Just thought I’d create this thread for people looking for reviews/observations of LLM courses offered by various Indian colleges. So do provide your reviews if you’ve pursued an LLM in India, or do ask people who have done so to provide their reviews. (Preferably, those who’ve pursued an offline course in the last 5 years or so, to maintain relevance.) In the interests of avoiding controversy, please do note that this is a review of the LLM program and not a review of the BA.LLB program.
NLUJ LLM (Corporate Law)
I’ll provide my experience at NLUJ, where I pursued an LLM in Corporate Law. It’s not a definitive review per se, just some of my observations. This review might be outdated a little due to the appointment of Harpreet Kaur as the new VC and the changes she might have brought in, but I don’t expect any significant changes.
Academics:
You are taught a cumulative of 9 subjects ( + the dissertation). The subjects are Tax, Comparative Public Law, Research Methodology, Corporate Governance, Investment Law, Project Finance, Corporate Restructuring, Competition Law & Law & Justice. I was taught by a total of 8 faculty members. (Not 9, because one of the faculty taught two subjects).
The teaching isn’t great and you’re not coming out of the class inspired. If you’re joining looking for that more in-depth analysis/discussion of topics, then you will be disappointed. There is some blame on my batch as well, as most of us did not have a proper grasp of the basics and were not exactly the smartest bunch. But I don’t believe the quality of teaching will vary much across batches. While engaged in a candid conversation with a faculty that teaches UG students, he himself noted that the university did not take the LLM course seriously.
I had two more specific issues with the faculty, which might not be an issue for everyone. First, out of the 8 faculty, 6 of them did their LLM at NLUJ. (Some did go and engage as lecturers in other colleges or jobs before joining NLUJ) The issue is that I know the standard of the course that you pursued and also, more importantly, I believe that this negatively affects the diversity of the material taught and the teaching methodology.
The second issue was in relation to teaching posts being on a contract basis and not permanent basis. (Which I believe they have started to remedy, due to the adverse judgements) But the underlying impact has been that, at least in the case of the faculty that taught the LLM batch, they were young both in terms of age and experience, primarily due to faculty leaving to places offering them permanent tenure. While I was there, an experienced faculty left for a newer NLU that offered her a permanent post. But I guess the faculty should start improving gradually, once they change the process. But again, I don't expect any immediate changes.
If you do end up here, two faculty to look out for are Dr. Manoj Kumar Singh, who will teach you tax (he loves DTAAs) and Dr. Anand Kumar Singh, who will teach you corporate restructuring.
Academically, there’s not a lot of stress, the faculty does not fail you unless you leave a blank sheet. You get Wednesdays and Saturdays off. So if you're someone looking to prepare for some competitive exam, judiciary etc, you could do so. You should be able to get through the course with minimal effort.
You get your usual online resources and the library is decent enough. Attendance wise, the faculty is lenient, if you’re in their good books. There are three Internal Assessments(best of two), the project+viva and the external. For the dissertation you have the usual deadlines, the presentation + the viva etc. (Personally, faculty allotment as guides looked random. Six of us from the corporate side were allotted a UG faculty who taught consti and labour laws.)
Misc:
Placements: None whatsoever. You could start a student run one in theory, but not sure if it works practically, in a one year course. By the time you get to know everyone and what their goals are it might be too late.
Hostels: The infrastructure is a bit on the older side. You are allotted single bed rooms. Hygiene wise, it’s definitely not great. They have a LAN network in the hostel and not wifi, though most people seem to have gotten private wifi connections. You have washing machines on all floors, a barber and ironing service on campus.
Mess: Does not have a mess in a strict sense. It's more like restaurants/vendors, three of them, to be precise. You buy what you want from there. Cumulatively, it is more expensive than what you would have had to spend as mess fees. Other than that, there are two smaller shops that sell fast food and whatnot, open till late in the night, to satisfy your late night cravings.
Also, if you love to play sports and you’re good at it, they’ll be happy to have you in the university teams.
State NLUs are solely UG-focused, and they make no qualms about it. LLMs are not taken seriously anyway so a review is not of much help when the universities themselves look down upon LLM programs. Reviews are useful only when there is a concerted effort to improve. Here there's none. State NLUs have displayed a remarkable poverty of aspiration (borrowed the term from Sanjeev Sanyal). They are happy and contented running UG programs.
For all the hype you see here about the so-called Tier 1 NLUs, there's not a single NLU that has a stated goal of having the best LLM program in India/Asia. This could easily become a niche USP for an NLU - but there's no aspiration.
It is sad how colleges focussing on LLMs either close their shop or lose focus. Cochin University has an Inter University Centre for IPR Studies, funded by MHRD. The course was well designed, and students were supposed to make monthly presentations even in their second year of LLM-PhD. it lost its focus completely after the founders retired and now, it has even lost its UGC funding.
Azim Premji University also had a well designed LLM program. Unfortunately, they have stopped it now that most of the faculties have been poached by "you know who".
NLUJ LLM (Corporate Law)
I’ll provide my experience at NLUJ, where I pursued an LLM in Corporate Law. It’s not a definitive review per se, just some of my observations. This review might be outdated a little due to the appointment of Harpreet Kaur as the new VC and the changes she might have brought in, but I don’t expect any significant changes.
Academics:
You are taught a cumulative of 9 subjects ( + the dissertation). The subjects are Tax, Comparative Public Law, Research Methodology, Corporate Governance, Investment Law, Project Finance, Corporate Restructuring, Competition Law & Law & Justice. I was taught by a total of 8 faculty members. (Not 9, because one of the faculty taught two subjects).
The teaching isn’t great and you’re not coming out of the class inspired. If you’re joining looking for that more in-depth analysis/discussion of topics, then you will be disappointed. There is some blame on my batch as well, as most of us did not have a proper grasp of the basics and were not exactly the smartest bunch. But I don’t believe the quality of teaching will vary much across batches. While engaged in a candid conversation with a faculty that teaches UG students, he himself noted that the university did not take the LLM course seriously.
I had two more specific issues with the faculty, which might not be an issue for everyone. First, out of the 8 faculty, 6 of them did their LLM at NLUJ. (Some did go and engage as lecturers in other colleges or jobs before joining NLUJ) The issue is that I know the standard of the course that you pursued and also, more importantly, I believe that this negatively affects the diversity of the material taught and the teaching methodology.
The second issue was in relation to teaching posts being on a contract basis and not permanent basis. (Which I believe they have started to remedy, due to the adverse judgements) But the underlying impact has been that, at least in the case of the faculty that taught the LLM batch, they were young both in terms of age and experience, primarily due to faculty leaving to places offering them permanent tenure. While I was there, an experienced faculty left for a newer NLU that offered her a permanent post. But I guess the faculty should start improving gradually, once they change the process. But again, I don't expect any immediate changes.
If you do end up here, two faculty to look out for are Dr. Manoj Kumar Singh, who will teach you tax (he loves DTAAs) and Dr. Anand Kumar Singh, who will teach you corporate restructuring.
Academically, there’s not a lot of stress, the faculty does not fail you unless you leave a blank sheet. You get Wednesdays and Saturdays off. So if you're someone looking to prepare for some competitive exam, judiciary etc, you could do so. You should be able to get through the course with minimal effort.
You get your usual online resources and the library is decent enough. Attendance wise, the faculty is lenient, if you’re in their good books. There are three Internal Assessments(best of two), the project+viva and the external. For the dissertation you have the usual deadlines, the presentation + the viva etc. (Personally, faculty allotment as guides looked random. Six of us from the corporate side were allotted a UG faculty who taught consti and labour laws.)
Misc:
Placements: None whatsoever. You could start a student run one in theory, but not sure if it works practically, in a one year course. By the time you get to know everyone and what their goals are it might be too late.
Hostels: The infrastructure is a bit on the older side. You are allotted single bed rooms. Hygiene wise, it’s definitely not great. They have a LAN network in the hostel and not wifi, though most people seem to have gotten private wifi connections. You have washing machines on all floors, a barber and ironing service on campus.
Mess: Does not have a mess in a strict sense. It's more like restaurants/vendors, three of them, to be precise. You buy what you want from there. Cumulatively, it is more expensive than what you would have had to spend as mess fees. Other than that, there are two smaller shops that sell fast food and whatnot, open till late in the night, to satisfy your late night cravings.
Also, if you love to play sports and you’re good at it, they’ll be happy to have you in the university teams.
For all the hype you see here about the so-called Tier 1 NLUs, there's not a single NLU that has a stated goal of having the best LLM program in India/Asia. This could easily become a niche USP for an NLU - but there's no aspiration.
Azim Premji University also had a well designed LLM program. Unfortunately, they have stopped it now that most of the faculties have been poached by "you know who".