“With the liberalisation and globalisation, the legal profession has become more lucrative. Demands of trained law graduates has increased”
Law education and the role of the Bar Council members need a complete revamp. This can be ably brought about by the proposed amendments of the central government, which are being stonewalled due to vested interest says eminent legal expert S K Jain. Excerpts from his interview…
Barring a few exceptions, law education in India is very poor. Recently, I came across some juniors, two of who have done their LLM degree but didn’t even know what an editorial in a newspaper means nor do they know, how to count tables of mathematics. This only shows the pathetic level of general knowledge and common sense. Practical experience in colleges is all about completion of formalities and there is no concrete training given to the students. With few exceptions, like graduates from National Law School or a handful of good law schools, students who pass out don’t even know how to draft a plaint, complaint or even write an anticipatory bail application. I’m really sorry to say that they can’t give a proper reply to bailable and non-bailable offences and in fact, are unable to distinguish between both. Even on the civil side, the situation is equally grim. These graduates or post-graduates are not aware of the State amendment in Code of Civil Procedure (CPC). Majority of law graduates do not have knowledge of recent amendments in Substantive Laws. Reading habits have not been developed; students have got into the habit of getting marks by reading few pages of books of their subjects and procuring the degree. The proportion of faculty vs students is absolutely inadequate, against the normal requirement of one professor for every 20 students, there exists one professor for every 100 students. Besides, majority of faculty is part-time. The argument of the management for not appointing full time faculty is that they are not allowed to increase students’ fees. So, majority of law colleges are following the practice of completing the terms with the number of days. In very few cases, there are interactive lectures and therefore students are not interested in sitting in classrooms, so attendance is very low.
In my view, we cannot blame law colleges or management for short comings or lapses for not giving education on par with international standards. To achieve this, some freedom has to be given to colleges for fixing fees, for arranging regular seminars in order to get service of good faculties/ practicing lawyers. Even though the role of fee fixing committee cannot be denied, the rigid attitude of fee fixation committee in case of professional colleges with their own parameters will not help to improve the present legal education system. Therefore, if adequate freedom is given in the fee structure in all professional courses specially in law courses, then, only there are chances of improvement in legal education.
On the flip side, there is no doubt that through the moot court competitions, attempts are being made to give practical training but this has again become more of a celebration. In fact, without organising it like a function, moot court competitions should be akin to regular and academic part of the study and more marks should be given from this aspect. Also, interactive sessions like asking students to solve problems and to examine their capacity to solve it, should be a part of regular examination process instead of taking exams, based on theory.
The role of the Bar Council is not satisfactory. Maybe, because of the increased number of colleges vis a vis the responsibility given to the Bar Council members, they are unable to discharge their duties for setting the curriculum, inspection and taking interviews of students to know about the relation between students and lecturers; students and college facilities such as library and so on; getting to know the overall development of the students, general knowledge; the need of corporate and society interaction because of increasing globalisation, introduction of various new laws, rapid changes in economic and social conditions and environment.
Bar Council members have their own practice and so it is not possible for them to give sufficient time to discharge this duty. Moreover, because of the existing election system, these members do not take the risk of displeasing the college authorities and teaching faculty on all these nagging issues. The Bar Council members are unable to give time to modernise the present legal system on par with the changing scenario at the national and international level.
The proposed amendment suggested by the central government should be discussed without prejudice. Keeping in mind, the inherent disabilities regarding time constraint which the present Bar Council member faces - by keeping the autonomy of the Bar Council intact - there should be induction of experts and academicians in the Bar Council.
One has to keep in mind that if politicians are given the opportunity, they will try to fill these posts for political patronage. Never mind whichever political party comes to power, it should give a commitment that it will not politicise the appointment of the member of the Bar Council who is directly appointed with the approval of the High Court or the Supreme Court.
With the liberalisation and globalisation, the legal profession has become more lucrative. Demands of trained law graduates has increased. The world has become small. Therefore, Indian law firms are functioning as per the high standards of foreign law firms, for which they have to ensure that they get well trained law graduates. There is a good scope not only in India, but students who have done their MS in the USA are also changing their careers to legal services. Even in India, graduates in medicine and engineering are opting for the legal profession. For a sincere, dedicated lawyer, there is a good future, even in terms of social status and good earnings.
By Vinita Deshmukh
