NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad has\u00a0recently received funding from the Union Ministry for Law and Justice to conduct an empirical study on the state of legal education in India. In the first phase (August-September 2016), as part of this study, faculty members from NALSAR will be visiting most of the NLUs (barring those which are less than 5 years old) to interact with a cross-section of individuals involved in administration, faculty members and students. In the second and more substantive phase (November 2016 – March 2017), our intention is to cover a representative sampling of law colleges and departments that are part of larger public and private universities.<\/p>\n
The emphasis of this exercise will be on gathering opinions about questions pertaining to (i) the explicit and implicit barriers to legal education in our country, (ii) concerns about the quality of academic inputs\/infrastructure and (iii) the persistent debates surrounding the social outputs from legal education. Aim of the study is to seriously inquire into questions flowing from the lack of student diversity in the NLUs, difficulties faced across the board in attracting teaching talent and the debate about the governance structures for legal education in general.<\/p>\n
NALSAR University of Law has already reached out to the Vice-Chancellors of the NLUs for planning visits related to the first phase of this study. Dr. Sidharth Chauhan and\u00a0Mr. Jagteshwar Singh Sohi\u00a0will be visiting the following institutions:<\/p>\n
RGNUL Patiala: August 19, 2016 (Friday).
\nNLU Delhi: August 22, 2016 (Monday).
\nNLU Jodhpur: August 23-24, 2016 (Tuesday-Wednesday).
\nNLU Orissa, Cuttack: August 26-27, 2016 (Friday-Saturday).
\nWBNUJS, Kolkata: August 29, 2016 (Monday).
\nNLU Assam, Guwahati: August 30-31, 2016 (Tuesday-Wednesday).<\/p>\n
\u00a0Mr. Sudhanshu Kumar\u00a0and\u00a0Mr. Vaibhav Ganjiwale\u00a0will be visiting the following institutions:<\/p>\n
HNLU Raipur: August 19, 2016 (Friday).
\nNLIU Bhopal: August 22, 2016 (Monday)..
\nRMLNLU Lucknow: August 23, 2016 (Tuesday).
\nCNLU Patna: August 24, 2016 (Wednesday).
\nNUSRL Ranchi: August 26, 2016 (Friday).
\nNUALS Kochi: August 30, 2016 (Tuesday).<\/p>\n
Dates for visits to NLSIU Bangalore, GNLU Gandhinagar and DSNLU Vishakhapatnam will be out soon. Hopefully, they will all materialize by the first half of September 2016. Collection of \u00a0responses at NALSAR Hyderabad will be on September 7, 2016 (Wednesday).\u00a0 Emphasis will be also on collating opinions from current students, recent graduates and teachers at different stages of their respective careers.<\/p>\n
Responses will also be recorded from alumni and eminent names in the legal profession (Judges, Senior Advocates and Partners in law firms among others) through customized questionnaires in the next few months. List of institutions that will be covered in the second phase of the study between November 2016-March 2017 will be decided soon. Circulation of our questionnaires on public forums will be done in due course. Medium-term objective is to host a national-level consultation on legal education once we submit our report to the Union Ministry of Law and Justice in the first half of 2017.<\/p>\n