Life in Law School
National law schools are the best places for legal education in the country and this is because of the wide range of subjects and topics, from the conventional ones such as Criminal Laws, Torts, Constitution, Contracts etc to the very modern ones such as Law and Economics, Cyber Law, Outer Space Law, Law and Literature etc. Law schools offer 5 year integrated BA/BSc/BBA LLB Honours courses at the undergraduate level, mostly in the semester system. Thus, most of the undergraduate Integrated LLB courses comprise of 10 semesters, and there are 5 subjects per semester. Therefore, most of the National Law Schools offer 50 subjects over a span of 5 years and a law student has to successfully appear in 50 subjects to get their degree. Only National Law School Bangalore follows a trimester model and hence an NLS Bangalore student has to go through 15 semesters for their course.
Along with the conventional end-semester examinations, the students have to write papers as projects or participate in assignments such as tutoring or clinic exercises, and each of these carry marks, which add up to the marks obtained in the end-semester examinations to form he final score, based on which the grade point averages are given to the students. The cumulative grade point average (CGPA) is the most authentic indicator of a law student’s academic prowess and even campus recruiters such as law firms and companies consider this CGPA as the most important factor in determining a law student’s merit.
Along with the conventional end-semester examinations, the students have to write papers as projects or participate in assignments such as tutoring or clinic exercises, and each of these carry marks, which add up to the marks obtained in the end-semester examinations to form he final score, based on which the grade point averages are given to the students. The cumulative grade point average (CGPA) is the most authentic indicator of a law student’s academic prowess and even campus recruiters such as law firms and companies consider this CGPA as the most important factor in determining a law student’s merit.
Apart from the co-curricular activities, law schools offer their students several avenues to pursue their passions and hobbies including sports, music, theater, painting, fashion-designing creative writing, elocution etc. Every national law school organises its own music fest and sports fest on which bands, musicians and sports teams from all the law schools participate. Most law schools also organise their own fashion shows, music contests, theater performances and inter-batch cricket and football tournaments. All these keep the law school campuses vibrant and active throughout the year.
All the law schools have paper-submission as a part of their curriculum and the students are marked on their research papers for almost every subject. Students are also encouraged to publish the papers in the legal journals of their respective Universities or of other law schools and Universities, or at prestigious national and international academic journals such JILI, EPW, Harder Law Review etc. Many law students and law school alumni have successfully published their articles, reviews and essays in several such journals. Such publications impart immense value to the CV of law students and help in getting scholarships, fellowships, endowments and other opportunities for further studies from national and international academic organisations, institutions and Universities.
Many law school graduates opt for higher studies through courses such as LLM, BCL (Bachelor of Civil Law) etc. Almost all the top foreign Universities such has Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Harvard, UCL, University of Columbia, University of Pennsylvania etc have had national law school graduates from India pursuing further studies in them. Foreign Universities prefer national law school students and national law school education helps the students in arranging for scholarships, fellowships, grants, endowments etc to finance their studies abroad.