NLSIU recently put out an invite to teach Electives in the upcoming trimester (https://www.nls.ac.in/news-events/invitation-to-teach-elective-courses-at-nlsiu-november-2024-term/) and I was thinking of applying for the same. If you have ever taught one before, how was the experience?

They have been making it increasingly difficult over the last six months. At present, they will require you to be there physically for almost two months, but they will not sponsor your accommodation (not even within the campus), nor will they sponsor travel more than once during this period. Therefore, either they have to find someone who is on a sabbatical and can manage alternate accommodation nearby during this period (which won't be cheap), or else they are basically looking for only people from Bengaluru, or else those who will be willing to spend money for the opportunity to teach at NLSIU.

When they had started, they were being more flexible with this initiative, but now it is getting bogged down owing to faulty policy/implementation. However, if you do end up teaching there after settling these hiccups, then you will find the students to be good. Even the 3-Year cohort.

All kinds with a mix of academics and practitioners in different fields. See this link for the list from last year. https://www.nls.ac.in/study/courses/?_course_academic_year=202324&_course_type=2

I taught a short elective at NLSIU on invitation, rather than applying myself. I liked the experience as the students were very bright, attentive, enthusiastic and disciplined — a refreshing change from Jindal (where unfortunately only a minority of students fit into this category, when I visited there) and NUJS (where I found some of the students to be uninterested and taking my course just for CV value).

The accommodation was fine and staff were helpful.

The VC, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, met me and we had a chat. He was friendly and I appreciated his drive to bring in good faculty. But he seemed tilted towards public law and wary of industry-centric, skills-centric commercial law courses. I didn’t think I could contribute much to his vision, for that reason, but I think he is head and shoulders above the other NLU VCs.

Because the NLSIU students were very engaged in my classes. Asking very relevant questions, making a lot of effort to do the reading and assignments, etc. I was amazed at how hard they worked, because this was a short-credit course and some of the students already had job offers. One of the students later published an article on the subject. He emailed me to thank me for introducing him to the topic. Another thing I found is that they all came to class early.

In contrast, NUJS students were often distracted in class and not really paying attention. A few were yawning and one of the students later told me that it was because they stayed up late for project work, fest work etc. Some students used to show up late as well. I received the same feedback from a law firm partner who taught at NUJS (from a top corporate law firm).

Also, at NUJS many of the questions put to me were irrelevant and meant to feign interest in the hope of impressing me. For example, it's like I am teaching you about the planet Mars and you make a totally irrelevant point saying that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969 and you would like to know my views on it!! You can make out who is trying to flatter/impress and who has a genuine point to make.

I will give you some suggestions to attract people offering such electives.

1. Assuming the total class hours is 40, ensure that they can offer at least 20 hours online and the remaining 20 offline.

2. Make it possible for these 20 hours offline classes to be delivered within 10 working days.

3. Arrange for their accommodation during this period either within or nearby the campus.

4. Consider having classes on Saturdays and Sundays for senior people from the industry. This can happen over 5 weeks to cover the 20 offline hours. In that case, offer to arrange for their travel, though most will choose to fly in on their own.

5. Have one point person preferably with industry experience to deal with these people, without every decision having to be routed through the VC's office.

His opinion should be taken into account. Can you imagine studying a fluff 'Social science' course as a core course with 4 credits attached to it? Sure, those are interesting and all, but they should offer that to people who want to study as an elective and not foist it on everyone just because the VC has some inclination towards those courses.

What do you expect when you join BA LLB? If you wanted only law courses, do what you like for undergrad and join the LLB. Or, for more business oriented courses, join BBA LLB or BCom LLB. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but if join BA LLB, you've got to put up with BA courses to the tune of 48 credits.

Yes those count towards you getting your BA degree. I don’t know any university in the world that would give you a BA without you taking BA courses. If you didn’t want to study arts courses why not do a BSc or BCom and then do a three year degree ? Why do you feel so injured ? Did you not look at brochures for the program before you applied ? I’m honestly puzzled by people complain about all of this. Visiting faculty only teach elective courses- they teach what they’re interested in and the students that share those interests are taking those courses.

If you’re not interested - don’t take the electives. If you want more corp law electives - reach out to people and get them to offer them ? Why insist that the entire university be remade in your image ?

I mean- people getting engineering have to do some social science. Its just how the UGC rules are structured. If NLS is doing something that is not allowed by BCI rules or by UGC then you can make a case. Otherwise- suck it up and study one course and get it over with. There are many people who would rather not learn economics or corporate law, but you dont see them whinging that they have to study that stuff to get their BA and LLB degrees do you?

I feel that is one of the primary reasons for decline in on campus placements. The 2025 batch mostly got PPOs because many of them are hardcore corp and Econ enthusiasts. One great example is Parv; he started a great initiative where he came up with the idea of an Law and Econ reading circle. I attended a few sessions and was blown away by his articulation skills and technical knowledge. Was in complete awe even though not from the same batch.

You do know that legal theorists and labour law scholars the world over have been engaging in productive academic headbanging, and have years (perhaps centuries), more of productive scholarly headbanging, to do regarding the intersection of those philosophers' thinking with the law? You have a lot of learning to do mate, and if your opinion is representative of the NLSIU student body, it is an indication that the students will be the most significant stumbling block to NLSIU becoming one of the world's hubs for academic lawyers. The only cure is for Sudhir to actually introduce more, not fewer courses on legal philosophy, legal theory and humanities. I am sure he understands this, and as he embarks on this cure, I will cheer him from the sidelines, as loudly, and with as much gusto and enthusiasm as possible.

Your academic headbanging is of no use. But I don't expect ivory towers to engage with the practical realities of law. Even at NLS, I have found the practicing professors with real life work experience in courts and corporate firms to be more competent and superior in knowledge than these so called academic lawyers. The academic lawyers don't prepare students for the real world, they don't teach us the hard realities of this profession, not are they sympathetic to the voices and concerns of students from lower income groups who want to learn the ropes of hardcore law to ekk out a living. Academic lawyers speak from a place of privilege and can afford to revel in legal philosophy and humanities. The 'keyword' here is afford. But also not everyone find these courses interesting or even useful. I couldn't care less about the intersection of law with academic philosophy; it's of no consequence to real world law. Real world law requires hard skills. It requires clinical education, more space and time for internships. You can keep cheering on but I will mourn the loss of real life law and legal study. What good is a legal education if it cannot teach you the nuts and bolts of advocacy or if it cannot help you gain an in depth understanding of business side of law (as in the case of corporate law). I don't speak for the entire community at NLS but I do know for sure that a lot of us don't care about academic 'headbanging'. It's of no consequence to our careers. If only theory helped you succeed in this profession lol. I have a lot of learning to do? Yes I agree, but do I have to learn obtuse, redundant theory in the process? I don't think so.

A sad, deeply angry response, which makes some valid points, but which is largely lacking in any understanding of the finer nuances of life and learning. If only I did not have a very bad earache that prevents me concentrating, I would, in my sympathy for you, actually engage with it.

1. Actually, I prefer Raz, Hart, Fuller, Dworkin and Austin.

2. Thinking of these things as a zero sum game is a very dangerous pathway to go down, and I am deeply shocked to see that you have gone so far down it - far enough down it for me to claim that you have undergone what I like to call a process of 'anti-theory radicalisation' (NB this may not be, likely isn't, an original phrase).

3. I will be unable to carry out the procedure of deradicalisation. I shouldn't either, as that isn't my job - it's way above my paygrade. That's for your professors and your Vice Chancellor to do. However, I can present you with some arguments that will hopefully assist them. You may have heard of the phrase 'well rounded'? You may have thought that it only applies to life before law school, but no. It applies here, too. Some of the best lawyers I know are people who can talk about problems in the criminal courts one moment (the hard yards of legal practice) and transition to critiquing R.P. Wolff's defence of philosophical anarchism the next.

4. Some of the greatest legal theorists of all times were legal practitioners for a while at least (or had some practical exposure). Dworkin, for example, worked in a prominent American law firm; Austin was a barrister; Hart worked with British intelligence before returning to Oxford to undertake postgraduate study. Therefore, I would remind you that being an academic lawyer is by no means incompatible with being a practitioner. Even today, this is the case. Alan Bogg is a prime example of this, teaching Labour Law at Bristol, while also practicing as a barrister at Old Square Chambers.

5. Some of the best (most high quality) private law theory scholarship comes from ex-practitioners who understand the value of theory.

6. To fully understand, and in order to meaningfully critique, the law, one needs to be able to put on multiple 'hats'. The practitioner must be able to swap her hat for the legal empiricist; the legal philosopher must be able to swap her hat for that of the practitioner. This is because lawyers are uniquely placed to shed light on the social context, for the law is partly shaped by, and partly shapes, it. In this way, as McCrudden argues, law can enrich the social sciences (e.g., philosophy), and the social sciences can enrich law. This cannot happen by you saying 'give me only industry-focussed courses'. There are tonnes of examples of good work by practitioners, academic lawyers and others, that show this process of mutual enrichment taking place and being of benefit to everyone in the legal community (I am happy to recommend certain readings to you on this matter, if you are interested). As far as I can see, the training you are receiving at NLS is preparing you well to have a nuanced, critical understanding of the social context, which you will require, whether as a practitioner, an academic, a judge, legislator or anything else.

I didn't comment here earlier, but can't help saying that in India, such lawyers who are highly successful practitioners don't often display such affinity or love for obscure but important scholarly theories. At the same time, the point of the other person's argument seems to be that well-rounded education isn't being provided to them at present. They are being taught theories but not enough practical application including commercial and transactional or litigation application. Which isn't entirely a baseless allegation, from what I'm aware of their curriculum. It really doesn't have to be a zero sum game, no reason why it has to be either/or. There are over fifty subjects to be taught across five years.

It is for practitioners to teach application. In some countries there is a formal period - the pupillage or articles - that marks this training. You would train differently depending on the role you are headed into. If the profession wants to outsource part of its work to law schools, it should fund and support clinics. That's what well resourced schools in the West offer but in the end, if your theory is solid and you have learned to be meticulous in research and application, you have a very good foundation to help you learn the rest in a firm or in chambers.

Thank you for understanding what I was trying to say. I'm all for well rounded education but that's not the case at NLS. The privileging of theory is very obvious. Practical law and advocacy has been pushed to the margins sorely because there is a preference for academic law. People in authority have gone to the extent of saying that negotiation competitions and journals are useless and people only focus on these things to build their CVs.

Other people have spoken re. the difficulties of your argument around 'practical law'. Also, you should know that there is an argument to say that the NLS administration's views on some of these extracurricular activities aren't entirely wrong.

On negotiation competitions, I'd massively disagree with them. They can be dead useful.

However, regarding journals, this is a rediculous thing we have imported from American legal culture. Student law reviews aren't producing anything earth-shaking. You aren't, by submitting your work to them, going through the sort of peer review that you'd be going through if you were submitting to a Current Legal Problems, a Law Quarterly Review, a Cambridge Law Journal or an Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. You wouldn't be producing anything groundbreaking because... well... you are an undergraduate law student, and the overwhelming majority of undergraduate law students (in all countries) aren't the next Granville Austin, Sir Arthur Goodhart, A.V. Dicey or Sir Ivor Jennings. And you know what? It's not just your VC who believes this to be true. One of your most well-known alums, Tarunab Khaitan, has also criticized this business of student law journals heavily when interviewed by LAOT - look it up. His advice on what you could do instead would, in my view, be much more helpful, than if you ran after these things (after all, look where he is in his career right now!).

Here’s the thing. I don’t know what a rigorous practical application course looks like ? There are aspects to corp work or litigation work that you can only do when you’re there. Law school cannot replace that. I don’t think anyone is arguing that the core law courses aren’t covering the necessary topics to be a good litigator or an associate. So what am I missing ? I’ve taken courses by litigators and corporate lawyers and even judges and found them- boring and unchallenging. The courses just weren’t rigorous enough at all. It kinda felt like I was cheating.

Maybe - one way to do rigorous practical application courses is to improve the clinics. But even then - you’re not a lawyer till you’re a lawyer so you cannot actually practice. Best you can do is draft things for an advocate who might look them over and offer corrections. And building a good clinical programme takes so much time and effort not just from the university - but from the teacher who will have to be a practitioner who is taking on a new career in teaching which will be a full time job on top of his litigation work.

My solve for when I was in law school was to take theory courses about private law , competition law etc. those can be rigorous while still being useful to students not going in to academia or research or public policy.

But I really don’t know what people mean when they bemoan that they’re not getting practical application courses. It’s not like you’re engineers who can just write a program or build a machine in their lab- to be a lawyer you need to have graduated law school.

I’m not unsympathetic. I get bored of the obscure abstract theory/ sociology courses too. But I wonder if people here have an example of what kind of course they would want ?

There is sometimes a “Remedies in Commercial Law” elective offered at NLS. I took that one. Incredible. Beautiful blend of theory and practice and actual application. Same prof taught Contracts core as well for one section in NLS last year. Heard great things about that course too. Some of these courses, if done well, can really kindle a love for the law…

That's the point. Everyone here who is arguing that application based law can only be taught outside the university needs to understand that most of the courses in law can be taught in classroom blending and connecting theories with real life applications. That's what good teachers are supposed to do. It also gets students involved in the subjects more easily and helps them retain the understanding and knowledge.

Everyone has lots of opinions on good teaching until they teach. What is the incentive for someone who can earn a corporate salary to come and teach for peanuts and disrespect at an Indian law school? It's not as if law firm partners value teaching at a high ranked school the way UK or US partners do. The alternative is practitioners who frequently neither know theory well nor how to teach. They certainly don't know how to tailor a class to different capacities and goals.

So yes good teachers do use examples to get their point through. But they cannot also make cocktails and be trapeze artists. They do what they do. A smart student learns it and then uses it later while being taught more applied law.

You do know that those "fluff courses on Carl Schmidt" actually teach you some important stuff about legal theory? And that they are the dream of legal theorists? You also do know, right, that many of the law schools whose names, when heard, make us sit up and take notice built their reputations on being hubs for teaching, learning and research on legal theory (which definitely included similar things to those "fluff courses on Carl Schmidt")?

A silly and contemptible question which deserves no response, but here is one anyway: obviously if you are good enough, yes!

The question is silly and contemptible because it is like asking if Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, LSE, NYU, Harvard, Yale or Toronto would accept good students who just wanted to become legal practitioners.

Sure, they might. That's not the point tho. Not everyone is interested in those courses and neither are those important for people who want to pursue market centric careers. Why don't you Carl Schmidt 'fluff' course fans do us a favor? Don't target the corporate law firm jobs if you are so engaged in becoming a legal theorist; and before you say these things are not mutually exclusive, yes I would agree they are not but if that's the case, then you don't need and entire course on this you can read that up on your own. End mein you guys will be the first ones vying for corp jobs because money speaks. Infact, I beleive such courses help people like you inflate your GPA, because unlike core corp you can bullshit in these papers.

1. Happy to confirm that I, personally, am not at all looking at a corporate job.

2. If the marking is done properly, there is no way anyone can bullshit on those papers. If you have problems with marking standards, why don't you produce evidence to substantiate your accusation?