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The study of law has become more exciting with the requirement of specialised A career in law has increasingly become multi-dimensional. All the aspirants seeking a career in law, therefore, may be divided broadly into three categories. The first category comprises all those who wish to opt for a law career in order to become practicing lawyers and/or judges, including the new trend of becoming corporate lawyers as a matter of first choice. The second category, which follows closely and constitutes substantially of the extension the first one, consists of those who intend to go in for teaching law by acquiring high academic proficiency. All others who want to take up law education as an alternative or supplementary career fall in the third category, which includes all those who are already gainfully employed in government service, public or private sector, or, are self-employed. There are two main streams of legal education: one is the three-year LL.B. course with a Bachelor’s degree in Arts, Science or Humanities as the basic entrance qualification; the other is the five-year integrated course after 10+2, culminating into a degree, usually styled as B.A., LL.B. Most of the Universities in India continue with the traditional 3-year LL.B. course, whereas some of these are sporadically offering admission to the 5-year course along with the traditional stream.
However, in the year 1987-88 with a view to bring about qualitative changes in professional legal education, a new model of law school - National Law School of India University - was set up in Bangalore (Karnataka) at the instance of the Bar Council of India. This school has grown into a centre of excellence within a short span of less than a decade. Following the success story of this model, we have witnessed the establishment of several National Law Universities during the last decade. Apart from Bangalore, such schools are located in Bhopal, Hyderabad, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Gandhinagar (Gujarat), Raipur, Kochi, Lucknow, Patiala, Patna, Delhi, Chennai, Orissa, and Guwahati. Admission to national law schools (barring the last four ones, which are presently conducting their own admission tests) is organized through Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). All these schools are residential and provide for the five-year integrated course leading to the degree of B.A., LL.B. (Hons.). Of course, the candidates are asked for their preference-order amongst those schools. The Bangalore National Law School continues to be at the top and the most preferred destination almost by all the applicants on all India basis. Almost in all the established law schools, post-graduate courses leading to Master and Ph.D. degrees in law along with commensurate faculty are considered an integral part of graduate legal education. For a large number of aspiring students opting for a law career falling in all the three broad categories in both the 3-year and 5-year streams, the conventional law colleges and university law departments continue to offer unprecedented openings. In fact, if we look at the profile of the candidates who have recently made it to the provincial civil services (Judicial Branch), to wit, in the states of Punjab and Haryana, the importance of the inputs of conventional law colleges/ departments can hardly be over-emphasized. If we turn our focus to the northern region spanning over the Union Territory of Chandigarh, states of Punjab, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttrakhand, and the National Capital Region of Delhi, it would be evident that we are fairly rich in our legal-education resources. The three-year course after graduation and five-year integrated course after 10+2 at Panjab University Chandigarh with the provision of pursuing post-graduate courses in different fields of law continue to be the primary choice in this region, in view of the established credentials of the faculty and conducive academic ambience of the University Campus. In Punjab, apart from the departments of law at Punjabi University Patiala and Guru Nanak Dev University at Amritsar (offering admission in both the streams), Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law at Patiala and Army Institute of Law at Mohali (both residential institutions providing only a 5-year integrated course) are acclaimed as the priority places to seek admission in stark preference to other private universities that have come into existence relatively recently. The departments of law of Kurukshetra University at Kurukshetra and MD University at Rohtak (providing admissions in both the streams) are the acknowledged law institutions of Haryana both for graduate and postgraduate studies. Likewise, Faculty of Law, University of Jammu, at Jammu and Faculty of Law, University of Kashmir at Srinagar are the well-known centres of legal education in Jammu & Kashmir. In Uttrakhand, the Faculty of Law, Kumaon University at Almora, and several BCI approved law colleges located in different places of the state and affiliated to Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University are adequately meeting the legal education requirements of a large number of residents of the state. Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, at Delhi, is the leading centre of conventional legal education (3-year course), whereas Amity Law School, affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, has made its mark in the 5-year integrated course. The Indian Law Institute (Deemed University), New Delhi, is the premier institute of legal research in India of international standard, which provides avenue for post-graduate diplomas and degrees in diverse fields of law. Bearing in mind this general perspective, for details of the courses that are available in different colleges/ institutes/departments along with other cognate information, the interested applicants are advised to visit and explore the website www.indiaeducation.net. (The writer is Director (Academics), Chandigarh Judicial Academy, Chandigarh. He is a former Professor and Chairman, Department of Laws, Dean, Faculty of Law, Fellow, Panjab University, Chandigarh and UGC Emeritus Fellow.)
Top of the pops law colleges y
Amity Law School, Noida-Delhi/NCR y
Campus Law Centre, Delhi University, Delhi y
Army Institute of Law, Mohali y
Faculty of Law, MDU, Rohtak y
University Institute of Legal Studies, Chandigarh Seats:
150 integrated 5 year course y
Jindal Global Law School, Sonepat y
Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Patiala y
Institute of Law and Management Studies, Gurgaon y
Dehradun School of Law, Dehradun y
LR Institute of Legal Studies, Solan y School
of Legal Studies, Jalandhar y
Deptt. of Law, (Based on selected
lists from India Today, Outlook and other surveys)
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