I have recently been talking to someone who is a JGLS faculty involved with their recruitment process. I have always admired the speed and proactive manner in which they recruit young academics and marquee names alike, something which very few public universities including NLUs have managed to do. However, there is something that has also bothered me about the process. There are several people who get in, but have little to show for in their CV other than a foreign masters degree. They really do not have any good publication, or research experience, or even that good or consistent grades. I do not wish to speculate about how they got in, but having first-hand knowledge of the ability or lack thereof of some of those people, I have always wondered how they could have been recruited. On the other hand, there are at least 5-6 bright, young people whom I know to have an excellent CV in terms of research fellowships, top-level publications, and a generally good reputation in their existing workplaces, who have during the last two years applied to JGLS, but did not get shortlisted even for the interview process. The only thing that had been lacking in their CV was a foreign degree, although they had degrees from highly reputed NLUs, foreign fellowships, membership in good think tanks and demonstrable research skills. This is why them not even being shortlisted for an interview seemed bizarre to me, especially since JGLS almost obsesses about SCOPUS indexed publications, and all these people even had such publications in their short academic careers.
This made me ask the JGLS person as to what is making these people miss out on this opportunity, when the former group of people were making it. I asked him straight out whether a foreign LLM degree (not always very difficult to obtain or an isolated marker of quality these days) was the only criterion for entry, regardless of any other factor. That appeared to be prima facie the only explanation. While he was understandably reserved about the details, he also hinted at contacts playing a considerable role. This was rather sad, since I thought that the students who pay such a huge sum of money for their legal education would prefer to have good people teach them and even the university would prefer such people to contribute to their academic excellence, reputation and culture. All of that cannot be simply produced by a 10-month long teaching programme abroad (and not even at the top universities, any foreign university will do). I do not have anything against foreign degrees, there are plenty of good people having those and they have been benefited by the experience too. However, using only that as a criterion for recruiting future teachers and academics at the obvious cost of actual factors like teaching ability, research skills and publications, seemed rather weird to me. I am not sure whether the students and parents are aware of this matter. If they do and still do not even bring the matter up with the administration, then that itself is a matter for concern for long term institutional interest.
p.s. Just as a disclaimer for the trolls, I do not have any bias against or in favour of JGLS. I consider it as an expensive but decent place to study law in India at present, with multiple practices that NLUs and other private universities can learn from and several practices that the latter should shy away from too. It is here to stay though, so it should be subject to objective and constructive discussion just like an NLU.
It's a place for the rich! If you could afford a master's from a foreign that means you are rich and will be able to fit in that culture and vibes. That's the only criterion.
Maybe you are right - the trend appears to be 'have a foreign degree and we will take you'. However, there seem to be some exceptions as well, somehow. I know someone who does not have a foreign LLM, and even their LLB is from a not-so-known college. They had some teaching experience though (at a very crappy college however).
90% faculty here did their LLM abroad because their parents funded it. Out of these 90% approx 80% did their LLM from easy to get in foreign LLM school. Out of the total number only 30% crowd did their BALLB from NLSIU, NALSAR or NUJS. This place is a full of politics you cant imagine.
Here's the deal. In the early days, JGLS hired faculty from the top 7 NLUs only. They then increased their batch sizes and so they just hired anyone. As one of the commenters has pointed out, the faculty from the top NLUs is very low now and many of them are actually on leave.
This made me ask the JGLS person as to what is making these people miss out on this opportunity, when the former group of people were making it. I asked him straight out whether a foreign LLM degree (not always very difficult to obtain or an isolated marker of quality these days) was the only criterion for entry, regardless of any other factor. That appeared to be prima facie the only explanation. While he was understandably reserved about the details, he also hinted at contacts playing a considerable role. This was rather sad, since I thought that the students who pay such a huge sum of money for their legal education would prefer to have good people teach them and even the university would prefer such people to contribute to their academic excellence, reputation and culture. All of that cannot be simply produced by a 10-month long teaching programme abroad (and not even at the top universities, any foreign university will do). I do not have anything against foreign degrees, there are plenty of good people having those and they have been benefited by the experience too. However, using only that as a criterion for recruiting future teachers and academics at the obvious cost of actual factors like teaching ability, research skills and publications, seemed rather weird to me. I am not sure whether the students and parents are aware of this matter. If they do and still do not even bring the matter up with the administration, then that itself is a matter for concern for long term institutional interest.
p.s. Just as a disclaimer for the trolls, I do not have any bias against or in favour of JGLS. I consider it as an expensive but decent place to study law in India at present, with multiple practices that NLUs and other private universities can learn from and several practices that the latter should shy away from too. It is here to stay though, so it should be subject to objective and constructive discussion just like an NLU.