Establishment of Lawyers’ Academy to Promote Legal Education— The Need of the Day

DOI10.1177/2322005817696545
Date01 July 2017
Published date01 July 2017
AuthorMadhubrata Mohanty
Subject MatterCommentary
07ALE696545_F.indd Commentary
Establishment of Lawyers’ Academy
Asian Journal of Legal Education
4(2) 176–181
to Promote Legal Education—
© 2017 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
The Need of the Day
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2322005817696545
http://ale.sagepub.com
Madhubrata Mohanty1
Abstract
The imparting of legal education has passed through a number of phases throughout its development,
but it is still in need of more promotion regarding its various perspectives. People from different strata
of the society still consider the legal profession as a last resort, sometimes due to lack of awareness
and sometimes due to lack of proper education. The poor performance of the institutions imparting
legal education can also be considered as an additional factor to this issue. At such a juncture, it is high
time to establish such an institution that would work for the promotion of legal education as well as
to train the budding lawyers of the country regarding the sanctity of legal profession so as to make this
profession the most alluring one amongst the law graduates. Only establishment of a lawyers’ academy
will not suffice; it should get the patronization of senior advocates, judges and academicians of high
repute. ‘Law’ has always acquired a distinct position in the mythology and history of Indian culture, be
in one form or other, and people have often been punished for ignorance of law. Still no remarkable
development has been made in the imparting of legal education, and now it is high time to think of the
matter seriously, and instead of promoting for legal process outsourcing by our legal professionals for
foreign countries, let more and more opportunities be created by our own country to accommodate
these professionals to serve our own country.
Introduction
The concept of legal education in India dates back to the Vedic period when the pupils in the Gurukul
Ashram used to study law within the concept of Dharma. During that period also while administering
justice, the kings used to depend upon those persons having doubtless integrity with fairness and
impartiality and being guided by the principles of Dharma. Historical analysis also shows the importance
of law and legal education in ancient India when kings used to depend upon ministers having special
knowledge on law while deciding a matter. The world history reveals how at different times different
countries were led by eminent leaders who happened to be great lawyers of their times—be it Thomas
1 S‘O’A National Institute of Law (SNIL), Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.
Corresponding author:
Madhubrata Mohanty, Associate Professor, S‘O’A National Institute of Law (SNIL), Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan
University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.
E-mail: madhubratamohanty@soauniversity.ac.in

Mohanty 177
Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln or Mahatma Gandhi. Prior to British rule in India, there was no institution
to impart legal education as a separate subject. It was only when the three universities were set up in the
presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay in 1857, legal education was introduced as a separate
subject there. After that slowly other universities too adopted legal education in their curriculum.
However, at that time as there was a scarcity in the number of law colleges as well as quality teachers,
persons having affordable capacity preferred to go abroad to get a law degree. Towards the end of the
British rule, though there was a drastic rise in the number of law colleges in India, the quality of products
was highly disappointing, the reason being the absence of any proper rule for starting law courses and
the qualifications for the faculties. This trend continued for quite a considerable period up to the 1950s.
This decline in the quality of legal education was well depicted in the report of the Radhakrishnan
Commission as follows: ‘Our colleges of law do not hold a place of high esteems either at home or
abroad, nor has law become an era of profound scholarship and enlightened research.’
After a decade of publication of the report of the Radhakrishnan Commission, in 1958 the Law
Commission in its14th report rightly observed the decline in the quality of legal education in the follo-
wing terms: ‘In the period of about ten years which has lapsed since the publication of the Radhakrishnan
commission report, the position in regard to legal education in this...

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