National Law School of India University

History

In 1987, NLSIU was established under the stewardship of its founder, then Vice-Chancellor N.R. Madhava Menon. The University has since had four more Vice-Chancellors, namely N. L. Mitra, A. Jayagovind, G. Mohan Gopal, and incumbent R. Venkata Rao, who took over in 2009.

The first batch of law students joined the school's undergraduate programme on July 1, 1988. Interestingly, classes commenced before the school's buildings had been fully constructed; thus, NLSIU actually began instruction at the premises of the Central College of Bangalore University and continued therein until November 1991. The school then formally moved to its present-day location in Nagarbhavi, a suburb of Bangalore.

Admissions

Admissions to NLSIU are extremely competitive. Initially, they were done on the basis of an entrance exam conducted by the University itself. After a Supreme Court of India ruling directing that multifarious law entrance examinations must be conducted together, the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) was introduced in 2008, which serves as the qualifying examination for the university. Recognising NLU's value in the legal education landscape of India, the opportunity to conduct the first CLAT was given to NLSIU. As of now, all admissions in NLSIU, for both undergraduate (LLB) and postgraduate programme (LLM) are made on the basis of performance in the CLAT. In 2015, for the Undergraduate CLAT, a total of 40,000 students contested for a mere 55 seats, making the examination one of the most competitive in India.

For the recently introduced Master of Public Policy (MPP) Programme, candidates are selected through the Policy Aptitude Test followed by personal interviews held at the NLSIU campus itself.

Undergraduate

NLSIU offers undergraduates a five-year integrated B.A./LL.B. programme which, upon completion, qualifies the student to sit for the bar to practice law in India.

The LL.B. is the standard undergraduate degree in law offered in most common law countries. The United States is the only common law nation that no longer offers the LL.B. degree. While the LL.B. was conferred by Yale University until 1971, all U.S. law schools have since conferred the professional doctorate J.D.

The undergraduate B.A./LL.B. curriculum at NLSIU consists of a mix of social science and legal subjects. In the first two years, the law student attends courses on history, political science, sociology and economics alongside standard legal subjects, such as torts, contracts and constitutional law. In the latter three years, legal subjects dominate the curriculum. Students are selected by merit through the nationally administered Common Law Admission Test (CLAT).

Postgraduate

NLSIU offers both coursework and research degrees at the postgraduate level. The LL.M. is a one-year coursework degree. The M.Phil., LL.D. and/or Ph.D. degrees, all aim at producing leading research scholars in all forms of legal academic pursuit, from legal history to jurisprudence. Therefore, postgraduate students are designated Research Scholars by the school. For LL.M. postgraduate students, NLSIU presently offers two lines of specialisation: Business Law and Human Rights Law. There are currently 25 seats for Human Rights Law and 25 seats for Business Law. Two seats are reserved for foreign nationals. A detailed prospectus can be obtained from NLSIU on payment of the requisite fee or downloaded free from the university's website.

On its 25th year, NLSIU has launched a new Master of Public Policy programme. MPP is a two-year residential programme organised in six trimesters. Candidates are admitted on the basis of a Policy Aptitude Test, followed by interview. The class size of MPP programme is 40 for the batch of 2014-16, out of which ten seats are reserved for scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and physically disabled candidates. Five seats are available for foreign nationals. Admission for a candidate belonging to foreign national category is based on the mark/grade of graduation, aptitude exhibited in the application form and work experience (MPP, NLSIU).

In addition to the above full-time programmes, NLSIU also offers several part-time distance learning programmes, including a Masters Degree in Business Law called MBL and Postgraduate Diploma programmes in Human Rights Law, Medical Law, Environmental Law and IP Law.

UGC has asked National Law School of India University to change the name of its flagship course – Master of Public Policy.

Rankings

NLSIU was ranked first on both the Outlook India Top 10 Law Colleges of 2016 and Mint Top 15 Law Colleges of 2006, first on the India Today India's Best law Colleges 2015. and also ranked No. 1 in Careers360 ranking of top law schools in India 2016.

However a recent School Review Commission appointed by the Chief Justice of India, and headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice K.T. Thomas and having Prof. Virendra Kumar Director Academics of the Chandigarh Judicial Academy (CJA, Chandigarh) and Prof. Mahendra Pal Singh former Vice Chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata to review the 24-year-old University strongly criticised the “dismal state of affairs” at NLSIU, and found evidence of just 4–6 hours of classroom teaching a week, rising instances of drug abuse and indifference to plagiarism in student project reports and decline in serious research pursuit and academic rigour.

Melgiri Memorial National Law Library

The Narayan Rao Melgiri Memorial National Law Library at NLSIU is the largest law library in the country, housing a collection of over 40,000 bound volumes in addition to periodical holdings.

The Melgiri Library was inaugurated by Chief Justice of India R.C. Lahoti on August 27, 2005. The library was built through generous contributions from the University Grants Commission (India), New Delhi and Chairwoman Sudha Murthy of the Infosys Foundation.

UNHCR Chair for Refugee Law

In 1995, the first UNHCR Chair for Refugee Law was inaugurated at NLSIU. N. Subramanya worked on issues pertaining to refugees during his tenure as researcher under the UNHCR Chair and in 2004 two of his books about refugees were published.

The Student Bar Association

The Student Bar Association (SBA) is the umbrella body that coordinates all student activities; all students are de facto members of the SBA. The SBA has created various Activity-Based Committees (ABCs) which are in charge of specific student activities.

NLSIU has a total of twelve ABCs which coordinate the activities of the Student Bar Association (SBA). These committees are re-constituted every year. The Co-ordination Council consists of the Convenors/Joint Convenors of the ABCs. This Council is responsible for ensuring that the various ABCs function coherently. A wide range of internal as well as inter-institutional activities throughout the academic year are organised by the ABCs and the Co-ordination Council.

Competitive debating

NLSIU plays an active role in promoting parliamentary debate in India. The school regularly participates in many international competitions and is currently the highest-ranking Indian team in the World rankings. NLSIU reached the ESL Finals in 2002 and in 2007 at the World Universities Debating Championship. It also recently won the 15th All Asian Debating Championships held in Dhaka in 2008. Three out of the four semi-finalist teams, and six of the top ten speakers, were from NLSIU. Another boost for the Parliamentary Debate movement in NLSIU came in the form of the Cambridge University Debate Competition 2009, where the NLSIU team became the first South Asian team to "make the break" and reach the second round of the competition. NLSIU teams have also performed extremely well in the inaugural Asians BP Tournament held in Chulalongkorn University, with all three of its teams reaching the semi finals of the tournament, and two out of the top ten speakers (and four in the top 20). Since then, NLS has reached the Semi-finals of the United Asian Debating Championships held at Assumption University, Bangkok, in 2010. The NLSIU team of Anil Sebastian Pulickel and Aniruddha Basu have also been finalists at ABP. NLSIU speakers are consistently ranked at the top of parliamentary debates at the national and international level.

NLSIU also hosts South Asia's biggest Parliamentary Debate Competition. The inaugural edition of the NLS Debate was held in 2002. The competition brings together participants from across South Asia. In 2011, NLSIU's Literary and Debating Society launched two new initiatives – the NLS Union Debate and the NLS Debate Junior. Christ Junior College is also organising a parliamentary debate, in a tie-up with NLS.

Moot court competitions

As regards its performance in Moot Court competitions, NLSIU is the only law school in South Asia to have won the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition after winning the India Rounds organised by Surana and Surana Moots. It has won the Jessup Cup twice, in 1999 and 2013. Raag Yadava was named Best Oralist at the 2013 tournament. NLSIU won the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court competition, again on 2 separate occasions. In 2009, NLSIU emerged as the World Champion of the Manfred Lachs Space Moot Court Competition, defeating State University of New York School of Law in the final round held at Daejeon, South Korea. In 2012, NLSIU won the competition for the second time, also picking up the best team, best memorandum and the best oralist awards. NLSIU also participates regularly in the annual Monroe E. Price Media Law Moot Court Competition at the University of Oxford.

Journals published

There are numerous journals published by the students and faculty at NLSIU. A full list can be found on the website. The most prominent among them are:

NLSIU in fiction

NLSIU forms part of the setting of Satyajit Sarna's 2012 bestselling novel The Angel's Share. NLSIU is described in the following terms:

To understand why, I suppose you have to look at the epistemology of the institution. Take one part AngloAmerican liberal arts college, with its homoerotic GraecoRoman heritage and interminable quest for the Truth. Add one part German technical institute, with its Teutonic backbone and commitment to producing professionals. Toss in two tablespoons of post-Nehruvian idealism and a pinch of postmodernism as seasoning, bake for fifteen years and garnish with the southern sunshine. Serve hot with cold lager.

Even after the lunar sadness of the end game, I cannot think of Law School with anything but warmth. It was still a young institution, vibrating with the different strokes it accommodated, when Sasha and I were there. Poverty and development activists, who were arrested for protesting big dams, coal mines, nuclear plants. Gay rights activists, trying to get the courts to read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code and allow them to joyfully bugger each other without being arrested for it. Constitutional and governmental theoreticians, feverishly rejigging concepts so big it was hard to see how they related to anything on the temporal plane. Feminists like Rohini, with her voluptuous body and melancholy eyes, so beautiful that she would make women angry and boys guilty. Corporate and commercial nuts so determined to serve money that they made it look noble. Even with all this in the air, it was a dreamy world, a paradise of pot, beer and sunshine, a culture of dissent and idiosyncratic actions, of practical jokes.

The Angel's Share attracted controversy upon its publication due to its frank descriptions of sex and drugs on the campus of India's premier law school as well as its outspoken criticism of corporate law firms.