, slides, cassettes,
films on important cases etc, will definitely create interest in the students
because these devices have enormous communicative power. This has
been proved successful in other faculties such as science and
management.15 The bar councils and universities should ensure that all
law colleges switch over to audio-visual teaching from the traditional
black board teaching.
(b) Clinical legal education: Clinical legal education is another unique
method of imparting legal education. A law student needs training in a
variety of professional skills like oral advocacy, proficiency in
communication, effective interviewing, field research, negotiation,
mediation, counselling and the routine court procedure and other work
in a lawyer's chamber. Clinical education as a pedagogical technique
focuses on the learner and the process of learning. To know the living
law the student must observe the actual practical life where law must
work and be stated. Clinical work enables the law student to learn by
doing himself the practice of law including the techniques of interviews,
collection of facts, critical decision making, preparation of legal
documents, application of evidence, examination and cross examination
of witnesses in real life situations. It has great potentialities to transform
the dull and repetitive classroom lectures into challenging situations for
the creative spirit of young minds.16
As per new syllabus, the clinical legal education must be given a
concrete and definite shape well in advance, failing which all the
aspirations as to effective practical training will remain on paper. This
should be avoided by efficient and adequate enforcement of the objectives
through regular periodic inspections by the bar councils.17
(c) Use of computers & Internet facilities: With the advancement of
science, the methods of teaching have also tremendous scope for
renovation. One such is the use of computers. A student with a tip of
his finger now can go through any judgements without wasting time in
the library to search out the required material from the dusty racks.
While it saves time, at the same time it makes a student enthusiastic to
know more and more. Internet facility is also another device where a
student of law can have an access to the recent developments on any
law across the continents.18 Hence the BCI should issue directions to
all law schools to have the facilities of using computers and the Internet
by law students. The UGC should also provide adequate funds for this.
Last, but not the least important stage in the process of imparting
legal education is the examination It tests the scholastic achievement of
19 Shnkant V Kenetkar "Legal Education", XXV (4) Ind Bai Re\ 90-91
(1998)
The BCI under rule 21 has given direction that there shall be an
independent library in a law college which shall be adequately equipped
with law reports, books, periodicals and reference books to satisfy the
requirements. Every law college must subscribe different leading law
journals. The library shall be in the charge of a qualified librarian. The
colleges and the universities imparting legal education must adhere to
the above norms, since library is the core of any educational institution.
The law libraries are required to be computerized. The Internet facilities
should be available on computers. This will help researchers in finding
material without wasting time. This will also help teachers and students
to update their knowledge and complete research projects in time. So
the UGC should provide more grants for equipping the libraries of law
colleges and the universities.
The BCI must enforce the existing rules strictly and frame new
rules if necessary for providing better library facilities. On the pretext
of difficulties on funds, law colleges shall not be allowed to continue
the fraud on legal education that is now conveniently taking place
particularly in some states. The affiliating universities in these places
have to take the initiative in classifying law colleges under their control
as professional or academic depending on the needs of the area and the
resources the institutions would be able to mobilize. 21
IV Conclusion
The BCI, state bar councils, state governments, the UGC and
universities have a greater role to play for improving the standard of
legal education in the country. They should work in a comprehensive
manner without any conflict. They should think seriously to provide the
resources, both human and financial to all law schools for qualitative
legal education. The legal education in 21 s t century should also consider
the globalisation and it's implementations on legal field at national and
international levels. The BCI and the UGC, in the area of computer
applications and information technology in the legal fields, should explore
new avenues and potential uses of the Internet in the practice of law and
legal education. They should find out the ways and means to meet the
new challenges and provide better tools of research and methodology of
learning for the coming generations. University statutes, if necessary,
should be changed to bring all law colleges under a single law university.
In each state a National Law School type of institution should be
established. The area of deficiency should be located and correctives
should be affected with the cooperation of both bar councils and
universities. Needless to say that reputed and competent academicians
should be taken into confidence and their services availed of to set right
the matters. It is not only in the fitness of things but also the dire need
of the time to introduce a five-year law course in all recognized law
schools of the country. The measures suggested in this paper, if sincerely
implemented, could help in ushering a new era in quality legal education
in the country.
To sum up, our legal education system needs a lot of improvement
and reformation over its traditional methods in order to meet the needs
and demands of the present day society. In the period of globalization,
law cannot be seen in isolation. In the present day scenario of the
world, events are moving fast and there should not be delay in reforms
of legal education. Now the time has come to realize how to prepare our
law students to cope with these rapid changes and also how to adapt our
legal system to new vistas with a view to fulfilling the justice promised
in the pieamble to the Constitution of India. In this context, the mutual
cooperation between the bar councils and the universities is quite
essential