‘Most law graduates skipping litigation due to high NLU fees … senior lawyers are stingy when it comes to paying juniors’ (2024)

Faizan Mustafa, vice-chancellor of National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (Nalsar) and president of Consortium of National Law Universities, which conducts the common aptitude test and is responsible for improving standards of legal education in India, talks to Preeti Biswas about the challenges in improving the quality of legal education in India. He feels the fee structure influences the employment choices made by young lawyers:

Why are most law graduates seeking jobs in corporates instead of taking up litigation?

The reason behind establishing national law universities (NLUs) was to improve quality of bar and bench, and produce better lawyers and judges. Since governments are not funding NLUs, they largely act as self-financing institutions, charging a high fee. A majority of students take up loans, and join corporate firms to pay them back as senior lawyers are not coming forward to make attractive payments to junior lawyers who join them. Their own fees are high but they are stingy when it comes to paying juniors.

What is driving up the fee structure in NLUs?

Ideally, the Centre should support NLUs in a big way. However, after the planned system came to an end, NLUs are not receiving funding from the Centre. Since they are small institutions, they are not a priority of the state government either. There is a huge resource crunch which most NLUs are facing. With a new pay commission, increase in dearness allowance, increments in addition to bearing cost of goods and services tax, there has been fee hike in some institutions. We are trying to persuade the governments that there is huge public interest involved in legal education and government should not shy away from funding NLUs.

What would you attribute as the cause of the gap between national institutions and local institutions?

In a sea of mediocrity, we have a few islands of excellence in NLUs. We don’t appreciate the difference between these 21 NLUs and 1,400 law institutions in the country. The NLUs are barely admitting 2,200-2,400 students of the 60,000 candidates who appear for the common law aptitude test (CLAT) every year. Unless the quality of education in the 1,400 institutions improves, legal education at large will not improve. Therefore, every NLU should take up role of mentoring institutions which fall in their respective states.

Has the five-year model of law education in India met its purpose?

Yes, I think the five-year model has met its objective since it has revived the prestige of law as a discipline. Earlier, people took up law as a last option. But now, there are students who are giving a miss to engineering and medicine and pursuing law. However, the five-year model has resulted in a lack of diversity as students are admitted in Class 12. In early days, we had engineers, doctors and post-graduates pursuing law due to which the conversations around law were much varied and diverse

In law studies, which areas of specialisation are gaining popularity?

There are upcoming branches such as intellectual property rights, shipping law, aviation law, telecommunication law, space law, water law and disaster management law.

A few decades ago, human rights too was an upcoming discipline. Nobody talks about human rights as a subject now. It’s a shame that human rights has lost relevance in law schools.

What are the trends that are reshaping legal education system in the country in terms of technology?

It is difficult to say that law schools are not using or benefitting from technological developments. IT law, cyber law, AI are also being taught in schools. Recently, a PhD was done on law related to drones in Nalsar. Generally, technology marches ahead and law follows. We would like to have law schools which do not lag in terms of offering courses as technology surges ahead.

What are the key reforms that can be expected in legal education?

The legal acumen section in CLAT is immoral. We have suggested that the legal acumen section should either be dropped or differently done. The consortium had recently decided that major portion of the CLAT fee will be given to different NLUs so that they offer student scholarships, improve amenities, e-resources, etc. We don’t do justice by conducting the exam only in English. Those not comfortable in English are excluded from these elite institutions. We have to find a way out to improve diversity by conducting CLAT in other languages.

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