Taking India's Law Universities into the Future

LEGAL EDUCATION, SADLY, HAS NEVER been a top priority for India’s higher education policymakers. Engineering, medicine and management, epitomised through the creation of numerous Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), and All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), have hogged the spotlight.

- PROF. PRABHASH RANJAN

In legal education, a mini-revolution started in the 1990s with the advent of the national law universities (NLUs) in India. Today, there are around 25 NLUs in the country. The word ‘national’ in the names of these universities is a misnomer. Unlike the IITs, IIMs, and AIIMS, which are truly ‘national’ institutions created by an Act of the Parliament, NLUs have been created by Acts of state legislatures. Thus, technically, NLUs are state universities.

Successes and Failures

The most considerable success of the NLU model, which floated a five-year law degree straight after school, is that it has been able to attract high-quality students to study law. The formation of the NLUs in the 1990s and early 2000s coincided with the liberalisation of the Indian economy. The waves of economic reforms and neoliberalism lifted many boats by creating highpaying jobs in corporate law firms. A new breed of lawyers burst onto the Indian legal scene. These lawyers did not wear black robes to argue cases for their clients in court. Instead, sitting in plush corporate offices, they drafted multi-billion-dollar agreements for their corporate clients, advised and supervised mergers and acquisitions of companies, and became an essential instrument for businesses to navigate the complex Indian regulatory maze. This significantly altered the traditional black-robe-wearing image of a lawyer outside a court scouting for clients.

It isn't just the corporate practice. NLU graduates have ventured into various fields. Some got admitted to top universities of the world to pursue master’s and doctorate degrees, with quite a few bagging prestigious scholarships like Rhodes, Inlaks, and Chevening; joined the civil services and judiciary; worked in the development sector; and some decided to join the Bar and litigate in courts.