LegallyIndia.com

The Bar Association of India and the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) has instituted an annual award in the name of NLSIU Bangalore founder director Padmashree Prof N.R. Madhava Menon honouring the achievements of law teachers in India.

Four other law teachers were also recognised for their services in the field on Friday, on the eve of India's national Teachers' Day.

The chief guest of the award function, Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, conferred the Best Law Teacher Award 2009 on Menon for 50 years of service as a law teacher.

Menon received a plaque, citation and cash award of Rs 1 lakh in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the growth of legal education in India.

The Chief Justice said at the awards: "Even with the success of a few law schools, there is a lot to be done for improving legal education in our country. At present, we are facing a considerable shortage of talented and motivated law-teachers.

"One reason for this is that graduates of better law schools are getting lucrative job-opportunities in commercial law firms and as in-house counsels in companies.

"While it is understandable that the young lawyers would want to ensure financial security for themselves, we must try and devise methods that attract talented individuals to legal practice, the judicial services and most importantly to law-teaching."

Prof. G.V. Ajappa of KIIT University Law School Bhubaneswar was also rewarded with a citation for Excellence in Legal Education and a Rs 1 lakh cash prize. He is the former dean and head of Dharward University's Faculty of Law and was closely involved in setting up the Bangalore and Raipur national law schools.

Three other law teachers were also cited in the awards for their outstanding services in the field of legal education and were awarded Rs 10,000 each.

The recipients were the founder director of Amity Law School Prof. M.K. Balachandran; dean of North Bengal University's Faculty of Law Prof. Gangotri Chakraborty and former vice-chancellor of NLSIU Bangalore and NLU Jodhpur Prof. N.L. Mitra.

Menon said: "Such moments of fulfillment that are seldom in the life of a teacher are to be cherished for life."

He emphasised the need for making India globally competitive and visualised it as a preferred destination of foreign students for legal education. Menon also called for greater institutional collaboration between law schools and the corporate world.

At the awards Menon also reminisced about his life as a teacher when Arun Jaitley, once a student of Menon, released his book on legal and judicial education. It was during Jaitley’s tenure as the Law Minister when Menon was awarded the Padmashree by the Government of India.    

The award ceremony was presided over by SILF president and Bhasin & Co managing partner Lalit Bhasin and was attended by noted members of the legal fraternity such as Bar Association of India chairman and senior advocate Fali S. Nariman, advocate and Rajya Sabha leader of the opposition Arun Jaitley, former Chief Justice of India J.S. Verma and Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court A.P. Shah.

Menon is meeting Law Minister Veerappa Moily today to discuss the recommendations that emerged out of a symposium on legal education that was held as a follow-up to the awards on Saturday.

Comments (7)

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#1 ...
written by a guest, 07 September 2009 03:24

Dr. Menon's contribution to legal education in India was pathbreaking and need of the hour. He is an excellent mix of wisdom and pragmatism. Congratulations to him and others for this honour.

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#2 ...
written by Brig(Retd)Ashok Joshi, 09 September 2009 00:52

while congratulating our esteemed law teachers for the contribution they have done in development of law colleges in our country,there is a need to know as to how many students of these colleges have actually joined the Bar?

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#3 ...
written by a guest, 09 September 2009 01:15

Errrrr......ALL of them have. Or at least, MOST of them have. It is not legal for anyone to "practice law" unless they are "advocates" licensed by the "Bar" Council of India. So, Brig. Joshi, do you think people working in law firms and doing corporate/non-litigation work practise law? Or something else?

If you think they practise law, then they HAVE "joined the bar". If you think they do not practise law, then law firms and its associates and partners should be outside the scope of regulation by the "bar" council of India and should be free to do whatever they want, including tie up with foreign law firms.

You take your pick, sir. Are corporate law firms part of the "bar" or not? And when you do make that pick, please share with the BCI what your pick is as well :-)

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#4 ...
written by Brig(Retd)Ashok Joshi, 09 September 2009 06:03

I think joining the Bar means actually practising law in a court of law.People who join a law firm after obtaining a law degree from a esteemed law college cannot treated as having joined the Bar.
He is only doing desk job and giving his researched thoughts on which a client is satisfied.
Whether or not his opinion is legally tenable is to be argued by a practising lawyer (who has actually joined the BAR)and decided by a judge.
I think the scope of a law firm in the eyes of BCI requires to be debated upon and they should be allowed to do what they want in the field of law
Incidentally i am also holding a license issued by a state bar council and working with a law fifm.

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#5 ...
written by a guest, 09 September 2009 06:47

Really? Your views are very interesting to me. Why would you say a law firm lawyer is not legally capable of arguing in court to defend the tenability of an opinion he has issued as corporate lawyer working in a law firm? Is there a different licence issued to "those who have joined the bar" (i.e., litigators) from the ones issued to law firm associates who are 'only doing a desk job"? I get very amused by this "desk job" angle that gets bandied about everytime people try to distinguish litigators from corporate lawyers.......don't litigating counsel draft pleadings? Don't they do research? Don't they issue opinions?

And like I said earlier in my post #3, if you are saying law firms, their partners and their associates are not a part of the bar and they are only doing desk jobs, then why should they be regulated by a regulator that calls itself the BAR Council of India? And a bunch of "desk jobbers" surely does not need ANY regulators then?

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#6 ...
written by Just Curious, 09 September 2009 07:26

Let there be a clarification.

Guys who pass out from a law college/ NLUs and get LL.B., simply, per se do not become advocates. If the do not join the BAR and prefer being just a LL.B. degree holder, they cannot be governed by the BAR. So technically,

1) The are only LL.B.

2) That they are not Advocate on record, since they do not get enrolled.

3) They can do all other work permissible but cannot argue in capacity of an enrolled Advocate in a Court. Hence, they can research, draft and even advise/opine, but can never represent a client.

4) Since they are not enrolled, they can never be governed by the BAR.

But at the same time, if a law firm, which is run by LL.B. associates and not Advocates, undertakes any work or provides any services which is essentially of legal characteristic, essentially to be provided only by an enrolled Advocate, such firm has to be governed by the BAR.

A law firm, cannot escape the clutches of the BAR simply by saying that the associates are LL.B.s and not Advocate on record.

It is the service of the law firm which determines, not the capacity of the associates.

If the law firm undertakes functions of an enrolled Advocate, it has to be governed by the Advocates Act, and the BAR.

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#7 ...
written by a guest, 09 September 2009 07:43

#6, we all understand the subtle distinction between "LLB Grads" and "Advocates". Everyone who is working with a law firm as an associate is an "advocate" licensed by the BC anyway, so your distinction there doesn't help much.

The point I was making was a reaction to the rather specious distinction that is often sought to be made by some people between litigators and non-litigating lawyers on the grounds that the latter are not a part of the bar. It is this argument that I was disputing, and raising the argument of regulation by the BCI to make the point that obviously, the BCI too considers corporate lawyers to be "advocates" as it wants to regulate them. If they are not "a part of the bar" because what they are doing is not real bar work, then the Bar Council ought not to be regulating them. As simple as that.

To me, the difference between litigators and non-litigating lawyers is a matter of classification based on expertise and orientation.....both are obviously important parts of the "BAR" as the world today clearly needs both types of lawyers.

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