Report of the Legal Education Reform Committee

The Legal Education Reform Committee headed by Hon'ble Shri N R Madhava Menon has submitted its report to the Government of Kerala on Saturday, July 25, 2009, The committee has rightly identified that the legal education in Kerala needs reforms, and has advised the government for reform in the legal education sector. The full report of the commission is yet to be made available to the public, but as per press reports, the salient features of the report titled: "Reforming Legal Education System in Kerala: Goals, Strategies and Management" are:
1.A Legal Education Board should be established in the state, and all law colleges should be bought under the board.
2. More self-governing powers to be given to the law colleges, which would be gradually upgraded to universities. Curriculum, appointment should be done by law colleges themselves.
3. Exam system to be completely internalised, and curriculum development to be left to individual colleges.
4. More refresher courses for law teachers.
5. Accountablity for law teachers, with assessment of teachers by students.
6. Each law College to come out with a vision statement
7. Law Colleges to offer paralegal courses and non law courses.
8. Legal education from class 10th.

There are conflicting reports regarding how the report has dealt with the LLM education. While some reports say the committee recommended removal of LLM from the law colleges, other reports suggest that LLM should continue in the present manner.

While its is preliminary to comment on the report without seeing the full report, it is worthwhile to note that no one would disagree with the committee that there is an urgent need for reform in legal education.

While an analysis of the positives and negetives can wait till the full report is made available, there are some concern areas in the committee report(as reported in the press) which has to be examined in detail before the committee report is implimented. Some of this are:
1. Autonomy in appointments: Currently the appointment to law colleges in Kerala is being done by Public Service Commission, which is an independent body. As a result there had been lesser(one can even say nil complaints) of favouritism in the law college recruitment system, which is more merit oriented than the selection for the posts in University departments.(In the recent past there have been reports of political interferrence in the selections made in at least three university departments- (When the ranked list for selection of lecturers were out in Kerala, M G and CUSAT, the top rank "incidentally" went to a candidate who happened to be the wife of a "journalist political leader" of the ruling party, whose "relative merit" might have helped her selection!What is known is that all these appointments are currently being challenged in courts). Further selection for lecturership in the university departments are known for nepotism and political interferrence and giving autonomy to the law colleges in selection of lecturers without proper guidelines would only add to the nefarious reputation of legal education in Kerala.
2. LlM Education: Some reports have suggested that the LlM education is to be dissociated from law colleges and confined to university departments. If this is correct, it would be a retrograde step, as the aim should be the spread of quality legal education and not the restriction of education to a few university departments. Instead if the suggestion was to strengthen the Llm education in the law colleges by raising the infrastructure and ensuring quality, the long term goal would have been met.

Since these are just preliminary comments, without seeing the contents of the report, there may be misconceptions, which will be corrected once the report is available. However, it is suggested that the government should involve all the stake holders including law college teachers and students before finally acting on the report.
It would be interesting to read the following materials along with this blogport(blog report):
1. Report of the Legal Education Reform Committee appointed by National Knowledge Commission, where in Dr Menon was a member( Available for download from :http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/legaleducation.asp.)
2.C Rajkumar, "Global Legal Education In India: Opportunities And Challenges", Halsbury's Law Monthly(http://www.halsburys.in/global-legal-education-in-india.html)
3. Law Commission Report on Reform of Legal Education:(lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/184threport-PartI.pdf)
4. Bar Council of India Rules on Legal Education:(http://www.barcouncilofindia.org/legal-education/rules-legal-edu.php)