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LEGAL EDUCATION: OBJECTIVES
INTRODUCTION
"Lawyers are always going to be students, because the learning
doesn't stop in law school. The irony is that when we become
lawyers, we not only continue to be students, we simultaneously are
teachers." 1
Michael S. Greco
Legal education means acquiring knowledge and skills of the subjects of
law to become legal professionals. It means teaching law as one of the
academic disciplines for the practice of law and to become member of the
profession. Law includes both professional and liberal education i.e.
acquiring professional skills as well as aiming at value-oriented, socio-
cultural education. A lawyer is the product of such education, who is boon
for the society as he works for the benefit and welfare of the society by
claiming justice on behalf of his client in the court of law. Legal education
works not only as an instrument of social control but also as instrument of
social change which is imperative to create cultured law abiding citizens,
who are inculcated with the concept of human rights and values which is
the essential medium of the change.2
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Legal education and its importance to establish rule of law in society to
impart justice does not receive serious priority though one can easily study
history of modern times which shows that lawyers are social engineers who
gave leadership to nations. For example most of our freedom fighters such
as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Rajaji, etc were lawyers
and were not doctors, engineers and not people from other fields. It is due
to the reason that they interact with society at large and have knowledge of
law that how one should find loopholes in law and apply it to do good for
society by safeguarding their rights from arbitral powers. It is due to the
continuous efforts of lawyers only that we enjoy our basic fundamental
rights which cannot be abridge by government or any other authority and
these are the basic rights a person must receive in order to have freedom
in his life and any law or rule which infringes the fundamental rights is
made ultra virus as to secure justice. Legal education not only provide
justice but create awareness among individuals of their rights, duties,
values, ethics and morals i.e. it create consciousness through law and
religion among society that what is right and wrong and in which direction a
person needs to head by following rule of law.3
Today in India there are 12 National Law Universities and other includes
private and state universities imparting legal education under the
supervision of BCI and Every work in the field of legal education is done in
consonance with the provisions of BCI with its approval and BCI is
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Legal Education and Profession in India Hardcover – 1 Sep 2002 by P.L. Mehta (Author), S.
Gupta (Author)
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responsible to lay down rules and to promote legal education in India. All
the universities imparting legal education are affiliated from BCI and
students seeking enrollment as advocates require to qualify, All India Bar
Examination conducted by BCI which is a compulsory exam to enroll as
advocates in our country.
Legal Education System In India
Study of law is referred as legal education and law is considered as a multi-
disciplinary subject which involves basic knowledge of science, philosophy,
business modes, arts, general knowledge, history etc. and include
everything which concerns the welfare and intercourse of men in society
i.e. a lawyer need to have understanding of all these to regulate the relation
between individuals in society and although to produce lawyers of such
qualities is certainly not possible for our law schools but all efforts need to
be made to achieve this goal of legal education in our country. 4
Today India produces the largest number of law graduates and around
more than fifty institutions produces more than 5000 graduates per year.
The number has increased over the years and there is wide range of
professional opportunities available for students creating the future
direction of legal education immense in India. The legal world has changed
with change in legal education system and now it is completely different
from what was it 10 years ago. Now the opportunities or career options are
vast for trained lawyers and the method of teaching is also significantly
improved from the past years making it a promising career option then
earlier when it was used to be the last resort.
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Present Scenario
The Bar Council of India is the present regulatory body who makes rules
and regulation for the promotion of legal education in India. Law degrees
are given and conferred in terms of Advocates Act, 1961 under which BCI
is formed as a statutory body and given regulating power to conduct for
both legal education and profession. Universities are also need to be
affiliated from BCI, it also prescribes rules and standards of courses of
study, infrastructure requirements, eligibility for admission and is
responsible for the promotion of legal studies in India. According to BCI
rules part IV section 4 of chapter II there are two study systems operating
simultaneously. Traditionally legal education was imparted as a three years
graduate degree(unitary) after completion of Bachelor’s degree which is
introduced by BCI in 1961 and other is a integrated five-year law
course(double degree) introduced by BCI in 1982 which is provided after
12th standard as an alternative to three year course so that law aspirants
can directly enroll in universities to avail B.A. LL.B, [Link] LL.B, B.B.A.
LL.B, [Link]. LL.B. It is an integrated course means Bachelor’s degree is
given with the law degree in which student studies subjects of both the
degrees simultaneously at the college and at the end one degree is given
which is combination of both bachelor’s and law degree.5
Whereas in three year course only after completion of bachelor’s degree a
student is eligible to enroll for law degree, in this only law subjects are
taught to the students for 3 years and then the degree is granted. Both the
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courses are conducted in semester system which shall not be less than 15
weeks for unitary degree and 18 weeks for double degree. Further there is
also provision for moot courts, seminars and tutorial classes per week for
the students. It also states that each student shall accomplish his internship
at legal aid office or a lawyer’s office or at any place where legal work is
given to him.6
Apart from studying law as a discipline there are various courses which
include study of law subjects, that means by legal education we not only
refer to study of basic law subjects but also study of applied law programs
for other courses such as business law, taxation law, company law etc. By
this we can assume that legal education is also scattered in some or the
other way in form of study of law subjects in other courses as well, for
example-
There are various diploma and certificate courses provided in various
subjects like cyber law, taxation law, banking law, human rights and legal
literacy etc. we also study commercial and taxation law in commerce and
accountancy at undergraduate or postgraduate level. Similarly Intellectual
Property laws are taught at undergraduate engineering level, subjects like
securities law, company law etc. are taught in company secretary course
and business law at business school. Hence legal education not only
includes basic LL.B degree but also study of various other law subjects in
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different courses at each level which students study in various form to gain
knowledge of law to be applied at different scenario.
Apart from this legal education also includes vocational courses such as
CA, CS, ICWA, etc., higher academic degrees and doctorates for more
advanced study. We also have continuous legal education system where
judges and senior advocates are provided with opportunity to enhance their
present knowledge and skills.7
Objectives of Legal Education
The prime object of legal education is to produce professional lawyers. The
term ‘professional lawyer’ does not only cover the ‘litigating, lawyer, viz.,’
the lawyer who argues before the ordinary courts but all persons trained in
law, whose employment is mainly dependent on their degrees in law.
The committee of legal education of the Harvard Law School lays emphasis
on double purpose of a law school
(1) To train men for the legal profession, and
(2) To provide a centre where scholars might contribute to an
understanding of law and government and participate creatively in their
growth and improvement.
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Legal education And Literature by Prasannanshu (Author)
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Mr. Dean Wright of the University of Toronto suggested three objectives of
a law school:
(a) Education in the qualities that should be found in a legal practitioners,
(b) Education which would train a man not merely in the work of solving
problems of individual clients but of the society in which he lives, and
(c) To act as a centre of research and criticism and contribution to the
better understanding of the laws by which societies are held together.
Lord Denning in his address to the society of Public Teachers of Law
expressed three purposes of legal education:
(1) to show how legal rules have developed, the reasons underlying them
and the nexus between legal and social history,
(2) To extract the principles underlying the existing legal rules, and
(3) To point the right road for future development.
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Dr. Mohammad Farogh in his observations on legal education in a modern
civilized society wants to include the following aims and objectives:
(1) To inculcate students with the operative legal rules, both substantive
and procedural,
(2) To provide the students with adequate experience to apply these rules,
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(3) To equip the students with sufficient knowledge of the historical an
sociological background of the country’s legal system,
(4) To provide the students with some knowledge of the other legal system
of the world so that the students do not find themselves at a complete loss
when it comes to adopting a comparative approach,
(5) Very significantly, the students should be encouraged to participate in
discussions, seminars and challenge the very premise of legal concepts
and their applications.
Legal education should aim at furnishing skills and competence, the basic
philosophies and ideologies for creation and maintenance of just [Link]
must sensitize society to identify its problems and ensure social and
economic justice through rule of law and to eradicate injustice, poverty,
corruption and nepotism from the society. The legal education stands for
enhancement of human sensibility and injects a sense of protecting human
liberty and equality before [Link] curriculum of legal education should be
thought of in terms of its objectives.
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Andrew J. Pirie has suggested that the process of systematic instructional
design may involve four important steps:
(1) Performance Analysis – it lays emphasis on the identification of
instructional goals, which are needed by the consumers of legal education.
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It can be used as a mechanism to determine whether, there is an important
difference between what someone is already able to do and what it is
intended for him to be able to do, and , if an important difference does
exist, whether instruction or some other course of action is appropriate.
Objective is what the student will learn.
(2) Task analysis is an earnest attempt to identify exactly what the student
needs to know or do to achieve the goal. It is a careful description of what
the competent person does or is supposed to do when he or she is doing
job.
(3) Skill analysis spells out a device to identify the steps which a person is
required to undertake to achieve the goal. It involves information skills,
intellectual skills or psychomotor skills. The skill analysis breaks down each
of these identified steps into its component part. But if the steps involve
higher-level intellectual skills, such as application, analysis, synthesis, or
evaluation, the skills analysis becomes more complex. Skills analysis can
involve the production of a very larger list of necessary behaviors,
depending upon the task.
(4) Writing performance analysis is the stage where both the instructor and
the student are able to understand what a person must know or be able to
do to accomplish his task.
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Study and Practice
Legal education is both a theory and includes practice as well because
there is a big difference in the education we receive and the practice we
dream to do in real life. Textbooks only provide us with basic knowledge or
crux of the law or case we study but in reality what facts are followed
become issue which can only be understood by practicing it in real life and
the cases which we study only includes the substantial part of the law but in
reality a case involves questions and issues from various branches of law.
Therefore it is essential to have practical knowledge of law to understand
that in what sense and how a law or rule is applied in a given circumstance.
Chief Justice Burger in his address to the American College of Trial
Lawyers in Columbia observed: “In some jurisdictions, up to half of the
lawyers who appear in court are so poorly trained in that they are not
properly performing their job and that their manners, their professional
performance and their professional ethics offend a great many people.
They are engaging in on the job training at the expense of their clients’
interest and the public.” Chief Justice Burger’s comment would hold equally
good in the context of legal profession and its education in India. It is very
general knowledge that a large part of the two lakh graduates being added
every year to the existing ten lakh advocates in the country, are absentee
law students who pass out from about 500 law colleges/schools. Such
advocates ultimately learn, if at all, at the cost of the poor clients and court
time.
To avoid such problems Bar Council has made it mandatory to do
internships during legal studies to gain practical knowledge of subject. A
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student must do minimum 12 weeks of internship for three year course and
20 weeks in case of five year integrated course under any authority or body
corporate where law is practiced. Thus a law school needs to produce
graduates who not only receive formal education but those who are trained
to postulate new social, economic and political issues requiring legal
attention. Training is an integral part of legal education which prepares
students to contend any issue which comes in his career in which even he
receives no formal education.
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President Pranab Mukherjee also said that “Our educational institutions
imparting law education have to bridge the gap between theoretical
concepts and practical application. They have to ignite inquiry and
encourage curiosity," as the study of legal system could not be pursued in
isolation from the wider socio-economic realities, he observed.
Careers in Legal Field
The end result of legal education is lawyer and with the pace of time career
options has also increased. From the traditional practicing advocate in
court now there are various scopes in legal field which includes Corporate
Counselors with increasing number of corporate firms, civil and judicial
services for those who want to serve the country, Paralegal services, Legal
Analyst, Document Drafting Lawyer who specializes in drafting various
documents, Legal Journalist who covers crime beats or legal and arbitral
proceedings, Legal Advisor who offer consultancy to corporate firms and
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other services which demands knowledge of law as the main ingredient.
Apart from this academic profession is also an option and there are various
degrees at each level for knowledge and promotion of lawyers at large like
after LL.B (Bachelor of law) there is LL.M (Master of Laws) which is
postgraduate degree now of 1 year, Ph.D. (Doctor Of Philosophy), Master
of Business laws etc.
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Challenges and Opportunities
Law as a profession is kind of defamed one therefore foremost priority must
be given to it that people should understand that lawyers are for the benefit
of the society. Secondly there is need to reform the curriculum i.e. there is
course has been made too vast to be taught in short span of time which at
times does not provide students better understanding of subjects and also
some modern day subjects of importance shall be added such as cyber
law, investment law, taxation law, information technology and others which
are need of the hour. Further reform is needed to ensure the quality of
lawyers who enter the legal profession i.e. a far more practical training
must be given in the form of case study, participating in Trail as to ensure
efficiency and effectiveness in profession. Other challenges include
physical infrastructure means there is need for sound and developed
infrastructure, requirement of hiring good teachers and researchers who
initiate research and encourage lawyers to opt academics as career option
and inspiring students to work towards establishing rule of law in Indian
society.
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In present there are ample of opportunities as new area of work are
increased in wake of globalization and governance such as international
trade, foreign investments, mergers and takeovers etc .which require
agreements between the countries and knowledge of law of country with
whom agreement is made. Also with increased awareness among society
there are civil and human rights movement worldwide which requires
lawyers to provide justice and help to needy. To this end, legal education
system need new ideas, thinking and innovations to make it more relevant,
effective, trustworthy, authentic and focused on research and legal training
to produce value based qualitative lawyers in the country.
Conclusion
Legal education has changed drastically from past 10 years but still reforms
are needed to make it effective and justice oriented. There are some issues
which need to be looked into for repairing holes in our current legal system
such as emphasis should be laid on research and publication activities,
need to reform curriculum at the earnest, trained faculty, imparting training
based education, introduction of law subjects at school level as to ensure
basic knowledge of law to students of all stream etc. This will help in growth
and development of legal education with increase in reputation of the
profession to meet the challenges of the field and to grow and contribute by
providing fullest opportunity to law aspirants for the progress of the
country.12
Advocate T.M. Devdas, History of legal education in India, [Link],
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November 14,2010
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INDEX
LEGAL EDUCATION AND ITS OBJECTIVE
SL. No. Particular Page No.
01. Introduction 01-03
02. Development Legal Education 03-4
System In India
03. Present scenario 04-06
04. Objective of legal education 06-09
05 Study and practices 10-12
06 Challenges and opportunities 12-13
07 conclusion 13
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