Around five decades ago, the law schools in India were meant to produce legal professional who would become lawyers in the court or would go back the law schools as teachers. The Advocates Act, 1961 was enacted to achieve the said object, namely, to prescribe minimum standards for entry into professional practice ‘in the courts’, as stated above. However, the economic liberalization in 1991 did change the entire concept of legal education in India. Now, law graduates have many more opportunities than representing the courtrooms, as they also have requirements of globalization to meet.
With the advent of globalization, new subjects with international dimensions have come into Indian legal education. In the changed scenario, the additional roles envisaged are that of policy planner, business advisor, negotiator among interest groups, experts in articulation and communication of ideas, mediator, lobbyist, law reformer, and many more. Experts in this sector claim that today’s legal professionals must be comfortable interacting with other professions on an equal footing and be able to consume scientific and technical knowledge. That means, the law curriculum must provide integrated knowledge of a whole range of physical and natural science subjects on which legal policies are now being formulated.
The November edition of the Higher Education Digest focuses on Law Colleges in India for this very reason – to understand the potential of Indian law colleges to produce graduates who thrive in the changing scenarios. We have identified ’10 Must-Watch Law Colleges in India’ which are continuously striving to produce excellent legal professionals. On the cover, we feature ICFAI Law School, Hyderabad, a constituent of ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education, which has been functioning with an agenda of imparting quality legal education and has been shaping the legal professionals with excellence to cater to the needs of various constituents of the society.
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