Report No. 14
41. Combination of employment or post-graduate studies with legal education to stop.-
The evidence shows that there has been in several places, a large influx of students into the law colleges and that in some places admission has to be refused. The scheme envisaged by us of adequately staffed full time institutions where modern methods of teaching would be used will necessarily result in the refusal of admission to a considerable number of students who now reek to enter these colleges. Those in employment and those prosecuting other studies at the University or elsewhere•will naturally be ineligible for admission to these full-time institutions.
42. Part-time diploma courses.-
It should, in our view, be possible for the Universities to meet the demands of those who, while not wishing to enter the profession seek part-time instruction in law, in order to better their prospects in their employment or for other purposes. Persons with a knowledge of law are preferred in many public and private employments and we feel that it is right that the Universities should devise methods for supplying these needs. This can be done by the Universities instituting diploma courses for which part-time instruction may be given in the mornings or evenings. These may be followed by a suitable examination, success in which would entitle the examinee to a diploma in law.
43. Admission to law colleges to be restricted by tests.-
In spite of the institution of such part-time courses for this class of students, the students seeking admission to the full-time institutions may exceed the number which these institutions can admit if they are to be run in the efficient manner we have envisaged. It is obvious that the number of admissions will have to be limited by deference to various considerations such as the accommodation available for housing the classes, the numbers of the teaching staff and the nature of the library and other facilities available to each institution. The admission of a number larger than what an institution can efficiently teach will result in the deterioration in the quality of the instruction imparted in it.
If the numbers seeking admission exceed the accommodation available in these institutions, we would unhesitatingly recommend the institution of a system of selecting the entrants by subjecting them to a test as in the engineering and medical colleges. The excess of students seeking admission over the accommodation available in our education institutions is a general problem facing the authorities in all the branches of education and is inseparably linked up with the larger question of finding avenues of employment for our young men. Attempts to solve this problem are being made by the Planning Commission and other Governmental bodies.
44. Legal research necessary.-
Closely allied to the subject of University legal education is that of research in law. We have made a reference to this subject earlier. "The challenge which I think is being put to the law schools by our times is that, in addition to being effective teaching agencies, they should become, on a scale far greater than has heretofore been the case, centres for the carrying on of research into the law and its development and its application to the solution of current problems, encountered in the adjustment of human relations"1 The law schools have been compared to scientific, technical and medical schools. In the technical schools, many of the personnel engage themselves in research activities side by side with teaching activities.
The research so conducted contributes to the efficiency of teaching. The students themselves "can often engage directly in the research activities, especially the more advanced students, and can derive great educational benefits from such work".2 It has been asked that if a medical school or a physics department cannot be considered efficient unless it carried on research activities, why should it be different with a law school? "Can it be said that the problem of the adjustment of human relations, with which the law deals, are any less important or any less difficult than those which are dealt with in the natural sciences?"3
1. "Educating lawyers for a changing world": Erwin N. Grisweld American Bar Association Journal, Nov. 1951, p. 805-806.
2. Ibid, p. 806.
3. Ibid, p. 806.
45. Need in India.-
The task of promoting research and combining it with teaching which has been advocated in the United States as being within the legitimate sphere of the law schools falls in our country, probably more appropriately, within the scope of the activities of the Universities. Our needs in this respect are greater than those of the United States or of England where research projects and programmes in law are already being carried on by a number of institutions and have resulted in valuable and learned publications on different legal subjects.
The remedy lies in our Universities establishing institutions where legal research can be carried on. Such institutions have been established by some of the Universities for research on scientific and economic subjects and the establishment of similar institutions for legal research is essential.
At the moment, hardly any research in law is being carried on at any of the Universities. Most of the Universities are merely holding examinations conferring higher degrees in law like the LL.M., or the M.L. Legal research, like research in other subjects, can be individual and collective and has to be directed by distinguished scholars in law in adequately equipped institutions. No doubt, the institution of some lectureships like the Tagore Law Lectures has resulted in stimulating legal thought and has resulted in the publication of notable treatises on certain legal subjects.
But far more needs to be done in the direction of establishing centres at which legal research can be carried out, and of instituting fellowships and granting scholarships which can be taken advantage of by persons eager to undertake research in law. In the matter of higher studies in law in the Universities, the emphasis again has unfortunately been in the direction of examinations rather than towards the stimulation of original thought, and the training of students in the writing of theses on legal subjects which, if they possess the necessary merit, would entitle them to a decree.
46. Financial aid necessary for research.-
We are conscious that these research centres which we advocate must involve substantial financial obligations. We are also conscious that all our resources are being collected and put to the utmost strain in order that our nation building activities may proceed in the true order of priority. Nevertheless, we are of the view that law as a subject of study and research is, in the interest of the nation, entitled to a reasonable share in the large outlays that are being made for its progress.
47. Professional training necessary for lawyers (After taking the degree).-
We have already recommended the division of training into two years' training in the principles and theory of the law to be imparted in full-time institutions and a year's practical training to be imparted under the direction of a body of professional men. At the end of the University training of two years, the law graduate will have to decide whether he wishes to embark on an academic career through research in law or a professional career through a practical training in law. As has been said by the Bombay Legal Education Committee "there cannot be water-tight compartments in the study of law and that the scientific study of law cannot be completely divorced from the professional, and that the work which the two bodies will be doing will be more or less complementary."1
1. Report, p. 38, para. 75.
The inter-relation of the two kinds of training-academic and professiona.-was explained and emphasized by the Legal Education Committee in England presided over by Lard Atkin.-"It is inevitable that instruction in law, whether given for University course or for professional qualification, must, to some extent, be the same just as the test by examination of proficiency in law will be to some extent the same. Your committee fully accept the principle that it is for the professional bodies alone to decide what degree of professional knowledge shall qualify for admission to the profession and to determine the tests by which that proficiency shall be ascertained.
It is inherent in the differentiation of function of University and professional body that the teaching and examination in such a subject as law should to some extent differ. The professional body will necessarily emphasise the practical side of the teaching and test proficiency from that point of view. The application of principles to concrete cases, the multitudinous provisions of statute law must form a considerable part of the body of knowledge required from a student before he is "let loose" upon a world of laymen. The University is more concerned with the teaching of law as part of the universities as of knowledge; it will necessarily emphasise principles and, as far as it can, will develop the scientific side of its subject. Nevertheless it would be a mistake to exaggerate the distinction between academic and professional teaching of law."1
1. Report, p. 6 cited in the Report of the Bombay Legal Education Committee, pp. 38 and 39.
A practical training is as essential to the making of a professional lawyer as a thorough academic training. The matter has been picturesquely put in the following words by a writer: "All the theory in the world ill equips the lawyer who has all the legal lore at his fingertips, but doesn't know how to draw a summons, a will, a deed or a bill of sale. Law schools furnish their graduates with new shiny potent tools. Unfortunately, the average graduate has as little knowledge of how to use them as a two-year old child has of how to use a blow torch.1 The position of a law graduate freshly emerging from a law school has been forcibly but justly described as follows:2
1. "Inadequate law school training", American Bar Association Journal, March 1951, pp. 203-204.
2. Performance courses in the study of law, American Bar Association journal, January 1950, p. 17.
"The graduate has studies real property but probably has never examined abstract of title-He passed contracts, but he has never written one-He may have led his class in Wills, yet he has never prepared one".
Perhaps, Chief Justice Vanderbilt had graduates of this kind in mind when he observed that law schools should be concerned not only with the principles of law "but with the know-how of putting the principles to work. The law schools of the country cannot continue to lag behind the engineering and scientific schools with their laboratory work or the medical colleges with their clinics. It is not right that young lawyers should learn the skills required in the profession at the expense of their clients."1
1. Cited by the American Bar Association Journal, Nov. 1952, in the article captioned "Is legal education doing its job", pp. 907-908.
48. Practical training by professional bodies.-
We have to consider the nature of the bodies to which the task of imparting this practical instruction and holding the necessary tests at the end of it should be entrusted. The legal profession is vitally interested in this task because it will be the examination at the end of this practical training which will regulate the entrance to the profession. A body consisting of professional men would be the most competent to lay down from time to time the essential requirements of this practical training and the nature of the test that should follow it.
In England, the practical training is imparted and the professional examination regulated by a body called the Council of Legal Education which consists exclusively of representatives of the Inns of Court which in turn are bodies of professional men. As already noticed, in America, practical training is in some of the States given at the law schools at the same time as academic training. However, in a number of States, the profession has a voice in the regulation of training for admission to the Bar inasmuch as only persons trained at schools of law approved by the American Bar Association are admitted to the Bar. The Bar Association lays down certain minimum standards to be attained by the law schools for recognition by the association which maintains and publishes a list of approved and unapproved law schools. Before according its approval to an institution, the association inspects the schools.
49. Apprentice courses-Bar Council lectures and examinations.-
Since the constitution of the Bar Councils under the Bar Councils Act of 1926, Bar Councils in several States have been holding examinations in procedural matters, which are a condition for admission to the Bar in exercise of the powers conferred on them by rules framed under section 9 of the Act. In some of the States like Madras, in addition to holding examinations in procedural and other matters, the Bar Council has instituted courses of lectures which the entrants to the examination are bound to attend. A certain course of apprenticeship has also been made a condition precedent, except in some special cases, to being allowed to appear at the Bar Council examination in Madras.
50. All-India Bar Committee's recommendations.-
The question of imparting a practical training before admission to the Bar was considered by the All-India Bar Committee and they expressed the view that the State Bar Councils should arrange for lectures for the practical training which they call "the apprentice course" and for holding an examination at the end of that course1, Having regard to the facts and considerations mentioned above, we are of the view that the task of imparting this practical instruction and holding an examination at the end of it should be entrusted to our Bar Councils which are statutorily recognised bodies consisting mostly on professional men.
1. Report, p. 23, para. 60.
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