1. You ask what innovations the central universities have done. That’s a deflection, not an answer. The point I raised is simple: NLUs were born in the late 1980s with a model suited for their time. That model hasn’t meaningfully evolved in three decades. Infrastructure upgrades and the introduction of term papers are not pedagogical innovation. Oxford and Cambridge do continuously rethink and rework their systems, even while retaining the "tutorial/supervision" framework—they adapt to shifts in knowledge and student needs. That is what sustains quality. The question remains unanswered: what exactly have the NLUs done to innovate in pedagogy since their founding?

2. You equate "market success" with "educational success". That’s a dangerous collapse of categories. Recruitment patterns often reflect brand value and signaling rather than the intrinsic quality of education. Employers go to certain campuses because of a reputation built in the early years, and because of a filtering mechanism (the CLAT exam) that concentrates students with certain abilities. That doesn’t automatically prove that the pedagogy is robust or that it prepares students equally for practice, litigation, or service to the wider legal system.

And sure, perhaps the NLUs are the "best" the market offers right now. But is that it? Does the role of a university stop the moment its graduates find jobs? If employability is the only yardstick, then the institutes that train plumbers, electricians, and technicians deserve the same prestige as a university-after all, their students also go straight into work. We don’t treat them the same because we expect something more from a university: not just producing employees, but also advancing knowledge, driving innovation, and cultivating responsibility.

If anything, the heavy reliance on “market validation” makes the NLUs complacent—they cater to a narrow band of elite employers while ignoring the wider needs of society, polity, and economy. A good university produces employees. A great university produces, amongst other things, thought leaders.

3. You suggest that one’s quality of education is independent of the positions one takes. That is true at the level of abstract principle. But education is not value neutral. A legal education that trains students in critical thinking, justice oriented reasoning, and awareness of law’s social role cannot be wholly divorced from real world crises. If students can be fluent in Dworkin and ICL but collectively indifferent to an unfolding genocide, then yes, that raises questions about how deeply that education has shaped their intellectual and ethical outlook. It is not about enforcing ideological dogma, it is about whether education has given one the courage and clarity to connect law with lived human realities.

The example of UKLFI does not help your case. The point isn’t whether their members are "top-notch lawyers" in technical skill. The point is that law, divorced from ethical engagement, becomes technocratic at best and complicit at worst. You cannot brush that aside by saying education is just about "playing with ideas". That Wildean quip is useful, but ideas are not merely toys - they have consequences in the real world.

And by the way, this whole idea that education should cultivate not just cleverness but also responsibility? That’s not exactly radical. Max Weber was spelling it out over a hundred years ago in Politics as a Vocation with his ethic of responsibility. So forgive me if I don’t see "play with ideas" as the high-water mark of legal education.

And let’s be honest: if the benchmark is whether students are learning to "play with ideas", then NLUs have already failed the test. There is a genocide unfolding right now, and across the NLUs there has been complete radio silence. Forget about "playing with ideas", nobody even thought it worthwhile to issue a minimal statement. That silence tells us more about the depth of their education than any Wilde quote ever could.

Even if that were the case, how come similarly fortunate people from TLCs did not (prior to the NLU system coming up) and still do not achieve such things, or at least not in the kinds of numbers we see from the NLUs?

Sudhir Krishnaswamy, the VC of NLSIU, said in an interview once that when he was at NLS as an undergrad, he and his contemporaries felt that their uni was "behind the curve" regarding things like Rhodes. People from the famous "Delhi colleges", as he puts it, were regularly "[walking through]" such procedures. He said this to highlight how much things have changed by now. Are you able to quote statistics to show why his perception in this regard would have been right in terms of people studying law at those universities? In other words, how many law Rhodes scholars did we have from India prior to the NLU system's advent on the scene? And how many TLC law Rhodes scholars have we had since?

PS: Don't say C. Raj Kumar, because he was Sudhir's contemporary, and is therefore already counted. Also don't count Rahul Bajaj, because I already know about him. Give me the statistic for all other Rhodes scholars who did postgraduate law degrees with the Rhodes from TLCs.

Lmao. You do realise CLAT is literally a glorified vocabulary and GK quiz, right? It’s not some divine rite of passage. You memorize a few PDFs, circle MCQs for two hours, and suddenly you think you've ascended Mount Olympus. Calm down kid.

The real joke is how CLAT toppers walk around with this inflated sense of intellectual superiority, as if ranking on a test that doesn’t even test legal reasoning in any serious way makes you untouchable for life. But sure, go ahead and moralize failure like it's a sign of cosmic justice.

And yes — your grandmother’s quote is poetic, but it's also emblematic of the toxic exam-worship that props up this caste-class-credential ecosystem. You are not successful because you cracked CLAT. You’re successful because a system built on language privilege, access, and urban prep coaching was designed to reward you for it. What’s changing now is that people who were never supposed to have a seat at the table are pulling up chairs and that’s what’s making you squirm.

Correct. And that's how most people do it. But they do also have this thing called a solicitor apprenticeship.

Here are webpages from (1) the regulator, explaining the basics of how it works; and (2) two law firms, showing how they have implemented the scheme.

NB: Under the SRA page, look at the text under the 'Trailblazer apprenticeship' heading.

https://www.sra.org.uk/become-solicitor/sqe/solicitor-apprenticeships/

https://ukearlycareers.hoganlovells.com/what-we-offer/solicitor-apprenticeships

https://careers.linklaters.com/en/early-careers/school-opportunities#main

Here are webpages from (1) the regulator, explaining the basics of how it works; and (2) two law firms, showing how they have implemented the scheme.

NB: Under the SRA page, look at the text under the 'Trailblazer apprenticeship' heading.

https://www.sra.org.uk/become-solicitor/sqe/solicitor-apprenticeships/

https://ukearlycareers.hoganlovells.com/what-we-offer/solicitor-apprenticeships

https://careers.linklaters.com/en/early-careers/school-opportunities#main

1. What great educational/pedagogical innovation have the central universities done? Please do tell.

2. Certain models, when they've been proven to work, need to be adapted rather than changed from the ground up or abandoned. Oxford, for example, has been using the tutorial system for hundreds of years (Cambridge uses the same thing, just that they call it 'supervision'). We know that that works. The markets continue to go to them. Similarly, the market continues to come to the NLUs. Employers remain enthusiastic to recruit from those universities. Therefore, why should we listen to you, of all people!?

3. This last part of your comment is very concerning and disappointing. It is the reason why I have always said many Indian universities should shut down (or if push comes to shove be forced to shut down) their law departments.

You are confusing issues. What has the quality of education got to do (or judgments about what you are doing with your education) with positions that people may choose to take (or not to take) on various issues?

There is an organisation called UK Lawyers For Israel (UKLFI). It counts amongst its members some of the best legal brains the British have at their disposal (and that's saying something, as you should know). You might not like the positions they advocate for, but would you dare to question the quality of their education!? Would you really say that these top-notch lawyers are somehow less top-notch because they have a different worldview from your own?

You wanna make sure this is not a double standard? UKLFI is not happy at the stated intention of the Labour administration of Sir Kerr Starmer, the current prime minister of the UK, to recognise a Palestinian state at the UNGA if Israel doesn't comply with certain conditions. They have even written to the Attorney General, Lord Hermer, to indicate that, in their view, recognition of a Palestinian state under such circumstances and in the way the government has been proposing to do it, might in and of itself be a violation of international law. Again, we may or may not agree with that position of UKLFI. But if their people go shooting their mouths off, questioning the quality of the education of Starmer or David Lammy (foreign secretary) or Hermer, is that justified? Are you really claiming that whether you are making the most of your education depends on what positions you adopt?

Your idea of education is really poor. The point of education isn't to enforce (or reinforce) ideological dogma. It is to help people think and argue better. Oscar Wilde put it best, when he said that the point of an Oxford degree was that it taught you to 'play with ideas'. I know enough about the way education works at many of the good NLUs (especially NLSIU) to confidently say that they are meeting Wilde's benchmark. Had Wilde been born now and attended, for example, NLSIU rather than Oxford, and had he had the same inner wisdom that no university can give but is topped up by what a good university education can give, he would have made the same wise statement about NLSIU. Sadly, it seems as though he could not have said the same about whatever university you attended; or, if you had indeed attended a good university, he would have reproached you for not having learned to 'play with ideas'.

Ooo!!! Failed CLAT and still feeling the pinch years later!?

My grandmother (my mum's aunt) used to say this beautifully. She used to say, regarding the JEE exam, "You failed Joint now? [the usual time people give it, when they are almost ready to be school leavers/are already so and are competing for places at universities] Very well, you'll be giving joint for the rest of your life because the toughness of life by virtue of failing joint is like going through, for the rest of your life, what it took to prepare for joint in one year". Her statement is equally applicable to CLAT, I feel. Sadly, we lost her to COVID-19. Sad not just for us as a family, but for the world, for losing someone with such great moral vision and clarity.

Being able to think critically about gender (and other) biases is very important to understand the realistic probability of a judge giving you bail in a given case. if you only learn legal provisions and go to court you will be very disappointed . that critical thinking is what NLUs or any good college are supposed to give you.

This thread is the epitome of the shrinking class divide in India, and also of how elites no longer control the online discourse. 15-20 years ago, only elite, urban, English-speaking NLU people participated in online discussions about law. Totally opposite now.

Look at LI of old and LI of today. 🤣🤣🤣

You make it sound like all the NLUS are rigorous. Barring the top few, the others are no different from the state law colleges, expect for better infrastructure and a student body that is drawn from different parts of the country. the lower you go, the more it resembles a state college in terms of curriculum, pedagogy, teachers and teaching -learning methods.

also let's not forget that the NLUs are still following a model that was crafted in the late 1980s. what innovation to teaching-learning has it done after that? writing term papers in a variety of subjects is not exactly cutting edge innovation in pedagogy.

and lets not forget that no matter which law school you went to, at the end the day the craft of working with the law in practice - be it in firms or in litigation comes only with practical exposure and its picked up as you keep working. this is not to demean the NLUs or their contributions but a mere fact of life.

the bulk of lawyers in India, especially the litigators study in 'these' colleges that you just demeaningly mentioned. the CJI has a good point in that we must pay attention to their needs too. it does not matter that they have not learned about crimes against humanity or international arbitration. what matters is that they are able to learn the stuff that is required for the legal market that exists in Bharat and not just India.

and lastly, all the Dworkin, Lessing or education on ICL is evidently a complete waste on you folks. there is an ongoing genocide and not a single NLU thought it fit to even make a measly statement about it. that education has clearly entered through one ear and left through the other.

It is indeed the norm. However, they have a system (which only a very small number of people use) via which you work in a law firm for six years alongside taking evening classes at a university with which the law firm has a tie-up for the sake of that particular solicitor apprenticeship offer. Most good universities don't participate in solicitor apprenticeships right now. Essentially, it's like doing the four years (3+1) part time over six years, instead.

I am not insulting him for his background. I am insulting him for the fact that he played truant while at university, and that, being from a privileged background, he felt secure enough to do so while the rest of us actually have to put in some work in life. He could have been from any "law college" as far as I care. But glorifying laziness and lack of hard work, whether coming from somebody at Oxford or at GLC, is totally unacceptable.

Haha. I didn't even attend an NLU for my undergrad. It's you guys who are getting your nickers in a twist over this stuff.

What the post is saying is very simple: there are certain objective, proven, ingredients that make up a good legal education (whether in India, or outside). These are aspects that help to build the foundations of a good lawyer - and reading Dworkin or using Lexis/Westlaw is among them, Dworkin being one of the common law world's foremost legal philosophers and Westlaw/Lexis being some of the foremost legal databases of the world. I am really sorry, but I don't know how we are even having an argument over this. Even other old men consider the learning of tech properly at an early stage to be essential. I attended - that is to say, physically attended - a lecture that Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls, gave at an event conducted a few years ago by the Legal Services Board, which is the oversight regulator holding the SRA and BSB (the regulators for solicitors and barristers) to account. You would imagine that such a one as he would advocate for getting dusty in libraries or old archives to find law reports, etc. No. Instead, he warned that not being up to scratch with developing technologies would mean that lawyers weren't useful. In Sir Geoffrey's worldview, anyone whose acquaintance with legal tech is confined to good usage of Lexis and Westlaw would be what the British tend to call a luddite (i.e., one opposed to change). (And BTW, Vos is older than B.R. Gavai.) Is agreeing with luddites really the school of thought you want to be associated with? Is going in the opposite direction to the (sensible and perfectly valid) advice of one who has responsibility for one of the world's most highly regarded systems of commercial dispute resolution what you are arguing for?

Of course the post is expressed in a childish way. It assumes that Gavai is incapable in this regard. For all you know, he can use Lexis and Westlaw better than the post author. He may even be better at using Chatgpt or Perplexity than most of us are. We cannot tell without further enquiry. But considering Gavai's really disappointing remarks, the post raises valid concerns.

In one sense, you are right. Give it to the fellow with more experience and a good track record. But if you have an NLU lawyer with as much experience and a lawyer from "Maharishi Dayanand University" (what uni is that, BTW? Never heard of it.), then you'd be taking, let's just say, rather interesting decisions in doing that, unless you had (I don't know?) prior professional dealings with the "Maharishi Dayanand University " alumnus.

I was not saying to completely do away with classes. But classes, after a point, become less relevant. 4th year and 5th year can be devoted particially to apprenticeship and partiallly to a few subjects. I vhecked the British system, they do have a 3 year law degree and a professional education after that. Ideally, our 5 year course can easily apply that but all of the 5 years are spent on campus.

Any educational degree & especially LLB degree should be allowed in online & even in distance mode. Classrooms are OBSOLETE. Only desperate & insecure professors are making people attend by force. These SoB do not want to get that if teaching is good, people will rush for it. Let people have classroom who want but don't cling on others. A fresh law grad from anywhere is not anyway good enough to get even a circulation, forget about arguing the matter.

NLUs folks, have a remarkably giant chip on their shoulders when they meet people who don't care they went to NLUs. The reactions are very telling. Stop making college your identity.

What problem did you solve? That is your selling point and calling card as a lawyer. In litigation or corporate law. Not a few letters adorned next to your linkedin profile or CV.

Unfortunately some people are treating these letters as a salesman would, leveraging it for credibility. That doesn't go so far as you people tend to think.

Focus on problems of the law. Work on it long enough. You start building credibility. Otherwise you're just another lawyer, like any other lawyer from a college you openly disrespect.

This post honestly comes across less like a critique and more like a flex, a way to signal, “I’ve read Dworkin and used Westlaw, therefore I’m more qualified than half the judiciary.” It's unfortunate and honestly quite telling that a personal anecdote by the Chief Justice, meant to highlight access gap in legal education and celebrate the diversity of pathways into the profession has been twisted into an elitist rant against those very ideals.

The idea that someone is unfit to be a judge because they didn’t attend an NLU, or never accessed Lexis/HeinOnline, is not only intellectually narrow but classist in the extreme. By that logic, the overwhelming majority of India’s legal professionals and even some of its most brilliant judges would be deemed unworthy. That’s not just elitist… it’s detached from the lived realities of legal education in India.

Law is not about how many Western academic articles you can cite or how many international moot courts you’ve attended. It’s about applying legal reasoning, understanding human context, interpreting the law justly, guess what, sometimes grinding through bare acts because that’s what people’s lives and liberties hinge on.

The CJI didn’t “diss” NLUs. he simply pointed out a truth that legal talent exists beyond elite bubbles. It’s your job as NLU students or alumni to push academic excellence without sneering at those who came up through different routes. Yes, NLUs have brought in much-needed rigor. But no, they’re not the only metric of legal ability. And acting like they are just reinforces the exact kind of ivory-tower arrogance that makes legal education so alienating for the rest of the country.

Just to add to this. The British have introduced a system known as "solicitor apprenticeships" for those people who want to be solicitors - i.e., the types of lawyers who mostly tend to work in law firms. This system actually involves the student working in a law firm for six years to qualify as a solicitor. However, even in this system, the student takes classes at a university, because the way the system is set up is that law firms and universities partner up to offer "solicitor apprenticeships". So even the designers of a system created for people who didn't want a typical university education, but an "earn while you learn" experience setup, felt the need to build in some academic class elements into the system. Why did they feel this way? Because they understood that, without academic learning, kids who participate in such a scheme will be no more than paper pushers.

And you want to understand what they do for barristers? In other words, those who go in for litigation careers? Just look at the criteria for any good chambers you like in E&W. The first and primary criteria they have on their pupillage adverts, whether that's through the pupillage gateway or through some other source, such as their website, is "intellectual ability". And what shows that, according to them? Marks obtained at university, further studies (e.g., LLM) for some chambers or some practice areas and references (i.e., letters of recommendation) written by the university teachers. That is why people like the Rhodes Scholar Niranjan have done so well over there. In their system, even the inns scholarship setup they have to undertake post law-degree training has this as a criteria. This is because, whatever you might call them - old-fashioned, stuck in the Victorian past, decaying or any other adjective you like to use about them - they aren't stupid. They don't allow the wool to be pulled over their eyes, they don't allow themselves into being deceived that black is white or white is black. They understand that academics is essential to being a good litigator.

India has numerous fantastic litigators, from all kinds of universities, who were excellent students. Please let us not shoot ourselves in the foot by trying to argue about stuff that is obvious. And for god's sake, let's not do something that makes our system of legal education worse than that of E&W, whatever else we may do to shoot ourselves in the foot.

Therefore, such learning is required. England and Wales is a reasonably high class regulatory setup. Not as high class as the United States, perhaps, (which, BTW, requires you to have a non-law and a law degree) but the setup which has a system that, in some respects, resembles what is being spoken of here. Therefore, to the one who dismisses university learning so easily and casually, please think about what you are saying and kindly try not to talk nonsense. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Yes, that's exactly true. I have massive respect for teachers who keep reinventing themselves for students.

Internships, moots, papers help only if they secure you a job. In litigation, it matters even less- a person would be interested in getting the bail or an analysis of gender bias in lower judiciary?

I'd agree to this partially. If you are with a law firm or with a good advocate, you will learn how to use your brain by learning from your seniors. There may be subjects like International comercial arbitration or a specialized WTO law where you would want to sit, but extremely few people will be I terested in these subjects. Those who're interested can attend, those who aren't can intern.

Honestly, I see the zeal to learn in classes die down after 2-3 trimesters or semesters. After that, it's all autopilot and performing chores. This comes from watching students being extremely disinterested in their 4th year, when the faculty teaching them was one of the best in India. It teflected in their exams as well- horrible answers. If a majority isn't interested in class, why force them to attend ?

1. What you types who bring up "free speech", "entitled to his opinion" sort of arguments don't seem to realise is that those concepts mean that if someone gives an opinion which, of course, they are entitled to, regardless of whom they might be, that someone can get criticized for it in various ways. You cannot stop the criticism. You can be critical of the criticism: maybe it is wrong, maybe it is misdirected, maybe it is overblown/exagerates/blows up the remarks/comments made to something much bigger than intended, in your view. But you cannot shut down the criticism. That just isn't allowed.

2. Tell me how many of those types of students:

- Are Rhodes Scholars.

- Have done TCs at foreign law firms right out of university and gone on to achieve partnership at said firms.

- Are King's Counsel (their equivalent of the Indian 'Senior Advocate' designation) in England and Wales, despite having taken law degrees in India.

- Have been admitted to JD programmes at the likes of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, UCLA and NYU and then gone on to achieve success as U.S. lawyers.

- Are professors at the world's greatest universities.

- Have published world-beating publications (books and articles) which, if you haven't read, mean you are poorly educated, akin to the likes of Tarunabh Khaitan (in other words, how many Tarunabh Khaitans have the unis and kinds of unis you name produced?).

- What percentage of those students from those unis and kinds of unis are up to scratch, objectively?

Answer all the above, and then we can continue this conversation.

So? What's wrong with his statement, he is entitled to opinions and expressing them. As a member of the legal fraternity you should be understanding this first and foremost.

Secondly his words do carry relevance; i have seen many govt. or even pvt. college students from the likes of IILS Siliguri, OP Jindal etc. that have produced remarkable legal alumni in the last 5 years who carry significant practice areas in many different fields.
Corporate Law and firms aren't everything OP.

Academic rigor is only for freshly minted academicians. Even they stop trying once they have 5 years as an assistant professor, because now they're well settled. What he's saying is the realistic form of law. It doesn't matter what your score is, what your internships are, how many papers you wrote, how many moots you won. In the end who you work for in reality after graduating is what matters. It's all about the connections. Nothing more and nothing less. So grow a spine and just stop following what these NLUs are spweing.

Then why bother with the law degree at all? Just get people into apprenticeship after class 12. And you only speak for yourself and your classes. I have learnt a lot in the classes that I have attended as well as during my internships. Learning is not limited to only one form.

"... “... regular colleges and universities, many of which face challenges in infrastructure, faculty… and curriculum design,” the CJI added."

Instead of unnecessarily talking down a model of legal education which, in the Indian context at least, has been shown to work, why doesn't he concentrate on dealing with those problems with 'infrastructure, faculty… and curriculum design'? Why is India seemingly the only country in the world where products of failed human experiments of whatever kind get to say bullshit about successes?

“CJI Gavai said that when he was studying at the government law college during the first two years, he would “sit on a compound wall” and rely on friends to “mark our presence (attendance).”

“Then in the last year, I had to shift to Amravati… In Amravati, I think I might have gone to the college maybe half a dozen times. One of my friends, who later became a judge of the High Court, he used to mark my presence… I was third in the merit list, without going to college. Reading Jhabvala (books) and five-year solved papers.”….

“Nowadays, the focus is more on NLUs and CLAT examination. But I am sure that apart from NLUs, other colleges also produce good students. We have seen students coming from taluka-level colleges, who have reached higher echelons. Though NLUs are certainly important, they represent only a small fraction of the legal education ecosystem in India. The vast majority are enrolled in regular colleges and universities, many of which face challenges in infrastructure, faculty… and curriculum design,” the CJI added.

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

So is it any wonder that these “▮▮▮ ▮▮▮” TLC product judges aren’t interested in helping NLUs and promoting academic excellence? They probably haven’t used Lexis or Westlaw or Hein Online even once in their lives. Probably never read an article by Ronald Dworkin or Lawrence Lessing. Probably never written a paper on crimes against humanity or international arbitration or anti-competitive practices. Law is just a bunch of bare acts to be memorised for them.

And then they come to NLUs, where people are trying to promote at least a semblance of intellectual rigour, and diss us.

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/cji-gavai-law-students-merit-list-exam-ranks-10207029/lite/