Let's admit the reality- the vast majority of people at top NLUs are looking out for law firm jobs. Classroom teaching by itself can never equip us with the level of skills required, which is why internships are crucial. However, most firms are reluctant to take in people before third year as students don't have ANY knowledge of comp law and other corp-related subjects before they're taught, even on a superficial level.
In my Tier-One NLU, we had so many useless BA subjects in first and second year. How would rote-learning Locke's theories help me in my career, in any manner? The Pol Sci teacher used to come to class, give out long dictations (like school days) and then expect us to mug up for exams. Ridiculous. Would have been much better if that time was spent learning company law, which I'd say is easier than contract law. It's not just BA subjects, there's more redundant mandatory subjects like Human Rights, "Science, Technology and Law" etc (we had the worst teachers for it) that needs to go.
I agree. I also believe topics like jurisprudence should be made optional. While it might be interesting subject itself, it has very little value for people who want to pursue careers in commerical spaces.
As someone who has taught Company Law for many years, I cannot overstate how much of a bad idea this is.
In my view, Company Law requires prior knowledge of Contracts, Property Law, Family Law, Economics. Take a step further and you'll realise the democratic processes in corporate governance (passing of resolutions and appointing of directors) are based on constitutional values. The waterfall mechanism under the IBC is based on a combination of (i) the banking lobby in our political economy and (ii) socialist virtues that protect workers. I could go on, but I hope you get the drift.
But there's nothing stopping you from picking up a textbook on Company Law in your first year. :)
True. Studying basic laws like contract, consti, etc. helps one understand corp law better. The idea of subjects like jurisprudence is not to make you rote-learn theories but to give a thought as to why such theories originated and why we need them today, the foundation of society and constitution lies on these theories only. Though it might seem irrelevant from a corporate law practitioner's perspective, the moment you go on legislative or academic side, you realise the importance of such subjects. After all, every law is enacted to deal either with society or economy.
This is why BA-LLB is an outdated program. The BA subjects are all useless and just fillers. The world is moving towards more practical dual-degree integrated programs like BBA-LLB. If followed by a good MBA, this is a stellar combination. Management/Business is in itself a practical discipline, when combined with Law, it provides an unparalleled advantage.
If corporate lawyers see themselves as mere lawyers, then this is fine. However, if they see themselves as business leaders then they need to understand how businesses work. As a discipline, law is more valuable when combined with another proper discipline - e.g. business, medicine, engineering, etc. At this point, most state NLUs continue to offer outdated BA-LLB (barring a few exceptions) and do a shoddy job on others. Moreover, most law students come from a humanities background hence they feel insecure and threatened when any other combination is even talked of. They dismiss any other combination, but sadly state NLUs are falling behind on this curve. Take NLS for instance - it had the opportunity to come up with something innovative (and start a trend). Instead, what does it do - increase the intake for BA-LLB and launch the archaic 3-year LLB? How original????
One of our faculty members had been discussing in class about how it's his long-term dream to convince BCI and ICAI to allow a 5-year CA, LLB programme.
Totally agree with OP. Gives me hope that the current generation is smarter and more sincere than we give them credit for. In my view, we need to dump all BA courses, as they have no practical use and are frequently used to peddle obsolete leftist dogma. Only economics should be retained, BUT on the condition that Friedman, Bhagwati and Austrian School thinkers are taught, plus there is reading material on the failure of the Licence Raj sand Soviet systems.
As for law courses, courses like Science and Law, Gender and Law, Jurisprudence and Human Rights should never be compulsory. They should be made into optional courses, alongside a large number of commercially relevant courses. We also need more courses on tech law.
Agree 100%. If the BA portion is in one discipline [e.g. BA (Economics)] combined with the LLB portion, then it would so much sense and be useful. Today the BA courses are all over the place - history, literature, sociology, political science. It is basically a hodge-podge to just fulfill the credit requirements.
We need to specialise papers accordingly. Instead of International law, teach international trade law. Instead of Human Rights in general, teach HR & Corporation relations. It's high time we move to more specialised subjects.
International trade law is offered as an elective in most NLUs at least. These are not tradeoffs for each other. To think that Human Rights can be traded with HR & Corporate Relations is a foolhardy thought. Any person with legal training but no appreciation for or understanding of human rights is a threat to human society. I say that as a career corporate lawyer.
There is a big difference between training people to do compliance work and training people to be creative lawyers and I don't think we need so much of resources pumped in to NLUS to do the former. Do bear in mind that we are not running a school to make electricians and plumbers for whom only skills matter. Take some time to google for the structure of law programmes from around the world and you will see how bad your idea is.
About the social science courses, I Agee that the way they are taught leaves much to be desired, barring a few courses at the top law schools. Right now we are forced to be mostly content with second grade social scientists who are willing to build their career at a single department faculty of law. most of them have not really interacted with the law and are quite clueless about how to locate their disciplines within the larger framework of law. However, I don't see this as a reason to altogether get rid of the idea that lawyers need to have some grip and tools to analyse the world around them.
I am guessing that you are an unhappy law student and it's perfectly normal to be frustrated with the absurd system that you are being put through - I have been exactly at that spot. try reading up things on your own - I can assure you that the effort will be worth it in the longer run.
In my Tier-One NLU, we had so many useless BA subjects in first and second year. How would rote-learning Locke's theories help me in my career, in any manner? The Pol Sci teacher used to come to class, give out long dictations (like school days) and then expect us to mug up for exams. Ridiculous. Would have been much better if that time was spent learning company law, which I'd say is easier than contract law. It's not just BA subjects, there's more redundant mandatory subjects like Human Rights, "Science, Technology and Law" etc (we had the worst teachers for it) that needs to go.
In my view, Company Law requires prior knowledge of Contracts, Property Law, Family Law, Economics. Take a step further and you'll realise the democratic processes in corporate governance (passing of resolutions and appointing of directors) are based on constitutional values. The waterfall mechanism under the IBC is based on a combination of (i) the banking lobby in our political economy and (ii) socialist virtues that protect workers. I could go on, but I hope you get the drift.
But there's nothing stopping you from picking up a textbook on Company Law in your first year. :)
As for law courses, courses like Science and Law, Gender and Law, Jurisprudence and Human Rights should never be compulsory. They should be made into optional courses, alongside a large number of commercially relevant courses. We also need more courses on tech law.
About the social science courses, I Agee that the way they are taught leaves much to be desired, barring a few courses at the top law schools. Right now we are forced to be mostly content with second grade social scientists who are willing to build their career at a single department faculty of law. most of them have not really interacted with the law and are quite clueless about how to locate their disciplines within the larger framework of law. However, I don't see this as a reason to altogether get rid of the idea that lawyers need to have some grip and tools to analyse the world around them.
I am guessing that you are an unhappy law student and it's perfectly normal to be frustrated with the absurd system that you are being put through - I have been exactly at that spot. try reading up things on your own - I can assure you that the effort will be worth it in the longer run.