National Law University, Jodhpur

History

The National Law University, Jodhpur was set up in November 1999 (by the passing of the National Law University Act,1999 by the State Legislature of Rajasthan) under the leadership of Dr. N.L. Mitra. Since then the University has seen three more Vice-Chancellors. The first batch (both under-graduate and post-graduate) of the University was admitted in the year 2001. The first under-graduate batch passed out in 2006 with their graduation ceremony (First Convocation) organised in January 2007 and attended by the then Vice-President of India Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and the then Governor of Rajasthan and formerly the President of India H.E. Mrs. Pratibha Patil.

The second under-graduate batch passed out in 2007 and the Convocation ceremony for them was organised on 29 March 2008 and was attended by the then Home Minister, Government of India, Mr. Shivraj Patil.

Admission

Admissions to NLUJ are extremely competitive. 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. All admissions in NLUJ, 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 115 seats, making the examination one of the most competitive in India.

Academics

Established in 2001, National Law University claims to be the first institution of its kind in the country where study of law is coupled with other disciplines such as Science, Management Science and Policy Sciences. It introduced for the first time the degree of B.B.A., LL.B. (Hons) (i.e. Management and Law) in the country, requiring the students of the course to undertake specialised courses in Management Studies (such as Audit, Accounting, Principles of Management, Organisational Behaviour, Marketing, Strategy, etc.) and assimilate the learning therein especially with the fast evolving corporate and financial laws.

As the University itself puts it, National Law University only answers the intention to do the same from the entire country following the traditions of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in technology education, Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) in the management education and All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) in medical education. Terming its establishment as a Third Generation Experiment, the University calls forth and furthers the need behind viewing and handling legal education today in a multidisciplinary scenario. Keeping this objective of multidisciplinary total education in view and the growing needs of legal profession in the global context, the university has established five schools of learning. These are School of Policy Science, School of Management, School of Science, School of Languages and School of Law, which not only intertwines the knowledge of other disciplines with the subject of law but also allows the students a choice in designing their courses of specialisation and thus making experts in their respective fields.

Towards these ends, the University offers five year integrated undergraduate programme in three streams B.A.,LL.B. (Hons.); B.B.A., LL.B. (Hons.); and B.PSc., LL.B. (Hons.), each with a vision to integrate the knowledge of law with humanities, management and natural sciences respectively. In this under-graduate programme, not only all the compulsory subjects prescribed by the Bar Council of India are taught in the comparative context but the University also administers Honours courses in seven specialised disciplines, namely;

The University claims to have taken great care in structuring various subjects to make the Honours courses in their respective streams innovative and knowledge oriented. Further, to keep the syllabus in line with world developments, the University has a Advisory Board to advise and assist the faculty in the development and teaching of a customised and updated curriculum.

The University highlights various critical issues facing the legal education and equally the profession today in the light of the growth and complexities in other disciplines of social life and insists upon these being addressed in the teaching of law. Some of these critical areas identified by the University

To accentuate these objectives, the University practices various methods of teaching & learning process such as co-operative teaching, case studies, lecture demonstration, group discussions, and self-conducted research. Evaluation is continuous. As a teaching-learning process, courtroom exercises are an integral part of the curriculum from the first year. The University has found these exercises to be highly successful in sharpening the lawyering skills in the students and providing them a real life exposure to the profession.

In addition to the above, the University also takes pride in its eight centres of learning which it describes as the Centres of Studies & Research namely,

The University also conducts several short and medium term orientation, training and refresher courses for NGOs, Government officials and public administrators, local self-Government, legal professionals including members of the bar and the bench, other administrative authorities and corporate officials.

Courses offered

The degrees offered at the under-graduate level are;

All of these are ten semester courses, and are open to students only on a fully residential basis. Since 2008, the admission to these courses is through the nationwide Common Law Admission Test, the first of which took place on 11 May 2008.

At the post-graduate level the degrees offered are:

The admission to these courses is through the National Entrance Tests organised by the University each year. It is one of the only 3 national law universities in the country that do not have a State domicile reservation.

Visitors to the National Law University, Jodhpur

In its short life, the University has had various national and international visitors. Some of these have been;

The University has also been organising and hosting various lectures and discussions by members of the legal and scholarly fraternity. Some of the previous lectures have been as under;

The University also hosted the Second All India Law Teachers Conference (AILTC) held on 29–30 January 2006 and attended by the law teachers from all over the country.

Moot Courts and Students' Achievements

Moot Courts are needed for legal education today and they are well integrated into the curriculum of the University. They are a part of the University's culture both internally and externally. On the external side, since its establishment, the University has been hosting the M.M. Singhvi Bar Council of India Trust Moot Court Competition, organised to commemorate the memory of the late M.M. Singhvi, a lawyer in India. The Competition is organised under the aegis of the M.M. Singhvi Memorial Trust and the Bar Council of India. Teams from almost all law colleges in the country participate in the Competition and since 2007, the competition has turned international with even teams from outside India participating in the Competition.

The University also hosted the North Indian rounds of the Stetson Environmental Law Moot Court Competition, which is another Moot Court Competition. Apart from this, the University has also hosted the Surana & Surana National Corporate Law Moot Court Competition which is sponsored by Surana and Surana.

In February 2010 the Moot Court Committee of the University hosted the First NLU AntiTrust Law Moot Court Competition. The specialised theme for this Moot Court Competition is AntiTrust Law, also known as Competition Law. This Competition is organised under the aegis of the Competition Commission of India, a statutory regulatory body and Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan Attorneys, a tax-based law firm. The Second NLU AntiTrust Law Moot Court Competition was held from 17 to 20 February 2011.

On the internal front, moot courts are well integrated into the curriculum of the University. In all law subjects (beginning right from the first semester of the undergraduate programme), 15–20 percent of the marks are earmarked for moot courts and are assessed by the panel of two or three judges (teaching faculty or retired judges) where the students are required to address the court on the problem related to the subject matter being taught in the paper and assessed upon their performance. Based on the cumulative performance in these internal moot courts and other criteria, the Moot Court Committee organises an intra-University moot court competition once in each semester and depending upon the rankings of these intra-University moot court competitions, the students are sent to represent the University in various National and International Moot Court Competitions.

The students have performed well in various national and international moot court competitions. The first national competition was won in 2004 when the team composed of Manmeet Singh Rai ('08) and Sagarika Chakraborty ('08) won the national rounds of the Louis M. Brown Client Counseling Competition held at the Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur. The team subsequently represented India at the World finals of the Louis M. Brown Client Counseling Competition at Glasgow.

Since then the University has been victorious at the Susan J. Ferrell Inter-cultural Human Rights Moot Court Competition conducted by the St. Thomas University, Florida, in January 2007. The team composed of Anil Raj ('07), Gauarav Solanki ('07), Reshma Khan ('08), Kunal Mehta ('08) and Riddhi Sancheti ('09) secured the first position and also the second best memorial prize. Also, Reshma Khan and Riddhi Sancheti were awarded the "Best Oralist" and the "Third Best Oralist" respectively.

Besides, the University was an Elimination Round Participant (Frederic Eisemann Award) at the Fifteenth Annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, 2008 held in Vienna. The University team participating in the East edition of the Vis Moot held in Hong Kong also won several accolades, including Honourable Mentions for personal achievements by the speakers.

The University has qualified four times to represent India at the Shearman and Sterling Rounds (White and Case Rounds since the 2009–10 edition) of the elite Jessup Moot Court Competition (2005–06, 2006–07, 2008–09, 2009–10) and was Octa-Finalist in the 2008–09 and 2009–10 Editions.

In 2012, the University team consisting of Aritra Roy, Lakshmi Neelakantan and Jai Sahai has won the International Rounds of the Stetson Environmental Law Moot Court Competition 2012. This team also won the Surana and Surana Stetson India North Rounds earlier year.

The University team has also been a consistent performer at the Stetson International Environmental Moot Court Competition, having had won "Best Advocate" and "Best Memoranda" awards in many editions of the event. The team represented by Kartikey Mahajan ('11) and Meha Rashmi('11) won the 2009 edition of the North India rounds of the Stetson. They were also quarter finalists at the International rounds of the Stetson moot.

In 2009, for the second year in running the University qualified for the International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition to be held in Hague in 2010. They bagged the award for the 'Best Victims' Counsel' in the 2010 edition. Only two teams from India had qualified for this competition.

In 2009, two members of the team representing the University at the Investment Law Arbitration Moot held at Frankfurt, Germany bagged honourable mentions for their speaking.

Teams from the University have received the Sarah Derrington Achievement Award twice at the International Maritime Law Moot Court Competition, Perth.

Students from the University (team comprising Joydeep Sarkar ('09), Kartikeya Saran ('09) and Nupur Kabra ('08) in 2008 and team comprising Rishabh Chopra ('10), Shashank Prabhat Kumar ('10) and Meghana Sharafudeen ('11) in 2009) have also been selected to represent India at two editions of the Jean Pictet Competition on International Humanitarian Law. It also has been a consistent performer in the All India Bar Council Moot Court Competition, the premier moot court competition in India.

Apart from this, the students have attended various international and national conferences. In 2008, two students – Adarsh Ramanujam ('09) and Siddhartha Shukla ('09) and also in 2011, Aman Bhattacharya ('12) – were shortlisted for the final stage of interview for the Rhodes Scholarship.

NLU Jodhpur is the only University in the country to have a dedicated gold medal for mooting. An alumni couple, Sameer Sah ('07) and Priyanki Sah ('07), have sponsored the Sunil Kumar Sah and Kum Kum Sah Memorial Moot Court for Excellence in Mooting and the first recipient of this medal was Vinayak Pannikar ('15).

Publications

As a premier national institution that seeks to promote critical thinking and quality scholarship National Law University, Jodhpur publishes two academic journals: NLUJ Law Review'; and Trade, Law and Development.

NLUJ Law Review, published twice a year, is the flagship journal of the University. It is a bi-annual, double-blind student reviewed, and student-edited journal focusing on an inter-disciplinary approach towards legal writing. Currently, the Board of Editors consists of two faculty editors and a board of student editors at the University.

Trade, Law and Development is a student-run journal launched by National Law University in 2009. TL&D seeks to explore interdisciplinary perspectives on world trade, international law, environment and development. The Journal is published twice a year, both online and in print. TL&D is staffed by student editors from the University. It is currently ranked as the best law journal in India across all fields by the Washington & Lee University rankings for years 2011-2013. It was also ranked as the 10th Best Trade Law journal in the world from 2011-2013. In addition, the Journal has a Board of Advisors, composed of Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati, Prof. Raj Bhala, Prof. B.S. Chimni, Prof. M. Sornarajah, Prof. Vaughan Lowe Daniel B. Magraw, and Glenn Wiser. The Journal published its first issue in July 2009. The theme for the latest issue of the journal is "Trade and Climate Change".

Other journals of the university include the "Journal Of Governance" and the "Indian Journal on International Arbitration".

Student Activities

The Legal Aid Clinic of National Law University, Jodhpur spreads legal awareness amongst the rural masses of Rajasthan through educational street plays and free legal advice.

In September 2009, the Sports Committee of the University hosted Yuvardha, the University's first Inter Law College Sports Fest. The success inspired the Jodhpur students to a new high. The student body then came up with a football league for law students- Lex la Liga (league of lawyers). The league is a professionally organised system based on a 5-a-side format (popularly known as 'Futsal'), played between five teams owned by individuals or consortia of students and alumni. It is run by a student managed University Football Association- the 'Asociación De Fútbol De La Universidad', inspired by cricket's Indian Premier League, with a 'Commissioner' and a 'Sheriff' to oversee the entire league. The first edition of this league was successfully conducted in January–March 2010.

The University hosted its first Inter Law College Literary and Cultural Fest named NH-65 from 7 to 10 October 2010. Deriving its name from the location of the University on National Highway No. 65, the fest had a wide array of events including the flagship Parliamentary Debate, Presidential Debate, Mega Quiz and two concerts. It is presently in its 6th year, and will be held on October 6 to 9 of 2016.

IT Infrastructure

National Law University provides 24*7 Internet access to every student. It has subscribed to various Online Law Libraries like Westlaw (India and UK), Jstor, Hein Online, Lexis Nexis, Kluwer Arbitration, Kluwer Online and Manupatra which makes cases and research material available easily. It has Wireless Networking in the form of 802.11g Wi-Fi available in the Academic Block with internet speed of 2 Mbit/s, Library Building and Mess. Ethernet Wiring with internet speed of 8 Mbit/s round the clock is provided in every hostel room. This enables the faculty to share study and research material on the University Local Area Network.