Here's the deal, folks -- JGLS offers joint BALLB-JD degrees with US universities like Cornell and Indiana. Although these JD degrees are coveted, they are super-expensive. On the other hand, a joint BALLB-UK LLB degree will cost 20-25 lakhs less and also improve the chances of JGLS students getting TCs. And if they don't get a TC, then can go on to prepare to be a barrister or solicitor in the UK. And those who wish to do the JD can still do the BALLB JD instead of the BALLB-JD.

Fantastic decision, because the real intent is to cash in on the entry of UK law firms.

As far as the quality of the exam goes, LSAT India was a different exam than the LSAT US and had an image of being easy. It just had objective questions. On the other hand, the LNAT UK exam is that same for its Indian test centres and is a much tougher and better exam than LSAT India (and a million times better than the CLAT).

If you knew anything about LNAT, you'd know there's only one essay question that has to be answered, they have (if I remember rightly) a multiple choice section marked out of 42 which are completely objective. So please either educate yourself, or take your sour grapes elsewhere.

Every college will award marks as they please. Only MCQ is fair. I want to know if admission is on first cum basis starting from 21 Oct when lnat first declassifies the result and also provide assets to respective colleges like to Oxford jgls and other law colleges in uk after all student gives LNAT then only call letter will be issued

Mate, you're smart, but you make one key mistake here: do you think we/our parents are that stupid, relying blindly on QS rankings? For your information, some of our parents have regular dealings with NLU graduates from the top places - NLS, NALSAR etc. We/they, therefore, know that all the hype not withstanding, there is a significant difference between NLU vs. Jindal quality, a difference not in favour of Jindal. Our hated nepo status, remember? We have quality information and the ability to make use of it (or at least I hope most of us have the latter).

Therefore, if I'd got the chance to make that choice about my legal education again, I'd have thought about it the same way: top-ranked option - UK law schools; option no. 2 - one of the significant NLUs; option after that - universities in the U.S./Canada for a non-law degree. Reassuringly, no Jindal in the mix. Hope this clarifies things.

-Anonymous student of a UK law school that is not Oxford or Cambridge.

LOL… not only are y’all haters but also noobs. Jindal has taken this decision on the assumption that UK law firms will enter India properly in 4-5 years time, once all regulatory issues are sorted out. When they start looking for freshers, they will gravitate towards students who have good UK LNAT scores and have studied in the UK on exchange or as part of double degrees.

Downvote all you want, but this is the truth. Recruitment at Magic Circle firms will not be like jugaadu recruitment of Lala firms. They will value parameters other than having a high GPA at a tier 1 NLU.

Double degrees? Since when has Jindal been offering those? As for exchange programmes, not really. No magic circle firm cares much about those and recognises those for the money spinners or PR that they represent. Which of the foreign firm parameters can be filled by Jindal students but not by NLU students?

Nobody (except perhaps Jindal administration and some of their student trolls) is or should be making this a dick measuring contest about NLU vs. Jindal students. We all know that the criteria can be satisfied by those who are clever enough, knowledgeable enough, clinical enough, enterprising enough and hard-working enough to do what is needed to satisfy them. However, you know as well as I do that in the success stories of the NLU students who do make the cut, there is still an element of 'being successful despite the odds'. This is clearly substantiated by the low numbers of NLU students making it (vs. the number that should be making it). And many of those odds relate to institutional factors. Yes, I am bold enough to say that many of those factors exist even at top NLUs like NLS and NUJS/NALSAR/NLUD/GNLU/NLUJ, and I say this knowing exactly how much trolling I will get in return from those who just can't put their egos to one side (instead of resorting to ad-hominem, show me the statistics of four or five TC offers from A&O Shearman (previously A&O), Clifford Chance, Freshfields, HSF and Links each year (meaning show me a verifiable statistic that indicates four or five students from top NLUs like NLS and NALSAR per year is getting TCs from each of these firms, not one offer per firm)).

What Jindal is doing (and this is a game in which it has an unfair legup) is trying to eliminate as many of those odds as possible. One of those odds is that hard-to-track 'perception score' which, the foreign firms' diversity-related protestation chants not withstanding, is still a factor. Those firms don't know what CLAT is (and I doubt that they want to know, or that it is worth them getting to know, considering how flawed an exam it is). They, however, do know what an LNAT is. By introducing the LNAT, Jindal is just going up on that score. Does that mean it is some sort of magical key that will mean loads of Jindal students will suddenly get favourable treatment over NLU students? No! But the LNAT introduction is something many (especially the more traditionally-minded) selectors recruiters in foreign law firms will have, if not in the front of their minds, at least somewhere in their minds when looking at applications from Indian law students.

Also, you know as well as I do that both Jindal and the NLUs have a disadvantage compared to the UK unis that we just can't help or get rid of - they teach Indian law, while the UK unis... well, teach the law of England and Wales, meaning the law firms' need to put their hands into this talent pool, however good the talent pool itself may be, varies from time-to-time; if Jindal's introduction of LNAT does lead to some sort of tie-up with UK unis for dual-degree LLBs, that will just be another good insurance measure on their part against that market fluctuation, an insurance measure that involves Jindal hanging onto the coattails of the more established (and frankly more likely higher-quality) UK uni they get that tie-up with. All this shows is that the Jindal admin is good at 'playing the game'; it shows nothing about their students. Therefore, let us please cut through the crap and not get bogged-down in it. Please.

Why should Jindal join such a flawed exam? Sure its batch sizes are crazy, but tell me why it should join an exam of which this country's major legal scholars including Shamnad and Sudhir have been critical? I think this argument really demonstrates your personal insecurities very well indeed.

It doesnt actually matter what the test is until you tell people what the cut off is. All these years of LSAT India and Jindal never gives anyone a direct answer on what the cut off for their admissions is. Because there isnt a cut off. There isnt a score so low that a wealthy kid would be denied admission. So honestly how does changing the exam make a difference?

As someone said above, LSAT India had an "image of being easy". LNAT is a test with lots more takers and much harder to get good marks in - get anyone who thinks they're so smart to give it a try and see if they can get a high score, and the trolling, instead of spouting from their mouths, will spout the wrong way (through their backsides, which they'd never have anticipated), along with a pound of their buts' flesh. So at the end of the day, because of their own previous problems and baggage, while significant, Jindal doing it is not that important and this post is written to overemphasize its importance; the real moment of monumental change is when Sudhir can experience the growth of sufficient balls within his pants (I am hopeful on this front, considering his (ultimately failed) NLAT experiment) to say that he's had enough of CLAT and all its baggage, and will go with the LNAT instead.

Official press release below. I find the twice yearly model interesting. The winter option could be for droppers who couldn't clear CLAT, for students at bottom-tier colleges looking for a way out, for class 12 students who want to book Jindal as a safe option before appearing for CLAT, and for NRIs abroad who may have different calendars. Not a bad move.

This strategic shift aligns JGLS with global best practices in legal education and ensures that candidates possess the analytical capabilities necessary for success in the rigorous study of law. The LNAT-UK, an internationally recognized test, is widely used by leading law schools in the United Kingdom and is renowned for its ability to assess candidates’ aptitude for legal reasoning rather than their knowledge of specific legal subjects.

The LNAT-UK consists of a multiple-choice section and an essay component, both designed to assess candidates’ critical thinking, comprehension, and reasoning abilities. Detailed information about the test format and preparation resources can be found on the official LNAT website....

Admission to JGLS will be done in two phases. The first phase of early admission process will commence on 1st September 2024 where students will register and take LNAT-UK Test during 1st September to 31st December 2024. Admission to these candidates will be offered in January 2025. The second phase of registration and taking the test will be 1st January to 31st May 2025 and students will be admitted in June for the remaining seats.

https://www.barandbench.com/apprentice-lawyer/jindal-global-law-school-adopts-lnat-uk-as-mandatory-entrance-test

https://theprint.in/ani-press-releases/lnat-uk-becomes-the-new-mandatory-admission-test-as-jindal-global-law-school-announces-2025-admissions/2223377/?amp

Simple logic, which someone has also said here: Jindal wants a slice of the rich Indian students applying for their LLB in the UK. They want to attract students who won’t make it to Oxbridge, LSE, KCL, UCL, Warwick, Queen Mary or any of the other good Russell Group universities. I myself know students who have turned down places at non-Russell Group universities like Essex and Sussex to go to Jindal. They will apply abroad for LLMs instead (note that Essex and Sussex are quite good, but people have this hangover about the Russell Group brand).

Also, whereas CLAT is held all over India and attracts students from ordinary backgrounds and schools, Jindal only caters to students from 7-8 cities and from elite schools. The LSAT was only held in these cities and now the LNAT will continue to be held in this cities.

First of all, I request you to read my whole comment before voting. Thanks.

Now, I am sorry if I sound elitist, but I would prefer that JGLS maintains its exclusivity by staying away from CLAT and selecting students through LNAT. I am quite happy that LNAT has a “socio-cultural filter” in the form of an English essay section, and an “socio-economic filter” in the form of fees that are 3x the fees of CLAT, and by catering to students who may aspire to study overseas.

The truth is that I feel comfortable around the students at JGLS because we are from similar backgrounds — in terms of the schools we went to, the upbringing we have had, the professions are our parents are in, the sports we play, our tastes in movies and music etc. It’s only natural that you can relate to people who are like-minded and similar to you. Yes, we are the elite 5% of India and live in a cocoon, but we are happy living this way and our parents worked hard to get here. Many of our parents are from middle class backgrounds and worked their way up by gaining admission to IITs, IIMs and NLSIU. You too would send your children to IB schools and JGLS if you had the money.

I am sure many of you from NLUs and middle-class backgrounds will downvote me and abuse me, but 20 years from now, when you will be a partner at CAM driving a BMW and wearing a Rolex , you will be holding your noses at NLU students and insist that your children attend Jindal/Ashoka or go abroad. I can assure you that the vast majority of partners at CAM and SAM do the same, despite being NLU alumni and middle-class originally. In fact, people go to NLUs precisely to escape their middle class existence and upgrade to a higher socio-economic plane!

Well, can't really say fairer than that, can we? Good job on pointing out the hypocrisy of all of this trolling. Not from Jindal myself and wouldn't really want to go there, but the guy that says that all you need to get in are the fees should be forced to take the LNAT; I think he'll be a lot more chastened after that (or as someone put it a bit more roughly, the trolling would go out of his backside along with a pound of his flesh).

Also, good job on admitting that we all have biases. You will unfortunately experience a lot more trolling (some from your own type of people who think you're being too frank and many from the seemingly endless number of insecure trolls this site seems to hold), but I hope you don't get impacted by it and can just concentrate on your studies. Sure you have a leg up, but trust me, all these insecure trolls will forget this NLU loyalty when they get into the law firms themselves. They'll heartily be cursing the Jindal students of today, and twenty years down the line, will be speaking of Jindal as an insurance choice if their kids can't get into Cambridge (BTW, also one of the unis that uses LNAT) or UK insurance choice of anyone between UCL, KCL or LSE.

Finally, if it is any comfort, this current NLSIU VC seems to be a sensible sort of fellow, who's expressed unease with CLAT standards in the past. I hope he doesn't give in to the trolls (including people in Indian legal academia, some of whom run the CLAT Consortium). If he doesn't and decides that LNAT is worth it, NLSIU will be part of the club as well. The trolls here have an impossible-to-satisfy desire to have their backsides/egos massaged, so they'll put that poor bugger's name through the mud as they've done a hundred times in the past, but it won't change a thing. Haters will hate, but there's no way of bringing it home to them and making them look like fools, because of the anonymity of LI. The true hard workers among the NLU bunches will have understood how cringe the attitudes of their contemporaries are, and won't bother with all this.

No. You are right to the extent that diversity in and of itself doesn't. Mindsets like yours do, however. How? When people consider diversity over all else, quality is bound to be compromised to some extent at least. That leads to insecurity among people at those institutions who chant so much about diversity. And that insecurity leads to people like you, the sources of all the painful trolling.

I have nothing against diversity. I just have something significant against the way it is understood in India.

And as for a "place" and the point you made about quality:

(a) You are absolutely right. But NLUs (with the obvious exception of NLSIU, and NLSIU only because of its brand name and now the additional factor of Sudhir) aren't good enough for what those kids who didn't get the privileges I did for no fault of their own should get. Anyone who has a problem with those types going to Jindal or the best universities of the world or who doesn't do enough to ensure that they get an opportunity to do so is a deeply flawed person in and of themselves (hint, I am talking about the Jindal admin, many of their students, many of the Indian students/parents of Indian students at some foreign universities of high repute and those people within the administrations of these institutions who talk about "social mobility" but who don't do enough about it).

(b) Regarding "place", I have no "place" to speak of in our society any longer. My only stake is from my past experience. Full disclosure: I have figured out a niche for myself overseas, I have lived outside for such an extended period of time and my circumstances because of this have become such that finding a "place" in India anymore would mean a complete reset for my career, a reset that I am confident I have the tools to manage properly, but which I (i) don't need to do; (ii) more importantly, don't want to do, as I am perfectly happy with my career abroad and don't see myself being within the territorial boundaries of India for anything more than a month at a time per year for the next 40 years or so; and (iii) equally importantly, soon will find very hard to do for regulatory reasons, as I will be eligible shortly to take up a non-Indian passport, an opportunity I will avail myself of the moment it arises.

This is such a joke. I took the LNAT in 2020 and converted all my applications (including LSE, KCL and Bristol). I couldn't go because of COVID. I just provided these details because the name dropping was necessary. Trust me when I say LNAT is not a very difficult test. It's only English comprehension and logical reasoning. And there is no rank list which is released. UK universities look at the whole application (consisting of grades, LOR and Personal Statement). There is no particular threshold of an LNAT score which will guarantee admission into a top UK uni. This move by JGLS is a purely marketing event to help claim itself comparable to UK universities. I don't really think it's going to make the admission process in JGLS more difficult, and it's a bad move on their end too- they make the most money from people who are not eligible for scholarships i.e. people with bad entrance scores.