Kian would be in a great position to answer this, having spent time at Oxford and a magic circle law firm. Kian, thou are needed!

I am honestly not sure but will give it a go…

I think internationally NLSIU is well known, if you are a lawyer who has some knowledge of India or of global legal education. Otherwise, it is probably a bit of a non-brand to most foreigners (unlike IITs, perhaps, thanks to Silicon Valley and all).

Anecdotally I also understand that the quality of teaching overall at NLS is much worse than at most top global universities.

Take Oxford, for example, which with Cambridge is unusual even amongst UK top universities. The tutorial system means that every week between 1 and 8 or so students meet with their ‘tutor’ in whatever subject you’re studying. There you’re basically grilled on the week’s reading, have to present your essay (one essay a week for most subjects), or just generally chat. There are also 3 or 4 lectures per day, but to be honest, I didn’t go to that many. This system is rather awesome, but also quite resource intensive. In law, you usually did 2 subjects per 8 week term, of which there are 3 per year. So, short bursts of intense activities and deadlines.

However, the tutorial system is rather expensive in terms of resources and quite rare globally, I think. But Harvard and the like too, I believe, pride themselves on the Socratic method, their research output and academic rigour.

From what I’ve heard, at NLS, for example, lectures are only rarely worth anyone’s time, and direct interaction with profs is pretty limited. NLU D I’m not sure about - they have pretty good fac, but am not sure how the system works. Maybe an NLU Delhi-ite can enlighten.

But all that is not very important. The point is that if you go to NLS, NLU Delhi or any of the other top few national law schools, outside of India you’ll basically be perceived as one of the very smartest young lawyers in a country of a billion. Plus, at most Indian colleges students organise far more and do more extracurricularly than any Ivy League or Oxbridge law students would ever do. Partly out of necessity, I guess, because the college itself offers only little, but be that as it may, it adds to the overall education that a place imparts.

So, in short, don’t fret about rankings or any of that rubbish. For one, once you’re in the workplace no one actually cares where you did your undergrad for the most part. And if you’re from India, you’re in a pretty unique position in that most foreign universities or employers will just see you as a lawyer from India, and judge you by perhaps the domestic ranking of your college or your work experience, rather than comparing NLS’ with NUS or Georgetown or wherever. Then again, I have no very hard evidence for my gut feeling on this.

Anyone has any other thoughts on that?