This Issue - Icwai

LEGAL LEGAL EDUCATION
EDUCATION
will be the basis for identifying lawyers for various
roles and appointments including law officers and
judges.
4. The Indian Law Institute to refocus on its core
mission to promote research in law as well as conduct
postgraduate specialist courses in various fields of law
by recruiting faculty of global standard.
5. The Delivery of Justice and Law Reform Trust
of India—in collaboration with the bar, the bench and
leading business schools in India—will develop
courses for court administrators and managers.
6. We will develop a system to create a cadre of
paralegals in various sectors of legal practise who may
then serve as legal secretaries and strengthen legal
aid and literacy programs.
A comprehensive strategy that encapsulates both
“Top to Bottom” and “Bottom to Top” approaches
will see lawyers at all levels participating in continuing
legal education programs. We will demonstrate that
the Indian legal and justice system is efficient,
responsive, globally competitive, quick and orderly,
with judges and lawyers who can rise up to global
challenges and the future needs of the country.
The way forward
As early as 1917, when serious initiatives were
taken to reform legal education at the Yale Law School,
it was noted that the purpose of the law school should
be “the study of law and its evolution—historically,
comparatively, analytically, and critically—with the
purpose of directing its development in the future,
improving its administration and on perfecting its
methods of legislation”.
The central question we need to ask ourselves in
India is whether our law schools are fulfilling this
responsibility adequately, and if not, what we need
to do, so that we are able to address the fundamental
issues concerning legal education that were raised
over 90 years ago in the United States. Legal education
reforms in India should go along with the
encouragement of global philanthropic initiatives, so
that resources are available to maintain international
standards to impart quality education and conduct
impact-oriented research.
Barring Foreign Law Firms from practsing in India
as was held in Lawyers Collective vs Bar Council of
India and others by the Bombay High Court is not a
solution, as the judgment will be having its own
ramifications in the global sphere for the legal
practitioners from India who want to take up legal
practice outside India. It is now imminent for the
Central Government/Bar Council to legislate and
frame appropriate rules in consultation with all the
stakeholders, with regard to entry of foreign law firms
in India and to arrive at a judicious decision to put to
rest the threat being posed by the foreign law firms.
Instead of wasting of time and energies on whether
legal education in India is to be liberated from the
dominant control of the Bar Councils or over
superseding of regulatory bodies (it is immaterial
whether it is Law Ministry’s domain or HRD
Ministry’s) under a proposed super-regulatory
authority as suggested by the National Knowledge
Commission and the Yashpal Committee, let us
concentrate our focus and energies to convert the new
challenges into opportunities in the global arena.
Issues to be addressed to meet the Global
challenges
1. Curriculum and teaching
The new and emerging law schools cannot afford
to limit their focus to teaching and research on issues
relating to Indian law. In fact, the appetite of Indian law
students for understanding international and
comparative law has significantly increased over the
years, given their participation in international moot
competitions that range from issues such as maritime
law to humanitarian law to dispute resolution. The
most challenging task is to strike a proper balance to
ensure that students are taught a fair mix of courses that
give them knowledge and training in Indian law, but,
at the same time, prepare them for facing the challenges
of globalisation, whereby domestic legal mechanisms
interact with both international and foreign legal
systems. This interaction is going to deepen in the years
to come and our law schools must prepare themselves
to face this challenge posed by globalisation.
2. Knowledge and faculty research
Hiring of good faculty has been a challenge in law
schools in India and abroad. There is a need to have a
global focus in hiring faculty for Indian law schools.
Of course success will depend on the school’s ability
to provide the right kind of intellectual environment
and financial and other incentives for Indian or foreign
scholars to teach and pursue research in India and to
contribute to its growth story.
Globalisation of legal research has become a
universal trend. Legal scholars working in a particular
country or researching on the law and legal systems
of that country do not limit their research to that
country or its neighbours. With the development of
web-based research and other online research tools
and databases, there has been a remarkable
transformation in the development of comparative
and international law research. It is important for
global law schools to have or provide access to legal
material from jurisdictions all over the world. These
need to be constantly updated to keep up with the
changing dimensions of law in all societies. There is
798 The Management Accountant |September 2011