For nearly 18 minutes everyone else goes on about skill building and online education and industry focussed and let's do away with books and ancient India and yoga and god knows what. Sudhir comes in to say " This conversation is confused" " We don't need a shallow version of craft" "Best universities in the world teach foundational first principles".
the man doesnt shy away from just disagreeing with everyone eh?
Right cause having convictions and knowing what you’re talking about is a bad thing. Let’s all just collectively chant whatever mindless mantra is trendy then.
Thanks for sharing. I totally disagree with Sudhir. He is ▮▮▮, ignorant ▮▮▮ ▮▮▮ to say “I don’t care“ about practitioners and law firms. He is not from a practice background and has spent his whole life focused on constitutional theory. He lives in an academic ivory tower. That apart, he must also understand that only a tiny minority of law grads want to go into academia. The majority want to practice and law schools need to train students to be industry-ready. Law schools need to be like B schools. In fact, I even think courses like sociology, history and jurisprudence should be made optional.
Lastly, his insistence that the best universities in the world don’t focus on skill development is disingenuous. Surely he isn’t referring to medicine, architecture, accountancy, engineering and computer science? If he means law, there is a lot of emphasis on clinical education in US law schools. If he is referring to the 3 year LLB in the UK, he is right to an extent, but then you need to undergo further training as a barrister or a solicitor for 2 more years. The vast majority of British university graduates opt for this. Thus, the study of law in the UK is essentially 3 years of theory + 2 years of vocational training.
And yet. The nlu model which focuses on teaching first principles and yknow - the law- including yes sociology and history and economics. Has worked. NLS grads have all done well for themselves and found good employment ? Surely if it was such a terrible useless education they would be failing in the workplace ?
He says he doesn’t care about specific industry trends - and that’s honestly a good thing. Chasing excellence is better than chasing trends.
He’s tried very hard to improve clinical education at nls - it’s been better than ever before and certainly better than any other NLU. He’s not opposed to including that stuff - but clearly he thinks teaching craft without teaching the law is gonna make only for very good clerks.
And we should take what he has to say about the best universities seriously considering he’s taught at them/ studied at them, instead of the rantings of undergrads on an anon message board.
lol. Ok dude. Go to Harvard and ask for a BA degree without studying sociology and history. And ask for a law degree without studying jurisprudence. Go on then.
Dude what you’re asking for is the equivalent of an engineer Not learning physics or a doctor not learning biology. You can’t build on nothing. If you want a BA degree you’re gonna have to learn the BA subjects. You could just do a Bba and then an llb if you hate it so much.
This is so true. This is why private skill development courses are thriving while colleges charge so much but fail to produce employable graduates
Can Sudhir take the bottom of the clat ranks and give this foundational training and make people employable? The answer is no. Easy to lecture when you get concentrated talent who will succeed one way or other anyway - irrespective of the education they get
It did. Gave several really good people a second start. Helped them get into phd programmes/ start research centre’s. The graduates are mostly doing really well. Just because you don’t know something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Someone tell Sudhir to watch Oppenheimer. The movie shows how Oppenheimer, initially focused on theory, did not think fission was possible, but he was later proved wrong when his colleagues informed him that scientists in Germany had done so. Similarly, Sudhir should know that only studying Dworkin or Granville Austin will not make you a lawyer —- far from it. You need to know how to draft a constitutional petition, which court to approach, court rules, how to file, how to argue, etc.
One of the things that annoyed me about the interview is how he says that “we” at NLSIU been teaching like this for 30 years. The dude just joined a few years ago! He should credit Madhava Menon (who he didn’t even mention once), NL Mitra and various professors (ironically, mostly TLC products who never went abroad).
Sudhir does make some valid points, though he could have delivered them more cogently and without his trademark sting! He also did not completely state the argument, and left it to be inferred.
If you remove "Sudhir" from the points made by him, it is apparent that the approach he stated: Inculcating first principles, clinical teaching method, etc., is exactly the USP of NLS from its inception. Someone in this thread rightly pointed that this was not his creation or idea, and that it belonged to Prof Menon. But Prof Menon always stated that it was prevalent abroad and in different disciplines in India (not in law faculties at that time) and that he only borrowed it.
What Sudhir did not call out was that: once the first principles were transmitted in the 1-3 years, the students were allowed to specialize in the 4-5 years. This was the USP of NLS, as this allowed students via the Seminars and Clinical Courses (juxta posed with the internship/placements undertaken in the 3 to 5 years) to actually learn the physical/ground level workings of law. So, the point a lot of folks are making in this thread is addressed.
Guess this is the model across NLU's in India today. While I don't know the exact workings of the course now a days, every college allows students to specialise and intern during their course. So unless the freshly minted International Review Committee, comes up with some novel and path breaking methods, this is the template for the next few years.
P.S. Some things don't change- Sudhir's abhorrence for law firms or corporate jobs is just a legacy issue. It is a fact on record that, Prof Menon was dead against Law Firms or Corporate placements for the students... he sabotaged the 1994 & 1995 batches placements sessions... so much so that he did not permit the 1996 batch to even conduct any placement sessions and they had to rent space at I.I.Sc for conducting their campus placements (hired from 1996 students contributions).
I like your expression "trademark sting". That is the root of the problem. Sudhir has a way of speaking that is unnecessarily cynical and curt. It comes across as very arrogant and alienates people.
It's also a valid point that he is where he is only because MP Singh fast-tracked his career at NUJS and saved him 7 to 10 years of being in a junior rank. Sudhir pretends that he never taught there.
A true NLSIU grad indeed because the minute one of y'all start talking the rest of us leave the room and you continue sermonising unbothered for an hour
Placements this year have not been very good. Sudhir needs to quizzed on his stand. He was arrogantly mocking the heads of colleges like IIT Delhi (Rangan Banerjee) for emphasising practical education in the classroom, saying NLSIU does not believe in a "shallow version of craft". No doubt NLSIU is very reputed, but so is IITD. Is it blasphemy to suggest that NLSIU can learn from IITD? And what makes Sudhir so superior to Rangan Banerjee, whose bio looks very impressive (BTech from IITB, former faculty at Carnegie Mellon)?
Also, US law schools have large clinical faculties and students are graded on practical projects, so what Sudhir said about top colleges emphasising theoretical principles only is patently false.
Happy to know what NLSIU students think about this. Do you want theoretical education only?
Sudhir is a Rhodes scholar and was a research fellow at Columbia. This IITD director guy did his BTech, MTech and PhD all from IIT Bombay. So Sudhir has more global exposure and can speak about practices worldwide. Sudhir is also an Infosys Prize winner. So he's much more knowledgeable.
"This Director guy" has actually taught at foreign universities, unlike Sudhir. Moreover, his list of top notch peer reviewed publications dwarf a large number of NLSIU faculty combined, including Sudhir. So keep your ridiculous claims to yourself. As for Infosys prize, lol! Since when is that an indicator of merit?
Rolls ? He’s not a student.he taught there. He was not a research fellow at Columbia he was ne Ambedkar chair professor, he taught with the Watson institute of public policy at brown and he taught at Pembroke college following his dphil. Your ignorance is kinda your problem.
This is so silly! Sudhir isn’t saying we should only teach theory idiot. He’s saying we should teach first principles before we teach other stuff. If you only chase trends you might as well be doing a certificate course. Clinical courses have improved since Sudhir came to nls. The legal aid cell does real work, there are more research centres on campus and more opportunities for students to get involved in real work, and there are better people applying to teach electives.
Understand that building a good clinical programme doesn’t happen over night. You need to consider the needs and wants of the community you’re trying to serve and build confidence with them which is hard to do when law students come and go and don’t really stick around for the long haul, you need to find someone to head the programme who is already quite established and trustworthy with the target population and that person needs to stick around a long while and be able to successfully guide students through a clinical course.
These things take time. There are more interests involved than just your CV.
And students in universities abroad do plenty of learning first principles and legal theory. No one jumps into practice without knowing the law. What would you even do ? Move paper around ?
But where did the IITD director say that people should learn practice before theory? He said that practical learning should be inculcated in existing classroom teaching. He said that IITD was also inviting alumni from industry. Sudhir then arrogantly dismissed what he said and said shallow version of craft etc. Sudhir has zero clue of engineering and what is taught at IITD. Why did he have to clap back like that?
So far, all the achievement of all NLSIU grads is pre-Sudhir. Nor has he himself done anything beyond theory. So his supercilious attitude doesn't have a leg to stand on.
That’s not true. It’s too early to judge the impact of Sudhir’s administration on graduate outcomes - but it’s just not true that Sudhir is just a theory person. This person founded clpr, he’s worked on several government projects he was on the Kasturirangan committee, he’s worked on urban planning in Bangalore even, and he’s on facebooks oversight board. He may not litigate - but his work as a public policy practitioner is considerable. He doesn’t fit neatly into a box of this or that - academic or practitioner- he’s done multiple things over his career.
Facebook's oversight board is a sham, as people in the tech domain know very well. Public policy practitioner is a smokescreen for many people. Name a single policy that his work has influenced and he's been credited for that.
Do anything you don’t like is a sham ? People who are jealous of the man are now to be believed about a job that tens of very accomplished people across the world including former prime ministers and Nobel winners all have is just - a sham ? Because you said so ?
Let’s see: On the one hand we have an Infosys Prize winner and Rhodes Scholar who has taught at the best universities abroad and is a noted public intellectual. On the other hand we have an IIT Delhi Director who did his BTech and PhD both in IIT Bombay (why not abroad?) and is merely an “honorary” (means unpaid) adjunct prof at Carnegie Mellon. The IIT guy’s bio is decent but obviously Sudhir’s bio is more impressive and his word carries more weight.
A. Infosys prize is not a validation of someone's academic prowess. Sudhir having taught at best universities abroad is also a claim best taken with a pinch of salt, since none of those universities ever acknowledged his name in their faculty list. The IIT guy's name is actually there in the place where he has taught. His publications dwarf Sudhir's by a huge margin. "Noted public intellectual" is very much an overreach, nor is Sudhir's bio impressive for an academic, with very few credible peer-reviewed publications featuring in it. He's taught at any Indian public university of repute for not more than 3-4 years in all.
Dude, what pinch of salt ? What is your obsession with this ? Universities remove your profile from their website if you don’t teach there currently. It’s so prospective students know who is around to teach them and who isn’t.
Everyone here wasn’t born yesterday. Some of us were in academia when Sudhir was teaching at Oxford and Columbia and Brown. You’re welcome to google the same and you’ll probably see some evidence of that as well. This is straight up lying and defaming someone cause you have an axe to grind. Well - we can safely surmise you’ve not done a remarkable thing in your life except drag someone else down at this point.
Sudhir has written everything that has his name on it. I don’t know if that’s the case for other academics. And quality really does matter more than quantity- the stuff Sudhir writes gets read and cited by a lot of people. You don’t think he’s impressive because you clearly have a bias. You compare what he’s writing to the redundant nonsense that most Indian academics produce - you see that he really is one of the smartest people around in Indian academia. Tell me a book or an article which you think was poorly done and give reasons for it.
Why is the Infosys prize not validation ? Because you don’t like him ? Is that it?
And Academics move around - he’s taught at plenty of good places in his career. Get a life.
You fanboys are the one who are claiming Sudhir is better than someone about whom you know nothing and are not qualified to judge their academic reputation or credibility. That makes you blind, not others. The Infosys prize is not a validation of his academic scholarship because once again, it's not been subjected to choice by experts in the field and like most Indian prizes, is the result of lobbying and mutual back scratching. You want to call it an example of his networking skill, please go ahead.
He's never taught at NLS as a permanent faculty. Nor at any of the other NLUs apart from NUJS, where he taught for less than 4 years. So within India, not really that much. Outside India, I don't know for sure and hence won't comment. Probably as visiting faculty to places mentioned in other comments. Not really enough teaching experience for someone at his level. Taught at Azim Premji for quite a few years, but that's not really a very reputed place for law.
You guys are so blind in your Sudhir hatred it’s really quite disgusting. At least he’s done something with his life and made an impact. Go outside and touch some grass dude.
Made what impact exactly? As for hatred, you are the ones who are hating other people who have a better academic record in their discipline compared to what Sudhir has in law.
When I said pre-Sudhir, I meant before Sudhir could implement his policies there, not before he was a student. At least try to make sense of things that you read.
Gopal and Bingy (Raghubir) are fabulous, but to call them NLS's top litigators and M&A lawyers respectively destroys any other point you make. No one will take you seriously if you make stupid statements like that.
Has anyone watched this?
For nearly 18 minutes everyone else goes on about skill building and online education and industry focussed and let's do away with books and ancient India and yoga and god knows what. Sudhir comes in to say " This conversation is confused" " We don't need a shallow version of craft" "Best universities in the world teach foundational first principles".
the man doesnt shy away from just disagreeing with everyone eh?
time hasnt mellowed him down - still my way or highway
Lastly, his insistence that the best universities in the world don’t focus on skill development is disingenuous. Surely he isn’t referring to medicine, architecture, accountancy, engineering and computer science? If he means law, there is a lot of emphasis on clinical education in US law schools. If he is referring to the 3 year LLB in the UK, he is right to an extent, but then you need to undergo further training as a barrister or a solicitor for 2 more years. The vast majority of British university graduates opt for this. Thus, the study of law in the UK is essentially 3 years of theory + 2 years of vocational training.
Sorry, Sudhir: A BIG FAIL.
👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎
He says he doesn’t care about specific industry trends - and that’s honestly a good thing. Chasing excellence is better than chasing trends.
He’s tried very hard to improve clinical education at nls - it’s been better than ever before and certainly better than any other NLU. He’s not opposed to including that stuff - but clearly he thinks teaching craft without teaching the law is gonna make only for very good clerks.
And we should take what he has to say about the best universities seriously considering he’s taught at them/ studied at them, instead of the rantings of undergrads on an anon message board.
Can Sudhir take the bottom of the clat ranks and give this foundational training and make people employable? The answer is no. Easy to lecture when you get concentrated talent who will succeed one way or other anyway - irrespective of the education they get
If you remove "Sudhir" from the points made by him, it is apparent that the approach he stated: Inculcating first principles, clinical teaching method, etc., is exactly the USP of NLS from its inception. Someone in this thread rightly pointed that this was not his creation or idea, and that it belonged to Prof Menon. But Prof Menon always stated that it was prevalent abroad and in different disciplines in India (not in law faculties at that time) and that he only borrowed it.
What Sudhir did not call out was that: once the first principles were transmitted in the 1-3 years, the students were allowed to specialize in the 4-5 years. This was the USP of NLS, as this allowed students via the Seminars and Clinical Courses (juxta posed with the internship/placements undertaken in the 3 to 5 years) to actually learn the physical/ground level workings of law. So, the point a lot of folks are making in this thread is addressed.
Guess this is the model across NLU's in India today. While I don't know the exact workings of the course now a days, every college allows students to specialise and intern during their course. So unless the freshly minted International Review Committee, comes up with some novel and path breaking methods, this is the template for the next few years.
P.S. Some things don't change- Sudhir's abhorrence for law firms or corporate jobs is just a legacy issue. It is a fact on record that, Prof Menon was dead against Law Firms or Corporate placements for the students... he sabotaged the 1994 & 1995 batches placements sessions... so much so that he did not permit the 1996 batch to even conduct any placement sessions and they had to rent space at I.I.Sc for conducting their campus placements (hired from 1996 students contributions).
It's also a valid point that he is where he is only because MP Singh fast-tracked his career at NUJS and saved him 7 to 10 years of being in a junior rank. Sudhir pretends that he never taught there.
Also, US law schools have large clinical faculties and students are graded on practical projects, so what Sudhir said about top colleges emphasising theoretical principles only is patently false.
Happy to know what NLSIU students think about this. Do you want theoretical education only?
IITD director: "My students worked on a sensor for a class project and received an award in France for innovation."
NIFT director: "My students designed materials for the G20 Summit"
Sudhir: "Shallow version of craft".
🙄🙄🙄🙄
Understand that building a good clinical programme doesn’t happen over night. You need to consider the needs and wants of the community you’re trying to serve and build confidence with them which is hard to do when law students come and go and don’t really stick around for the long haul, you need to find someone to head the programme who is already quite established and trustworthy with the target population and that person needs to stick around a long while and be able to successfully guide students through a clinical course.
These things take time. There are more interests involved than just your CV.
And students in universities abroad do plenty of learning first principles and legal theory. No one jumps into practice without knowing the law. What would you even do ? Move paper around ?
Everyone here wasn’t born yesterday. Some of us were in academia when Sudhir was teaching at Oxford and Columbia and Brown. You’re welcome to google the same and you’ll probably see some evidence of that as well. This is straight up lying and defaming someone cause you have an axe to grind. Well - we can safely surmise you’ve not done a remarkable thing in your life except drag someone else down at this point.
Sudhir has written everything that has his name on it. I don’t know if that’s the case for other academics. And quality really does matter more than quantity- the stuff Sudhir writes gets read and cited by a lot of people. You don’t think he’s impressive because you clearly have a bias. You compare what he’s writing to the redundant nonsense that most Indian academics produce - you see that he really is one of the smartest people around in Indian academia. Tell me a book or an article which you think was poorly done and give reasons for it.
Why is the Infosys prize not validation ? Because you don’t like him ? Is that it?
And Academics move around - he’s taught at plenty of good places in his career. Get a life.
NLSs top transactional lawyer (per deal average) is Raghubir Menon who is 3 years junior to Sudhir.
The top academics from NLS like Tarunabh Khaitan, Shyam Balganesh, Rohit De, Dev Gangjee and even Shamnad Basheer are junior to Sudhir.
You are either an idiot or a straight up liar and no one should take you seriously. Get a life.