"Being an NLU alum does not mean a teacher is good" "Foreign degrees does not mean a teacher is good" "Publishing in international journals does not mean a teacher is good" "Mysore University, Kurukshetra University and North Bengal University are just as good at universities in the US and UK" "NLUD is better than NLSIU because of the location" "NUJS is better than NLSIU because Khaitan & Co recruits more students from here" "Sudhir is arrogant and evil"
fair. except that JGLS cannot boast the same recruitment figures as NLS. They have some rule of having only students with 50% + being able to sit for recruitment to try and whittle down the number of jobs they have to find, but why are so few students able to meet that criteria?
Heartbroken, scared, betrayed. Not really. Sudhir will need all the faculty he can get with his crazy expansion plan. Let's see if any of them stick around once Sudhir's tenure finishes. Has NLS ever really groomed any notable academic in India? Only Ranbir Singh and MP Singh did so at NLUD and NUJS.
SB's replacement at NUJS is Jawaharlal Bhattacharjee, an eminent practicing advocate in Kolkata. He's giving practical exposure to law. To teach theory, they have appointed NUJS LLM grad from 2021 batch. A decent pair overall.
That is not accurate. A new LLB alumnus from the 2016 batch, Aman Gupta, has now joined from NLUJ. He, together with a TA who is an alumna from RMLNLU, is teaching labour law in this semester. At least get your facts straight before you start ranting. Not that anyone can be Saurabh's replacement at all.
Eminent? LOL. No one heard of him bro. The word "eminent" should be used only for the topmost seniors in Kolkata like SN Mookherjee, Ratnanko Banerji, Anindya Mitra, Jayanta Mitra, Abhrajit Mitra, Tilak Bose, JP Khaitan (for tax), Yezdi Dastoor etc etc. Not him!!
Denial? Blind panic and lashing out? Trying to claim that no matter how far ahead nls goes things will never change for other NLUs ? Relying on the idiotic idea that it’s the students clat rank and not the quality of education that makes a school good? Wondering who will write your recommendation letters now.
Here's the truth: NLSIU was ruled by a cabal of TNC-educated dinosaurs for many years. They kept alumni out of faculty positions because of insecurities and jealousy. As a result, other law schools caught up. First, MP Singh hired NLU alumni at NUJS, including Sudhir himself. Even before MP Singh, BS Chimni hired Prabhash Ranjan (a DU/London alum) after spotting his talent. Then, Ranbir Singh at NLUD copied MP Singh and hired NLU alumni. He additionally poached good TLC-educated people, including one person who was at NLUJ. Then, Faizan Mustafa did the same at NALSAR. However, the master was Rajkumar at JGLS. Backed by Naveen Jindal's coffers, he made sure that nearly very single prof at JGLS is an NLU alum and paid them 1.5 times more than TLC alum. He also insisted on foreign degrees from everyone (though most NLU alumni have foreign degrees anyway). Rajkumar's strategy paid off and today Jindal is 75th in the QS rankings.
Now, Sudhir wants to copy Rajkumar and beef up the faculty with NLSIU alumin. He wanted to do that all along, which is why there was so much resistance to him from the TLC-educated faculty at NLSIU and they tried to block his appointment. Sudhir doesn't have Naveen Jindal's money, but his college's brand value is excellent and his students (who make the brand value what it is) are a lot smarter. Also, some professors prefer to teach at NLSIU instead of JGLS because of ideological reasons. On any case, Sudhir has invited many JGLS professors to teach guest courses at NLSIU. Meanwhile, the NLUs previously threatening to dislodge NLSIU has declined. NLUD has lost Ranbir Singh and there has been a faculty exodus. NALSAR is looking shaky. NUJS sunk ever since Ishwar Bhat became VC and the TMC took over Bengal.
Other NLU students are bitching about Sudhir online, but they are secretly jealous. What now needs to happen is that they need to stop hating and instead pressurise their VCs and admins to follow the same strategy.
I remember when he was teaching us in the mid 2000s. He basically said something to the effect of, the future of legal education is private because that's where the money is, and they have the resources to move things forward faster. (Don't quote me on this). He has clarity about what he wants to achieve. Listening to him in alumni conversations I was particularly impressed at how he wanted to improve the living infrastructure of students. If he succeeds at making the hostels clean and the food edible, I think he would have done far more than most VCs before him. I am sure the detractors will have plenty to say, but most of them aren't from law school, so their opinions matter very little to me ;)
I have been following the threads on Prof. Sudhir since a long time, and have also followed his own career trajectory with interest. There is no doubt that he is an immensely talented and bright individual (from his academic accomplishments alone). Further, you must remember that very few Rhodes scholars would choose to come to India, and even fewer would choose to go into the rough tumble of Indian academic administration. Sudhir did both of that, excelled at it. Expansion is necessary, he wants to leave a legacy, he has a plan, he is working to see it through. Remember that ambition and hard work together can produce extraordinary results. Give the minimum respect
Bro the comments are basically from students from other law schools jealous of NLSIU steaming ahead. Plain and simple as that. They accuse Sudhir of not cooperating with other VCs. Why the hell should he cooperate with those jokers?
I am currently studying under some of the teachers that Sudhir has poached. Doesn't matter how good they are, Sudhir has ensured that I will not learn any law during my 9 months. Only philosophy. In addition, he has removed specialization for LLM. Now, we compete for electives with MPP, 3 year LLB and 5 year BA LLB on a first come first serve basis. In 10 seconds, most of the good electives are gone. I came to study business law, instead I'm studying criminal law. My roommate is studying City Planning (which has absolutely no law in it). On top of this, he has promised that if any of us prepare for anything other than LLM, we will definitely fail. Nobody I've talked to on campus has anything nice to say about Sudhir at all. It seems all his cheerleaders are only on Legally India. 2 people from LLM have dropped out in the first month itself and 3 more have left for NLUD. All Sudhir knows is 'academic rigour', even when it is for subjects that have absolutely no practical relevance whatsoever.
If you don’t realise studying “law” should be more than studying the bare act and cases. Why are you doing an LLM? The legal philosophy stuff isn’t limited to public law , I know for a fact that Nigam teaches private law and does plenty of legal philosophy. In any full time programme you shouldn’t have time to do ten other things unless you try really hard. If you don’t work hard- you shouldn’t get good grades. I don’t know what about this seems unfair to you. City planning is about the law actually, it’s about housing and sanitation and access to water and education and civil rights and a hundred other things that are intimately about the law. There’s plenty of written work backing this up and scholars in india who have done good work on this.
I’m glad folks who think law school is supposed to be an easy time that will allow them to do internships throughout the year and prepare for civil services and judicial services without losing out on getting good grades are getting discouraged. Good thing.
You only talk to people on campus who hate Sudhir. I’m on campus and know plenty of people who like him immensely.
I dont mind philosophy if it has some nexus with the law. The stuff we are being taught has absolutely nothing to do with the law. It's not the philosophy behind the law, it's just philosophy in general. And if this is indeed the norm in NLS, perhaps NLS needs to introspect on whether teaching students everything but thr law is the best use of everybody's time and effort. (Btw I have talked to pre-Sudhir NLS LLM students and this philosophy heavy approach is very much Sudhir's creation). City planning does involve law no doubt. However, the way the course is structured, there is very little focus on the legal aspects. Instead, the focus is on abstract scholarly work which apart from being dull as dishwater is gloriously impractical and useless in real life. I also want to highlight another thing which I missed in my last post. Sudhir has added two extra core courses (not mandated by UGC) to the LLM course. Both these courses are again philosophy heavy and they take away two slots from the electives. As a result, we only do 4 electives in the entirety of the course. Coupled with the first come first served system, this ensures we study a hotch-potch of subjects with no connecting link. This new system ensures that we do very little actual law in the entirety of the course and we also do not get any specialization (functionally or formally). I have talked to everyone in my batch and everyone in my hostel. Nobody has a kind word to say about Sudhir. I think this is sufficiently representative of the general NLS population.
You need to understand that an LLM is not an LLB. In one it might be reasonable to expect at least a few classes where the focus is on reading cases and bare acts. I did an LLM from one of those elite places- I never took a course where we did cases and bare acts. It’s an advanced degree- the level of study is in another gear. You’re supposed to research on your own and keep up with case law on your own. The profs are there to show you more advanced theory, show you how interdisciplinary perspectives on an issue work- things like that. A thing is not only about the law if you are name dropping sections and cases. If you’re discussing housing, schooling, sanitation, access to water, access to public transport, - yknow in essence things that make civil rights possible- you’re discussing a legal problem. It’s hard for me to imagine that discussion not being about the law.
You also seem to have a limited idea of what “ applicable in real life” means. thing is - not everyone is going to be a practitioner , people will want to work in research and policy and academia, and second thing is- the idea that you can effectively practice corporate law without understanding the theory behind juristic persons or the corporate veil is just soooo ridiculous. I know these faculty also- I have sat in their class- I know they don’t run away with philosophy without it tying to a better understanding of the law. Reading scholarly literature isn’t a bad thing. I know plenty of people who work with advocacy organisations who find solutions or notice problems because they have that rich background in scholarly work. And another thing is - if you want to just practice- you can do that with an LLB. You’re wasting your own time. An LLM is an advanced degree.
The Indian llm has for years gotten the stepchild treatment where administrators and academics don’t spend enough time developing curricula or enforcing rigour. If Sudhir is doing that- it’s better than most of the other universities out there. I know and have met very recently a number of llm students at NLS who like the changes. So idk your claim that you’ve spoken to every single one is suspicious. Is it your job to speak to every single one? Do you do this instead of studying? You’re kind of being ridiculous. If you think it’s representative- do an actual survey. Give Sudhir a report card. But I really doubt an actual survey would show people didn’t like him. Most of the people I know at nls seem to like him at least somewhat.
Let me provide a brief overview of what we have been taught so far:
1. Law and Justice (Sudhir Krishnaswamy) : We have read Aristotle, John Rawls, Hume, Bentham, and some introductory philosophy books. We have been forced to read the original writings of these philosophers. Recourse to secondary material has been strongly discouraged even when we literally cannot comprehend the way some (Hume and Aristotle in particular) of these people write. In class, we were initially taught nothing as Sudhir expected us to start the discussion. He only started teaching (and even then only a small portion of the syllabus) when it became apparent that most people could not understand anything. We have NEVER discussed a concrete, real life issue in class not have we ever applied any of the theories we are been taught to any real life issue. In between (not) teaching in class, Sudhir tells us to forget any other aspirations we may have and ominously warns us that we will fail if we do anything other than study for this course (taking part in NLS co-curriculars not included).
2.Research Methods: We spent two weeks discussing scholarly articles on how to define research. Not learning how to do research, mind you, but reading abstract scholarly articles on research. Then we spent one whole class learning about the history and working of libraries. Another class was spent trying to define reading. The teacher spend one hour asking each and every one of us to define reading. We have also had a Sociology professor come to class and discuss her PHD work. In one month of teaching, I have learnt absolutely nothing about how to do legal research.
3. Comparative Public Law: We have been prescribed 62 scholarly articles totalling about 3500 pages. That is our syllabus. The teacher has refused to provide any kind of list of topics or secondary material; she insists that we read and understand all 3500 pages of scholarly work. The articles themselves mostly talk about methods and theories of comparative law. We have done almost no actual comparison between laws of different jurisdictions. In fact, we have discussed very little actual law of any kind. Instead, we spend all our time reading about methods and theories and classifications and what not. Very ironically, one of the prescribed articles threw shade at comparative law as a practical field of study and insisted it should be a purely academic discipline.
The only actual law I am studying is in my elective (and i suspect that is only because we share it with the LLB batch). The purpose of the LLM program in NLS now seems to be geared only and only toward research scholars to the exclusion of all other career paths. I only wish NLS had been clear about this before I sunk 3.3 lakhs into this program.
This might surprise you but people fine that being a few weeks into a programme is vastly different than what you think of it when you finish. 1) Law and justice sounds like a good rigorous course. In law schools we rarely learn from textbooks. We dont use secondary materials. We arent given notes, its not school- its a university. Even in my first year legal methods class we read legal philosophers in the original. We read dense texts and worked hard. This isn't a legitimate complaint when people in the 5 year degree programme are doing it. Reading is a skill it improves the more you do it. Teaching does not just mean lecturing. Sudhir was teaching you even when he was not lecturing. His chosen pedagogy is appropriate for masters students no matter what they want to do in life. No one is gonna lecture when you start practicing. You are gonna have to read on your own, and you wont even have a professor who will guide your thinking about it, ask you questions,or colleagues who will discuss the text with you. Any text. This is how most students at law school are taught. Hardly anyone lectures. This may not be what you're used to- but you came to law school knowing it would be difficult and it would be hard work . No one tells you its an easy time. Work harder. 2) Youve told us what happened in three weeks of a research methods course. Any course in an academic setting is gonna start with theoretical stuff. My research methods course at my elite institution also started with theoretical stuff. Them teaching you these basics and going over the different kinds of reading is them trying to get you caught up on what masters students in other universities intuitively know. When a PhD scholar talks about her sociological work- thats real world research- you should be listening instead of closing your ears. 3) Comparative Public Law is an academic course. It is something scholars and law makers engage in. It is completely normal for them to expect you to read 3500 pages over the course of a term. broken down over 90 days that comes up to 38 pages a day. You cant read 38 pages a day? In my masters program it was just expected that you read 8-10 books a week. That is how higher education works. 4) This is not a vocational programme. I dont know where they told you it was. The course information is available online. If you chose to ignore what an LLM is for because you wanted the tag- thats on you.
You're complaining that you haven't read black letter law in courses called law and justice and research methods. For real? That's just you not understanding what the course is. It's hard for me to imagine a comparative law course which doesn't teach law- thats baked right in. So what you're saying is that you're not learning the law you want to learn. Which is sad for you. But universities are not buffets. You dont get to pick and choose what you want. In coming terms you'll have opportunities to take courses on private law and courses on specific areas of law. But every masters programme has some mandatory courses that might not hit the mark for you 10/10 every single time. You do get to do electives that are about your specific interests. But the university has to maintain quality and part of that is having a few mandatory courses. Otherwise we would have people graduating by taking all their course work in corporate law and not knowing how interpretation of statutes works. which for the record would make them fools.
You know all the good judges and lawyers you aspire to be know all this theory stuff too right? Ram Jethmalani, DYC- they all know this stuff like the back of their hand. Thats what makes them so good. Thats what helps them make convincing arguments and tear down arguments of others. this idea that good practitioners of law dont read only do jugaad is so uninformed.
To stretch that and claim that there's been false advertising or that the programme has been basterdised is factually untrue. And I'm really sorry but did they not tell you the LLM was a full time programme? who told you you'd have time to prepare for civil services and still get good grades? You can prep civil services and get bad grades and adults make those trade offs all the time. if you wanted less rigor you should have done distance education. It seems anyway that you have closed your ears and eyes and decided within weeks that the program is of no use to you. In which case I think even NLS is justified in calling this a wasteful exercise. People would give an arm and a leg to study at NLS- and this is what you're making of it. Complaining that the work is too hard and that you're not taught black letter law in law and justice- its like complaining that your english class doesn't have much math in it.
Lol, so much effort in defending a course that doesn't treat its students will. Which LLM programme required you to read 7 books in a week? In your zeal to appear knowledgeable, you have now exposed yourself to ridicule.
I’m not gonna dox myself to prove this. Suffice to say hi ask any llm student who studies at a top world programme. Look at their curriculum, and you will see that it entails a lot of reading. Is a masters in law not a masters in jugaad. If y’all don’t like reading why are you there ? Why do you want an llm in the first place? Leave. Run now.
So now the goalpost has shifted from reading 7 books in a week to "a lot of reading". [...] I have actually got an LLM from one of the Ivy League places myself. Sure we had to read. At the same time, the faculty I had would also take the trouble of explaining things in class so that people would actually be interested and not only parrot theories. Anyone can read theories from the books themselves, then what's the use for teachers? The job of good teachers is to make people interested in the subject, connect discussions with things happening in the real world and leave a sense of value added in the students' minds. Clearly the ones at NLSIU are failing in that job, at least the ones referred to here.
No shifting goal posts. I had to read 7-10 books a week for my masters. Depending on how rigorous your programme was - you might have done slightly more or slightly less. But if you complained about 38 pages a day you’d get told to work harder. Teachers are there to guide your thinking. Challenge your arguments, improve your analysis. They’re not always there to sooon feed materials and make things interesting for you. Especially at a masters level - you should be adult enough to keep yourself interested. I have also found that a class is only as interesting as you make it. If you refuse to be an active participant and want to sit above everyone else and judge- then that’s the experience you’re gonna have. Teachers are people- they don’t have production values of big media houses.
Once again, please reveal the name of the Masters programme that requires a student to read 7-10 books every week, assuming that is even humanly possible. That boils down to more than 1 book per day.
Once again- I’m not gonna dox myself because you think it’s incredible that other people read. Literally go look at the course syllabi the Oxbridge/ Ivy League type places offer. One book a day is like 5-6 hours woke. It is just not that much if you want to do it. Undergrad students at my elite institution would do a little less than that - but not by much.
Why should LLMs suffer sociology teachers? It’s a master of laws program. We’re unable to see the relevance of sociology. In any event, we have already suffered sociology in our BA LLB. Why inflict it again on us?
If you think of it as suffering sociology i dont know what to tell you. A masters programme is not for you. Interdisciplinarity doesnt mean you have sociology courses to check a box.it means that that interdisciplinarity is baked into every course you study. So when you study law and justice theres philosophy, when you study research methods theres literally all sorts of methods including sociological ones. When you study competition law youll study economics also. This is a good thing for the university. You seem to not want to study anything at all and have demonstrated a remarkable lack of intiative , judgment, and curiosity. I would suggest you reflect on why you want to do this degree in the first place. Youre wasting their time with this attitude.
Clearly he is. In fact, he believes that what he thinks a programme should be like should be the only way, and not what the stakeholders' expectations from it are. In fact, that's so like Sudhir's brand of thought that had I not known the latter to be the sort who would not indulge in anonymity, then I might have thought that it is him commenting here.
Stakeholders expectations ? What? Do you realise how ridiculous you sound? Why don’t we let students form course syllabus and students can set question papers and students can evaluate them also.
Education would mean nothing if teachers didn’t challenge students and make them work for their grades. And sometimes that means working at stuff you aren’t personally thrilled about- but that academics agree are required skills/knowledge for someone graduating from that programme. Nls isn’t a degree mill and won’t be turned into one just because students who got in expect it.
Y’all are the ones insisting everything be to your personal taste. I’m just saying- if you aren’t a student that hates sociology- you would have gotten something out of that class. If you’re an educator you can see the value of those course outlines. And if you’re a somewhat mature student who actually wants to learn, you would see the value of that course.
You haven’t given me a pedagogical reason for why these courses aren’t valid except “ I don’t want to do this” and “ the work is too much” and “ I want to practice anyway so why should I study anything”.
And I’ve gone into some depth explaining why those reasons are invalid.
I’m not Sudhir. Thank god I don’t have to take all of this anonymous abuse. The man must really like teaching. But the fact that you are so invested in figuring out who I am only tells me you’re not mature enough to have a proper discussion about what the llm programme is for and what the benefits and problems with this programme are.
Yep. In a world where something means anything suffering needs to mean something. And it’s not having to do work you dislike for an optional degree. Your experience Or at least your version of events is invalid
"I have learnt absolutely nothing about how to do legal research." I'm sorry my friend, but I'd have to agree with the other Sudhir-chela on this one, the LLM is an advanced degree and if you don't already know how to do legal research, you must seriously re-consider whether an LLM is for you.
No dude. You’re responsible for your own choices in life. No one else. If you get on a bus, and the ticket sold to you days there are ten stops along the way to your destination. That’s what you agreed to. You don’t then get to complain that going to these ten other stops is a waste of your time, and the bus shouldn’t have let you board if they knew you wanted to reach destination directly and now they should change course because you just care about getting to your stop. And it’s difficult and time consuming and inconvenient to go to the other stops. The bus company did not owe it to you to personally come to you and tell you what the entire route was. They make their schedule public. That’s all that’s necessary.
Nls has made the courses that students take in llm programme- including courses you don’t personally find interesting or relevant to your career goals , public. It was on you to figure out if the programme was a good fit. You can’t join and expect them to change pedagogy and how the programme is structured cause you don’t like. There definitely are students that do like this. That do find value in the programme as it is being taught.
I think design wise the programme is fine. I think it does things that a masters programme is supposed to do. If y’all don’t want to be on the bus- get off. Stop wasting time. It’s not the university’s fault that you just want the brand. It’s yours that you didn’t enquire about the programme enough or hell look at the nls website to see what courses their masters in law students do.
Not really. You cannot argue that the programme presupposes a level of knowledge in its students, but does nothing to ensure that such knowledge is tested at the time of admission. Then its admission process is faulty. In addition, it is the programme deliverer's responsibility to make the objective of the programme clear at the outset, especially if it involves a change from ongoing practice. Otherwise students will rightly complain as they are doing that they have been misled. And your analogies are completely unfit for the point being argued.
If a Masters student would already know everything about how to do legal research, then a person would be eligible to teach others right after graduating from law school, won't they? He did not say he knows nothing about legal research, he said that during his LLM programme, he has learnt nothing more about it. The other Sudhir-chela was actually saying that LLM among other things is actually to learn that and not merely how to work in a law firm. Make up your mind!
Lol, Sudhir is trolling the LLM dude from his secret LI a/c.
"I know and have met very recently a number of llm students at NLS who like the changes."-> What do you mean they like the changes?" they don't have nay experience of anything before the changes, they just got here, there's no way they can compare.
"Is it your job to speak to every single one? Do you do this instead of studying?" -> You're being ridiculous mam, seriously. How in the world are you on campus if you don't know that the single biggest way you bond with others on campus is bitching about Sudhir.
I’m alumni who has friends who went back to do their llm. That’s how I know what’s going on okay? I’ve met a bunch of them. So please stop with all this nonsense. Y’all might have time to bitch BSabout Sudhir all day long. And to a point I’ll make the time to defend progress in the university. But I don’t have time to indulge this nonsense. Ask yourself if bitching about the VC is a good use of your time given the opportunity you’ve gotten:
Ask yourself whether what you're doing is a good use of your time, especially since you are not from NLSIU at all. As for "LLM Alumni friends" shtick, pull the other one, that's got bells on.
Like I said - alumni. And I think it is worth my time to support academics who are trying to improve our educational system. Especially where there seems to be an online army to target their every move. Yes. It is very much worth my time.
To all those who are ganging up against the LLM student, the programme is not what you think it should be. If NLSIU wants to offer an LLM that is only suitable for people interested in opting for academics, then it is also their job to inform that objective to the students in advance so that the latter can take informed decisions. LLM students in India also often from non NLUs and expect the NLUs to bridge the gap to some extent at least during that year, which would help them in their industry career. That is a very legitimate expectation. Teaching only theories in classroom without helping the students connect with those, or only discussing things without practical relevance isn't the mark of a good teacher or a good programme admin, regardless of their credentials.
See that's the thing though. It's not the job of an advanced degree program to simply give out the institutional brand without demanding rigor appropriate to the level of education. And it is not the job of the LLM program to bridge any gap between NLU students and Non NLU Students. You have certificate programs and continuing education for that. It might be what these programs have been reduced to over years of neglect, but it's certainly not what the program should be. It's actually not a legitimate expectation for the level of course material to still be what undergraduates do in their initial years. None of the people I know who teach theory at NLS do so without grounding the theory in real-world issues and problems. Least of all the private law faculty. No one is discussing things without practical relevance. just because the conversation takes into account different perspectives and scholarly work doesn't mean it's not practically relevant. if you want just to learn how to draft and how to write- there are books you can refer to, and your teachers will lead you to them. But a legal education has to be more than that. If all you're in there for is "practical relevance" just go do an internship again. Lets actually do away with law school and have people intern all year around. Yall can become very competent clerks. It is ridiculous also to expect people who have spent so much of their careers being scholars and academics to teach you " practical" stuff. a different kind of instructor is needed for that- the kind you get during internships. Both have their own value and I am done with people pretending that only the "practical" teacher provides any value. it is bizarre to me also that you want internship-style teaching when you're at law school. yet the cache of law school over the GLC model is a well-grounded training in legal thinking, theory, and the black letter law. You want the brand but dont want what the brand actually means is all I think, just the trappings and improved job chances. which is not something universities should build their curricula around.
You are saying that you know that those teachers don't teach theory without grounding it in facts. Their student is saying that he cannot see the relevance of their theoretical discussion. You seem to be equating any kind of practical teaching with internships. That may be your perception of what a degree should be, need not be everyone else's. I have been taught Corporate Law by a teacher who taught me the theories and underlying implications, but at the same time clearly grounding everything in facts and useful examples and helped me understand the relevance. That's not at all an illegitimate demand to have of one's teachers. This building castles in the air kind of perception of education is what makes people feel that law schools are useless in preparing one for the profession.
Yeah I have also been taught corp law by someone who married theory and "practical" stuff well. But they didn't make me do due diligence in class! And I had classmates whining about how they dont want the theory stuff and they were idiots because when the law changed they didn't know what they were gonna do cause they didn't study the theory. That's what you want? To learn office skills? The NLU model isn't for you. Look at why the guy has said his courses are not practical- its possible for students to be disengaged and generally bad students. I'm sorry but it just is. It seems this one has decided not to learn and not to listen. Having scholars come and talk to you about their scholarship is what research methods should be. you should be learning how to do things from people who have done them. Discussing theories of justice is what law and justice should be. This is not building castles in the air.
Universities are not supposed to prepare you for " profession". No university will do that. It is near impossible to replicate the workplace at a university. Apart from clinical/ field programmes. What you learn in the field is what you learn in the field. What you learn during an internship you cannot be taught at a university. Maybe vocational degrees might help sometimes but a university education is supposed to give you skills and critical thinking and the ability to work consistently that will make you a good employee, make you a good practicioner, a good judge, a good citizen.
Once again, this is only your perception of what the programme should be. It is clear that you aren't either teaching the programme or pursuing it, yet you are hell bent in defending it for reasons of your own. The standards set by you are by no means the only acceptable ones. It is the university's job to explain their programme objectives to the students before the latter join. And theories mean zilch if the students cannot place them in context. Your derision at everything that other people want makes you a fairly entitled individual.
Look all the course information was online. You knew you’d have to take courses like this. Do your diligence. No university in the world is gonna go to each application / admit and explain what the programme is about. Stop being so entitled. There can be bad students who after a couple of weeks into the programme decide to take a stance where they shut their eyes and ears to learning. It’s not the university failing them If they can’t make connections others can. The students there are failing themselves and their colleagues.
The online course outline didn't reveal that the teachers would fail to elicit any interest in students about the subjects being taught or connect those with the real world at all.
It’s not the teachers job to elicit interest from you. He’s not a motivational speaker. It’s his job to get to you think about the materials. You can’t blame your disinterest on someone else. Take some goddamn responsibility for yourself.
Then NLSIU should admit only those people whom it has tested for all the undergrad knowledge. So long as it doesn't do that, the onus is on the institution to make that good, not on the student.
Nope. They dont have control over admissions test , so the best they can do is teach their materials to students and help them catch up. Its not on them to offer the course so that you dont have to grow or learn or work hard. its not on them to offer a non challenging course.
Actually, they do have control over the admissions test. There is nothing that prevents NLSIU from holding separate admission test for LLM students. The CLAT judgment only held for undergraduate students and not postgraduate ones and Sudhir has shown earlier that he's fully ready to disregard even the undergrad mandate by trying to hold NLAT. Why not try and see how many 'good students' they can get by holding a separate exam and then teach them fluffy stuff that has got no application in the real world? Challenging course, lol! I can talk about esoteric things without none of the students getting what I'm saying and then call it challenging. A good teacher makes difficult things easy to understand, but Sudhir has always had a lousy reputation as a teacher.
Why are LLM students having to compete with other students for electives? Don't they have their own curriculum and electives? UGC mandates that. That's why NLUs which used to offer papers jointly to LLB and LLM students have now stopped that practice, and have instead got dedicated faculty and courses for the LLM students. Are you saying that NLSIU doesn't follow that practice?
There are 3 mandatory courses (as mandated by UGC) and two other mandatory courses solely for LLM. All elective courses are common for LLM and BALLB (and some are also shared by PPP).
It is. Because in India, the UGC regulations do not allow it. Stop comparing ourselves to other jurisdictions without knowing about the law, you are supposed to be a lawyer!
Treatment of LLM as a back-up for UPSC, Judicial Services and other options by students has been a bane of LLM Programmes in India. One of the assumptions underlying the start of one-year LLM Programmes was that the coursework will be sufficiently rigorous to place students in a no worse position in comparison to a 2-Year LLM Programme. Completion of coursework and a dissertation within 12 months is supposed to be demanding and is not meant to leave space for anything else unless the standards are diluted.
If the law school has indeed signalled that the LLM Coursework should not be treated as a chore that can be successfully done in between preparation for other exams and interviews, the institution should be lauded for that.
To be fair, Sudhir stands by his teachers. For better or for worse, faculty like that. Case in point, the recent scandal of a fresh alum teacher who was caught on audio threatening to "end" students.
Oh the recent scandal where students secretly recorded their professor telling them as a group how unacceptable plagiarism is and how it will have consequences? And then put it up online to try and get the guy kicked out? And then wrote a petition saying they should be allowed to plagiarise in rough drafts and teachers shouldn’t hold them accountable if they turn up to class not having read anything but still want to monopolise class time?
Yeah teachers like that. The individual obviously used words one shouldn’t in an academic or professional setting- and maybe he was censured for that. But that doesn’t mean the students get to bully him or demand lower educational standards.
The individual was not censured for anything at all. The NLSIU administration in general prefers the faculty to have a dictatorial and adversarial disciplinarian relationship with their students. So this fits right into their expectations. Also, it is surprising how one or more people are commenting in almost identical tones, trying to downplay the appalling behaviour of the faculty here, instead trying to focus entirely on the students' entitlement.
you don't know they weren't censured? Maybe they were told off privately. maybe your behavior has distracted the vc currently but hell get back to it later. you just don't know.
Public reaction on LI forums:
"Being an NLU alum does not mean a teacher is good"
"Foreign degrees does not mean a teacher is good"
"Publishing in international journals does not mean a teacher is good"
"Mysore University, Kurukshetra University and North Bengal University are just as good at universities in the US and UK"
"NLUD is better than NLSIU because of the location"
"NUJS is better than NLSIU because Khaitan & Co recruits more students from here"
"Sudhir is arrogant and evil"
NUJS has suffered too, with their best teacher leaving.
NALSAR has remained untouched. For some reason Sid Chauhan has not left.
And Jindal has also remained untouched.
Wondering who will write your recommendation letters now.
Sudhir: 😜
NLUD/NUJS students: 😢
NLSIU students: 😂
NLUD/NUJS VCs: 😴
Now, Sudhir wants to copy Rajkumar and beef up the faculty with NLSIU alumin. He wanted to do that all along, which is why there was so much resistance to him from the TLC-educated faculty at NLSIU and they tried to block his appointment. Sudhir doesn't have Naveen Jindal's money, but his college's brand value is excellent and his students (who make the brand value what it is) are a lot smarter. Also, some professors prefer to teach at NLSIU instead of JGLS because of ideological reasons. On any case, Sudhir has invited many JGLS professors to teach guest courses at NLSIU. Meanwhile, the NLUs previously threatening to dislodge NLSIU has declined. NLUD has lost Ranbir Singh and there has been a faculty exodus. NALSAR is looking shaky. NUJS sunk ever since Ishwar Bhat became VC and the TMC took over Bengal.
Other NLU students are bitching about Sudhir online, but they are secretly jealous. What now needs to happen is that they need to stop hating and instead pressurise their VCs and admins to follow the same strategy.
He basically said something to the effect of, the future of legal education is private because that's where the money is, and they have the resources to move things forward faster. (Don't quote me on this).
He has clarity about what he wants to achieve.
Listening to him in alumni conversations I was particularly impressed at how he wanted to improve the living infrastructure of students. If he succeeds at making the hostels clean and the food edible, I think he would have done far more than most VCs before him.
I am sure the detractors will have plenty to say, but most of them aren't from law school, so their opinions matter very little to me ;)
The legal philosophy stuff isn’t limited to public law , I know for a fact that Nigam teaches private law and does plenty of legal philosophy.
In any full time programme you shouldn’t have time to do ten other things unless you try really hard. If you don’t work hard- you shouldn’t get good grades. I don’t know what about this seems unfair to you.
City planning is about the law actually, it’s about housing and sanitation and access to water and education and civil rights and a hundred other things that are intimately about the law. There’s plenty of written work backing this up and scholars in india who have done good work on this.
I’m glad folks who think law school is supposed to be an easy time that will allow them to do internships throughout the year and prepare for civil services and judicial services without losing out on getting good grades are getting discouraged. Good thing.
You only talk to people on campus who hate Sudhir. I’m on campus and know plenty of people who like him immensely.
City planning does involve law no doubt. However, the way the course is structured, there is very little focus on the legal aspects. Instead, the focus is on abstract scholarly work which apart from being dull as dishwater is gloriously impractical and useless in real life.
I also want to highlight another thing which I missed in my last post. Sudhir has added two extra core courses (not mandated by UGC) to the LLM course. Both these courses are again philosophy heavy and they take away two slots from the electives. As a result, we only do 4 electives in the entirety of the course. Coupled with the first come first served system, this ensures we study a hotch-potch of subjects with no connecting link. This new system ensures that we do very little actual law in the entirety of the course and we also do not get any specialization (functionally or formally).
I have talked to everyone in my batch and everyone in my hostel. Nobody has a kind word to say about Sudhir. I think this is sufficiently representative of the general NLS population.
A thing is not only about the law if you are name dropping sections and cases. If you’re discussing housing, schooling, sanitation, access to water, access to public transport, - yknow in essence things that make civil rights possible- you’re discussing a legal problem. It’s hard for me to imagine that discussion not being about the law.
You also seem to have a limited idea of what “ applicable in real life” means. thing is - not everyone is going to be a practitioner , people will want to work in research and policy and academia, and second thing is- the idea that you can effectively practice corporate law without understanding the theory behind juristic persons or the corporate veil is just soooo ridiculous.
I know these faculty also- I have sat in their class- I know they don’t run away with philosophy without it tying to a better understanding of the law.
Reading scholarly literature isn’t a bad thing. I know plenty of people who work with advocacy organisations who find solutions or notice problems because they have that rich background in scholarly work.
And another thing is - if you want to just practice- you can do that with an LLB. You’re wasting your own time. An LLM is an advanced degree.
The Indian llm has for years gotten the stepchild treatment where administrators and academics don’t spend enough time developing curricula or enforcing rigour. If Sudhir is doing that- it’s better than most of the other universities out there.
I know and have met very recently a number of llm students at NLS who like the changes. So idk your claim that you’ve spoken to every single one is suspicious. Is it your job to speak to every single one? Do you do this instead of studying? You’re kind of being ridiculous. If you think it’s representative- do an actual survey. Give Sudhir a report card. But I really doubt an actual survey would show people didn’t like him. Most of the people I know at nls seem to like him at least somewhat.
1. Law and Justice (Sudhir Krishnaswamy) : We have read Aristotle, John Rawls, Hume, Bentham, and some introductory philosophy books. We have been forced to read the original writings of these philosophers. Recourse to secondary material has been strongly discouraged even when we literally cannot comprehend the way some (Hume and Aristotle in particular) of these people write. In class, we were initially taught nothing as Sudhir expected us to start the discussion. He only started teaching (and even then only a small portion of the syllabus) when it became apparent that most people could not understand anything. We have NEVER discussed a concrete, real life issue in class not have we ever applied any of the theories we are been taught to any real life issue. In between (not) teaching in class, Sudhir tells us to forget any other aspirations we may have and ominously warns us that we will fail if we do anything other than study for this course (taking part in NLS co-curriculars not included).
2.Research Methods: We spent two weeks discussing scholarly articles on how to define research. Not learning how to do research, mind you, but reading abstract scholarly articles on research. Then we spent one whole class learning about the history and working of libraries. Another class was spent trying to define reading. The teacher spend one hour asking each and every one of us to define reading. We have also had a Sociology professor come to class and discuss her PHD work. In one month of teaching, I have learnt absolutely nothing about how to do legal research.
3. Comparative Public Law: We have been prescribed 62 scholarly articles totalling about 3500 pages. That is our syllabus. The teacher has refused to provide any kind of list of topics or secondary material; she insists that we read and understand all 3500 pages of scholarly work. The articles themselves mostly talk about methods and theories of comparative law. We have done almost no actual comparison between laws of different jurisdictions. In fact, we have discussed very little actual law of any kind. Instead, we spend all our time reading about methods and theories and classifications and what not. Very ironically, one of the prescribed articles threw shade at comparative law as a practical field of study and insisted it should be a purely academic discipline.
The only actual law I am studying is in my elective (and i suspect that is only because we share it with the LLB batch). The purpose of the LLM program in NLS now seems to be geared only and only toward research scholars to the exclusion of all other career paths. I only wish NLS had been clear about this before I sunk 3.3 lakhs into this program.
1) Law and justice sounds like a good rigorous course. In law schools we rarely learn from textbooks. We dont use secondary materials. We arent given notes, its not school- its a university. Even in my first year legal methods class we read legal philosophers in the original. We read dense texts and worked hard. This isn't a legitimate complaint when people in the 5 year degree programme are doing it. Reading is a skill it improves the more you do it. Teaching does not just mean lecturing. Sudhir was teaching you even when he was not lecturing. His chosen pedagogy is appropriate for masters students no matter what they want to do in life. No one is gonna lecture when you start practicing. You are gonna have to read on your own, and you wont even have a professor who will guide your thinking about it, ask you questions,or colleagues who will discuss the text with you. Any text. This is how most students at law school are taught. Hardly anyone lectures.
This may not be what you're used to- but you came to law school knowing it would be difficult and it would be hard work . No one tells you its an easy time. Work harder.
2) Youve told us what happened in three weeks of a research methods course. Any course in an academic setting is gonna start with theoretical stuff. My research methods course at my elite institution also started with theoretical stuff. Them teaching you these basics and going over the different kinds of reading is them trying to get you caught up on what masters students in other universities intuitively know. When a PhD scholar talks about her sociological work- thats real world research- you should be listening instead of closing your ears.
3) Comparative Public Law is an academic course. It is something scholars and law makers engage in. It is completely normal for them to expect you to read 3500 pages over the course of a term. broken down over 90 days that comes up to 38 pages a day. You cant read 38 pages a day? In my masters program it was just expected that you read 8-10 books a week. That is how higher education works.
4) This is not a vocational programme. I dont know where they told you it was. The course information is available online. If you chose to ignore what an LLM is for because you wanted the tag- thats on you.
You're complaining that you haven't read black letter law in courses called law and justice and research methods. For real? That's just you not understanding what the course is. It's hard for me to imagine a comparative law course which doesn't teach law- thats baked right in. So what you're saying is that you're not learning the law you want to learn. Which is sad for you. But universities are not buffets. You dont get to pick and choose what you want. In coming terms you'll have opportunities to take courses on private law and courses on specific areas of law. But every masters programme has some mandatory courses that might not hit the mark for you 10/10 every single time. You do get to do electives that are about your specific interests. But the university has to maintain quality and part of that is having a few mandatory courses. Otherwise we would have people graduating by taking all their course work in corporate law and not knowing how interpretation of statutes works. which for the record would make them fools.
You know all the good judges and lawyers you aspire to be know all this theory stuff too right? Ram Jethmalani, DYC- they all know this stuff like the back of their hand. Thats what makes them so good. Thats what helps them make convincing arguments and tear down arguments of others. this idea that good practitioners of law dont read only do jugaad is so uninformed.
To stretch that and claim that there's been false advertising or that the programme has been basterdised is factually untrue. And I'm really sorry but did they not tell you the LLM was a full time programme? who told you you'd have time to prepare for civil services and still get good grades? You can prep civil services and get bad grades and adults make those trade offs all the time. if you wanted less rigor you should have done distance education. It seems anyway that you have closed your ears and eyes and decided within weeks that the program is of no use to you. In which case I think even NLS is justified in calling this a wasteful exercise. People would give an arm and a leg to study at NLS- and this is what you're making of it. Complaining that the work is too hard and that you're not taught black letter law in law and justice- its like complaining that your english class doesn't have much math in it.
Teachers are there to guide your thinking. Challenge your arguments, improve your analysis. They’re not always there to sooon feed materials and make things interesting for you. Especially at a masters level - you should be adult enough to keep yourself interested. I have also found that a class is only as interesting as you make it. If you refuse to be an active participant and want to sit above everyone else and judge- then that’s the experience you’re gonna have. Teachers are people- they don’t have production values of big media houses.
It’s a master of laws program. We’re unable to see the relevance of sociology. In any event, we have already suffered sociology in our BA LLB. Why inflict it again on us?
This is a good thing for the university. You seem to not want to study anything at all and have demonstrated a remarkable lack of intiative , judgment, and curiosity. I would suggest you reflect on why you want to do this degree in the first place. Youre wasting their time with this attitude.
Education would mean nothing if teachers didn’t challenge students and make them work for their grades. And sometimes that means working at stuff you aren’t personally thrilled about- but that academics agree are required skills/knowledge for someone graduating from that programme. Nls isn’t a degree mill and won’t be turned into one just because students who got in expect it.
Y’all are the ones insisting everything be to your personal taste. I’m just saying- if you aren’t a student that hates sociology- you would have gotten something out of that class. If you’re an educator you can see the value of those course outlines. And if you’re a somewhat mature student who actually wants to learn, you would see the value of that course.
You haven’t given me a pedagogical reason for why these courses aren’t valid except “ I don’t want to do this” and “ the work is too much” and “ I want to practice anyway so why should I study anything”.
And I’ve gone into some depth explaining why those reasons are invalid.
I’m not Sudhir. Thank god I don’t have to take all of this anonymous abuse. The man must really like teaching. But the fact that you are so invested in figuring out who I am only tells me you’re not mature enough to have a proper discussion about what the llm programme is for and what the benefits and problems with this programme are.
I'm sorry my friend, but I'd have to agree with the other Sudhir-chela on this one, the LLM is an advanced degree and if you don't already know how to do legal research, you must seriously re-consider whether an LLM is for you.
Nls has made the courses that students take in llm programme- including courses you don’t personally find interesting or relevant to your career goals , public. It was on you to figure out if the programme was a good fit. You can’t join and expect them to change pedagogy and how the programme is structured cause you don’t like. There definitely are students that do like this. That do find value in the programme as it is being taught.
I think design wise the programme is fine. I think it does things that a masters programme is supposed to do. If y’all don’t want to be on the bus- get off. Stop wasting time. It’s not the university’s fault that you just want the brand. It’s yours that you didn’t enquire about the programme enough or hell look at the nls website to see what courses their masters in law students do.
"I know and have met very recently a number of llm students at NLS who like the changes."-> What do you mean they like the changes?" they don't have nay experience of anything before the changes, they just got here, there's no way they can compare.
"Is it your job to speak to every single one? Do you do this instead of studying?" -> You're being ridiculous mam, seriously. How in the world are you on campus if you don't know that the single biggest way you bond with others on campus is bitching about Sudhir.
Ask yourself if bitching about the VC is a good use of your time given the opportunity you’ve gotten:
None of the people I know who teach theory at NLS do so without grounding the theory in real-world issues and problems. Least of all the private law faculty. No one is discussing things without practical relevance. just because the conversation takes into account different perspectives and scholarly work doesn't mean it's not practically relevant. if you want just to learn how to draft and how to write- there are books you can refer to, and your teachers will lead you to them. But a legal education has to be more than that. If all you're in there for is "practical relevance" just go do an internship again. Lets actually do away with law school and have people intern all year around. Yall can become very competent clerks. It is ridiculous also to expect people who have spent so much of their careers being scholars and academics to teach you " practical" stuff. a different kind of instructor is needed for that- the kind you get during internships. Both have their own value and I am done with people pretending that only the "practical" teacher provides any value.
it is bizarre to me also that you want internship-style teaching when you're at law school. yet the cache of law school over the GLC model is a well-grounded training in legal thinking, theory, and the black letter law. You want the brand but dont want what the brand actually means is all I think, just the trappings and improved job chances. which is not something universities should build their curricula around.
Universities are not supposed to prepare you for " profession". No university will do that. It is near impossible to replicate the workplace at a university. Apart from clinical/ field programmes. What you learn in the field is what you learn in the field. What you learn during an internship you cannot be taught at a university. Maybe vocational degrees might help sometimes but a university education is supposed to give you skills and critical thinking and the ability to work consistently that will make you a good employee, make you a good practicioner, a good judge, a good citizen.
There can be bad students who after a couple of weeks into the programme decide to take a stance where they shut their eyes and ears to learning. It’s not the university failing them If they can’t make connections others can. The students there are failing themselves and their colleagues.
If the law school has indeed signalled that the LLM Coursework should not be treated as a chore that can be successfully done in between preparation for other exams and interviews, the institution should be lauded for that.
Yeah teachers like that. The individual obviously used words one shouldn’t in an academic or professional setting- and maybe he was censured for that. But that doesn’t mean the students get to bully him or demand lower educational standards.