History of Legal Education In India
Most since the era of Manu Smriti, legal professionals indigenously called “Pleaders” or “Niyogis” have represented litigants in lawsuits. An individual highly educated in Dharma Shastra and the legal process might be selected as the spokesman.
Judiciary was viewed as a subset of Dharma in medieval India. Smritis proclaimed Vedic messages, and Smritikars became brilliant judges, as well as the Vedas, who have been the primary jurisdictions. Even though there is no trace of proper written education, the ruler was to administer justice based on self-taught knowledge.
King also dispensed judgment via his nominees, who were people of recognized honesty, a character for being fair, and impartial. In India, professional legal training began in 1855 to prepare undergraduates to serve in the lesser and higher courts as Vakils or legal practitioners.
For over a generation, there has been no history of legal study and scholarly professional expertise, and the practice of delivering obligatory courses using the direct speech approach has been in place. The Bar Council of India is a statutory organization that regulates judicial knowledge and training in India.
It was created following section 4 of the Advocates Act, 1961. The first legal faculty in India, the “National Law School of India University,” was founded in Bengaluru in 1985. It was around this era that the LLB diploma was first introduced in India.
Workshops, lectures, mock courts, and cases techniques were also introduced to augment the style of teaching. Following then, legal education and Training have been provided by numerous universities at diverse educational stages.
Legal Education Objectives
Attorneys have long been seen as honorable professions since they are the cornerstones of civilization who assist the ordinary man in understanding his responsibilities and asserting them lawfully. Since attorneys interpret the constitution and come into contact with the whole community, people require legal training to meet the needs of society and the nation.
The English initiated contemporary legal education in the country, with the primary goal of familiarizing Natives with constitutional concepts that would aid them in the governance of the country. Also, after freedom, the condition of legal education deteriorated significantly for years, with no modifications to the years-old core curriculum in response to changing country requirements.
Its major goal is to familiarise students with legal ideas including the legislative process, conflict resolution, and courthouse etiquette, as well as to offer punishment education and create decent legal practitioners.
Because the law is a multidimensional topic, it is necessary to comprehend it in a variety of social, economical, governmental, and technological contexts to meet a variety of legal demands at home and abroad is another objective.
Its goal is to impart a grasp of fundamental legal entities and their application in realistic terms, i.e., it necessitates both conceptual and practical study to create prosecutors who are prepared to practice law in a worldwide legal framework and who would promote the needs of Citizens of India, businesses, governments, and non-governmental organizations, and also provide multinational legal assistance in an extremely competitive interdependent ecosystem.
Finally, it strives to provide legislative changes since there is an insufficient standard of law infrastructure and services, as well as a lack of appropriate skills development, to satisfy the ever-changing needs of the contemporary world, and defined minimum standards for law degree are needed.
Indian Legal Education System
Legal education in the curriculum of legislation, and legislation is a multi-disciplinary topic that includes fundamental knowledge of evolution, theology, corporate methods, humanities, basic knowledge, literature, and just about everything else that has to do with the wellbeing and interaction of men in society.
A professional must be aware of each of these to govern the relationships between members of society, and while producing attorneys with these traits is unlikely for our top schools, all endeavors must be done to attain this aim of a law degree in our nation. Today, India has the highest number of legal students, with over fifty universities producing over 5000 graduate students each year.
The ratio has risen over time, and graduates now have access to a broad variety of practical possibilities, making the prospects of the legal education system In India quite bright. The legal world has evolved as a result of changes in the legal school system, and it today looks nothing like it did a decade ago.
For qualified attorneys, the prospects or job alternatives are now numerous, and the manner of education has also considerably improved over the years, making it a more prospective career choice than it was previously when it was considered a last option.
Today’s Scenario Of Legal Education In India
The Bar Council of India is the existing legislative organization in India that establishes rules and regulations for the advancement of law degrees. Law diplomas are awarded and granted under the Advocates Act of 1961, which established the BCI as a legislative organization with regulatory authority over both law practice and education.
Colleges should also be associated with BCI, which sets guidelines and values for fields of study, infrastructural requirements, and admission criteria, as well as promotes legal studies in India. Two research methods are active at the same time, according to BCI regulation’s part IV section 4 of chapter II.
Conventionally, lawful assistance was introduced as a 3-year graduate degree (individual) after finalization of a Bachelor’s degree, which has been presented by BCI in 1961, and an incorporated 5-year law course (double bachelor’s), which has been introduced by BCI in 1982 as a substitute to the three-year curriculum and is provided after class 12 so that legislation applicants can straight register in educational institutions to obtain B.A. LL. B, B.Com LL.B, B.B.A. LL.B, B.Sc. LL.B.
It is an incorporated program, which implies that a diploma is awarded alongside a legal diploma. Students learn topics from both courses at the same time in college, and at the end of the program, they are awarded a single diploma that combines both bachelor’s degrees and law degrees.
Other than studying for a degree as a profession, there is a variety of coursework that include legislation topics. This implies that when we talk about law degrees, we don’t just mean researching basic constitutional subjects; we also imply researching implemented law programs for lessons like business law, taxation law, and corporate law.
Cyberlaw, taxation law, banking law, human rights, and legal literacy are just a few of the undergraduate and post-graduate programs available. At the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, we also examine business and taxes law in economics and accounting. Likewise, Intellectual Property laws, such as securities act and business law, are studied at the engineering degree stage.
Aside from law degrees, further academic degrees and diplomas for higher studies comprise vocational qualifications such as CA, CS, ICWA, and others. We too have a program of continuing formal training that allows judges and top lawyers to improve their current knowledge and experience.
Conclusion
Although law degree has evolved dramatically in the last ten years, improvements are still required to make them efficient and justice-oriented.
There have been some problems that would need to be viewed to fix gaps in our current framework, like the importance of research and scholarly operations, a need to transform the syllabus in good faith, the need for trained faculty, instilling strength and conditioning schooling, as well as the emergence of large legal at the secondary level to ensure a basic knowledge of the law to learners of all streams, among other things.
It will result in the growth and expansion of law degrees, as well as the organization’s image, to face the difficulties of the sector and to expand and serve the country and its citizens by giving full opportunities to law students.
