Law Schools offer exciting career opportunities

  


Careers in engineering and medicine are so popular amongst Indian students that they rarely look beyond these options if they get the right grades and if their parents have sufficient money to finance their education in these courses. Believers in destiny that we Indians are, we just “hope for the best” & presume that a degree in engineering or medicine will open up an “Ali Baba’s cave” (profitable opportunity) for our children! Other career options are either not researched enough or are looked upon as “last resorts” – to be pursued with the disappointment of having “missed the bus”. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Let us learn about an excellent career option that is not only challenging & profitable but prestigious enough for everyone to get “aboard”

There are six “National law schools” (known by different names but popularly called as law schools) in India which offer a five years composite law course after HSSC (XII) that leads to a Bachelors’ in Law (L.L.B.) together with (& this is interesting) a Bachelors’ in Arts / Science (B.A. or B.Sc.) or sometimes even a Bachelors’ in Business Administration (B.B.A.). So your child can be a B.Sc. L.L.B. or B.B.A.L.L.B. or B.A.L.L.B. within just five years of his/her matriculation.

Now when I was young, studying for a L.L.B. used to be really considered down-market and a sure confirmation that the Johnny couldn’t get admission anywhere else. L.L.B. used to be also considered as an option which could be pursued when you had “time” (while waiting for the supplementary examination of the university since you flunked the main one and did not know what else there was to do). Since all those young persons have now become parents, they understandably twitch their nose in disapproval at LAW as a career option for their children. But the world has moved on! Law graduates passing out of these law schools do not generally practise law (which of course they can do by getting a “sanad” from any court in India); instead, they aspire to join the corporate world as assistant managers in the legal departments of big companies. Salaries are fairly decent (ranging from Rs 1.2 to 1.8 lacs per annum) and many of the employers are MNCs. Big corporations are so allergic to being sued by customers or other stakeholders that most of them have an in-house legal department that takes care of routine (& there are many) legal issues. With everyone getting “drag-them-to-court” minded, demand for internal legal managers is burgeoning.


Where are these law schools located?

All of them are either deemed universities or autonomous institutions. Most of them offer the five years composite course on a fully residential basis. The seven prominent ones are:

  • National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata.
  • NALSAR University, Hyderabad
  • National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore.
  • National Law Institute University (NLIU), Bhopal
  • National Law University (NLU), Jodhpur
  • National Law College, Mumbai
  • Symbiosis Society’s Law College (SSLC), Pune.


How does one get into these law schools?

An all India entrance test decides the admissions (except NLC, Mumbai). Except for NUJS, Kolkata, which holds its entrance test sometime in February, others hold their tests in the month of May. National Law College Mumbai does not conduct any test and admits students based on the students’ HSSC scores. Presently, all the institutes have separate entrance tests; this sometimes leads to two tests being scheduled on the same day. Whenever the number of students appearing for these tests increases and the law schools realize their common good, holding a common entrance test will probably become a reality.

Students can appear for these tests while they are in XII grade. They have to be below 20 years of age and are required to secure at least 50% marks in HSSC. Selling of admission forms is announced vide newspapers and students also have an option of buying the forms through the institute’s website. Many institutes also sell (at a reasonable price), actual question papers of the entrance examinations conducted in the previous years. The attached table gives important comparative information.


What do they ask in these entrance tests?

Generally the entrance tests are of two hours duration and carry negative marks for wrong answers. Most of the questions are “multiple choices – objective type” but there are also some descriptive questions and some of the institutes ask students to write a small analytical essay on a given issue. Typically, the test consists of the following sections:

  • Quantitative Ability: “Tenth class” arithmetic, algebra, geometry is included in this syllabus. You do not have to know anything about calculus.
  • Verbal Ability: Analogies, sentence sequencing, sentence completion, identifying grammatical errors, filling in the blanks, short reading & comprehension passages, synonyms & antonyms are included in this section.
  • Analytical Ability: Puzzles, coding, critical reasoning, syllogisms and problems that test your power of reasoning are included in this section.
  • Legal Reasoning: This includes preliminary knowledge of legal definitions and situations. This is the only section that students have to prepare carefully since they have never done it before.
  • General Knowledge & Awareness.
  • Essay.


Let me give you a typical example of a problem that tests ones reasoning ability.

There are six people W, H, M, C, G, F who are murderer, victim, judge, police, witness, hangman not necessarily in that order. There was no eye-witness, only circumstantial evidence. The murderer was sentenced to death. Read the following and determine who is who?

  • M knew both murderer and victim.
  • Judge asked C to describe the murder incident.
  • W was last to see F alive.
  • Police found G at the murder site.
  • H and W have never met.
With proper training, many students can therefore aspire to tread this exciting path.


"Mr. Prakash Shesh, the author, has done his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad after his Masters in Physics from I.I.T. New Delhi. You may send your feedback to him by choosing an option at the top right corner of this page."