Legal Education- Some Thoughts

In the last two blogs, I have be iterating the problems that are being faced by Legal Education in Kerala. The same can be summarised as follows:
1. Lack of long term planning
2. Lack of motivation amongst a large majority of students
3. Improper utilisation of available resources
4. Absence of motivating factors for teachers
5. Lack of political will in government to change things.

Recently I had an occassion to interact with the eminent members of the committee appointed by Government of Kerala to study the legal education reform in Kerala. While discussing with them, I had a feeling that the discussions of committee was mostly moving towards an idea of abolishing the existing law colleges and come up with a set of premier law colleges in the model of National Law school.

I had been watching the growth of National Law Schools into prominance for quiet some time. Since I had been in the industry, I was also able to observe the performance of many National Law School products from close quarters and compare the same with students who pass out from other institutes. Keeping aside the euphoria with which many employers approach National Law school products, from the work parameters, I have felt that many other law school products have greater capabilities than National Law school products, but the National Law School products have a refinement which makes them instantly acceptable in the industry. Going deeper, the reasons for these students achieving refinement is mutifold and it has roots in the fact that most of the national law school prodigy come from well to do families, which themselves give a sort of refinement to these students. In addition the high level of motivation, the academic atmosphere prevailing in national law schools and the instant adaptablilty of National Law school prodigies to the office politics- all could be factors which make them successful. On the other hand, the students from other institutes lack the academic atmosphere and upbringing, which put them at least a year back of national law school products in competition to survive.

So the first and foremost problem to be addressed is to bring in a proper academic atmosphere in law colleges, and other institutes. Proper academic atmosphere is a very vague concept and is suseptible to interpretation. My idea of a "Proper" academic atmosphere are as follows:
1. Research facilites: a.Libraries that work 24X7, with little restriction to students to access books.
b. Computer facilities and internet access
c. Regular teachers, with research motivation and capabilites
d. Proper academic workload for students and ensuring a strict regime of classroom lectures there by taking away spare time from students in colleges.
e. Academic freedom enabling individual teachers to frame and conduct their courses, of course with the approval of college and university
2. Motivated Academics: High level of motivation amongst students and teachers, characterised by increased preparation for classes, increased class room participation in discussions, a free atmosphere where every student can freely express their ideas and feelings, proper career advancement map for teachers, and refresher courses and workshops for teachers in regular intervels, proper feed back mechanism for students to assess the teaching performance etc.

Once these two basic and simple things can be achieved, my personal feeling is that every law college can become much greater than national law schools. For this what is required is abundant political will to control the forces that deny these to the law colleges. But who will bell the cat!!!

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)

Legal Education in Kerala

Yesterday I just sketched the facts relating to the place where I am teaching. I didnt leave any remedies, because I dont have any panacae for this state of affairs. I am aware as any one else who is genuinely interested in bettering the state of affairs that it won't be possible for any single person with a majic wand to change the state of affairs in a day. I am fully aware that it will take at least a full academic year to at least move things in the right direction. Within the short span of 6 months, I think that we were able to take at least some priliminary steps towards this goal.

As mentioned in my previous post, we have been blessed with the whole hearted co operation of the teachers in improving the situation. One of our teachers have successfully conducted at least 3 seminars which got great attention of the students. Next semester onwards a compulsory seminar class is proposed for all classes. We are also proposing to conduct an international Seminar in Banking Law, so that students can get a feel of what is evolving in these fields.

While trying to work out a mutually profitable solution, there is one aspect which is worth noting. One of my collegue who had been a teacher for last 14 years had commented that ever since Kerala Government started conducting entrance examination for admission to 3 year LLB course the quality of students deteriorated significantly! Common entrance examination was intended to find out students with the right attitude and aptitude so that they undergo the 3 or 5 year course with the right set of mind. I am also not ignoring the fact that the Common Entrance Test for 5 year LLB courses have helped to identify some students with right potential, the experience with 3 year LLB course is entirely different.

For the readers from other countries, India has three (or four or more) types of LLB courses. While there is an integrated BA LLB(Hons) in National Law Schools, other law colleges follow a 3 year LLB in 10+2+3+3 model and 5 year LLB in 10+2+5 model of higher education. Some universities even now call the law degree as BL (Bachelor of Law)while most others have renamed the degree as LLB(LLegum Baccilareum). Some IIT's have recently started MBA LLB and B Tech LLB, which as the name suggests integrates Master of Business Studies and Bachelor of Technology(Engineering Degree) with Law.

Now going back to the old story- what ails the 3 year course? To understand this we need to first understand the age factor of the students undergoing 3 year LLB course as compared to those undergoing 5 year course. While most of the students who had been undergoing 5 year LLB course are of the age group 17-21, the age of a student undergoing 3 year LLB course earlier used to vary from 21 to 61 or even greater! But now a days, you seldom find an aged person in the LLB course as compared to those good old days!

Now what is the problem? As I see it, we need to distinguish 3 year LLB course as a finishing course compared to 5 year LLB course as a professional course. Earlier many elder persons who were genuinely interested in pursuing Law used to joing LLB course. Now since many do not want to go throught the ignomity of writing an entrance examination along with their children, such persons have stopped coming to study law, even though they have a genuine interest in the subject. As a result the number of students appearing for entrance examination is very low and inorder to fill the available seats, it is said that even those who get 0 marks in entrance examination are given admission! Now how can you expect those 0 marks students to have the right aptitude?

When I joined teaching, I had in mind the standard of students who had interacted with me during my college days and professional days. During the past 6 months I have tried to make my students speak up.! To my astonishment I have found that many of the 3 year course students are unable to properly express their thoughts even in their mother tongue.A hand full of answer papers valued were so pathetic that even Samuel Johnson would wonder about the language!!

An Introduction to Law Teaching..a law teacher looking back

Taking into law teaching has been an interesting turn in my life. While I was a Legal Manager, I always thought teaching was more an academic exercise rather than a managerial exercise. But now I can vouch that teaching is more a managerial experience than anything else.
The foremost subjects to your management skill is ofcourse students- though you have to manage your time, resources and mind equally well. While so far I have been blessed with exemplary collegues, who are willing to take any effort, the lack of resources have been a bane for these spirited teacher collegues of mine.
Students come from different sections of the society, have different temperements and different outlook towards their future and every aspect in life. While as a manager, you may often be blessed with an almost homogenous group, with somewhat similar temperements and outlook to life(if you happen to build a legal department, then this almost can be taken away!) in a law school, you get students as hetrogenous as anyone can imagine.

Traditionally a government law college in India looks like a government hospital except in one count- in law college, you see empty or almost empty class rooms where as in a government hospital you cant even imagine one empty bed!. One can even say it looks like a government poundry these days...ugly and smelly class rooms, scarce commodity called students,political hue and cry and frequent quarrels among inmates! A collegue had remarked once that the biggest skill a teacher acquires from a law college is the skill to take class to a switch board!

My grandfather who had his legal education in 1920's remembers a time when many students used to attend classes. I have seen National Law Schools where a majority of students attend classes. While I have felt that the quality of teachers is almost same every where(ofcourse there is a difference in outlook towards education) what is lacking is perhaps a motivation among students to attend classes.

Prof Madhava Menon, who headed a committee for legal education reform in Kerala while interacting with students of government law college is said to have remarked is that the reason for non attendance is the low fees that is being collected from the students,and once the fees is hiked to Rs 50000/- students will not dare to bun classes. I strongly disagree with this proposition, since fees does not have any bearing on the attitude of students. I can visualise a student, and I have seen many behaving in this fashion- who thinks it is the duty of his parents to bear the cost of his education and his duty to enjoy his life! Now if his father is paying Rs 50000/- or Rs 100,000/- what difference does it make to him?

But then what is that which tends to keep students away from class? One obvious reason is lack of motivation. Every one here knows that even if you dont attend the class you can pass. Every one here knows that leaders of politcal outfits doesnt attend even a single class and still they sit for examination after obtaining duty certificates for drama competitions, and even for food committees for university youth festival. Every one here knows that even if you dont study, you can get away in the examinations since examiners are afraid of student power. Now what is then your motivation to study?

The question is how can we clean up?