The proliferation and brand dilution of National Law Universities

The National Law University (NLU) experiment started in 1987 with an aim to add new vigour to legal education, which in 70s and 80s seemed to have resigned itself to institutional mediocrity. Except for few institutions in presidency towns, the legal education was in a downward spiral. The stage was set for something new and Prof. Menon (though some say he was inspired by Prof. Bakshi) decided to experiment with the novel idea of a 5 year law education right after secondary school. This model was completely different from the then contemporary legal education models followed in the common law countries. In US students could enter law school only after completion of an undergraduate degree, while in UK students could enter legal studies directly after school and the period of study was 3 years followed by a one or two year period of 'apprenticeship' to apply for Bar (through BPTC formerly known as BVC and pupilage) or law firms (via LPC).

The 5 year integrated law school model strived hard on its own for a number of years before the stakeholders deemed it to be successful but once this verdict was reached there was no holding back. First off the blocks were NALSAR, NLIU and NUJS. After that the flood gates were open. Within a decade the number of NLUs jumped from one to fifteen.

If we look at the comparative growth of other institutions of national importance like IITs or IIMs, we find that these institutions had a long gestation period with slow growth before they moved into the expansion phase. However for law schools the growth has been exponential (as borne out by the graph above).

Many reasons can be attributed to this explosive growth of National Law Universities across India, one of the main cause is the little or no initial investment to be made by the state yet the enviable tag of a state with National Law University. Most of the new NLUs run from makeshift buildings which have little or no infrastructure to run a corporation school much less a NLU. Secondly all the NLUs are based on self financed model, which secures a steady flow of capital in form of fees, thus all it needs from state is a legislative Act and voila there is a new National Law University. If one looks at the newest law schools like NUSRL and NLS&JAA they hardly have any of their own infrastructure. The trend seems to have reached such alarming proportion that new law schools start off without faculty yet invite applications from students for admission. CLAT though path breaking in reducing cost and anxiety among law school aspirants, unwittingly end up providing students for these new institutions. If these institutions fail in long term then it would do immense harm to the law school brand and reputation. Thus it is in the interest of the collective NLU brand that older more established NLUs provide active mentorship to the fledgling institutions.

It would also be opportune at this moment to look at the recruitment statistics of NLUs. Arguably AMSS, AZB, Khaitan & Co., Luthra & Luthra and Trilegal are the biggest five domestic recruiters. If we look at the collective recruitment pattern in 2011 of these Big Five we would find that they tend to favour old NLUs over the rest of the law schools.

The recruitment graph shows a classic case of inverse triangle, where few law schools have disproportionately large share of the top end of the job market. If we believe that private sector is the best judge of quality then the trend is extremely worrisome as it tends to point out that there are serious faultlines somewhere in the system and a diminishing brand value of NLUs outside the few top institutions. The situation is quite similar for the new IITs where the graduating batches are offered a 'pittance' compared to 'more established' IITs.

Though recruitment stats alone should not constitute the measuring rod for quality of any institution or its students, however it seems that the time has come to reinvent the NLU brand. The only way forward for NLUs to revive itself is to have strong inter NLU exchanges of both faculty as well as students, strong and active mentor groups for new NLUs and an unambiguous moratorium on opening of new NLUs unless there is an existing infrastructure in terms of library, academic buildings and faculty. To end on a happy note NLUD seems to be have discovered the proper path on how best to open a new NLU - with a world class infrastructure, a 'charismatic' VC and an able faculty.

How to choose your law university in UK?

This is Part I of the series on ‘Doing LLM in UK’ aimed mostly at students from the various National Law Schools in India who aspire to study LLM in UK. In this part I try to discuss the finer and (mostly) broader nuances of choosing the right university in UK to pursue LLM. We must understand that just like no single sizes fits everyone, so too no single uni would satisfy the demand of every student and thus the choice of a uni would depend on various factors like the size of the pocket (both of the prospective student and his/her parent), career plan, merit, previous work experiences (real work not internships!!!), personal choices of the student etc.

The first step of any student who aims to pursue LLM in UK would be to draw up a list of top 20 tentative law unis, how do we do it? Just like in India there are lot of UK law uni rankings available, but we must remember that most of them talk about LLB and NOT LLM, having said that the rankings of Guardian and Times (requires login) may serve as a good indicator for LLM rank too. Another government sponsored ranking for law unis in UK is the RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) rankings, some tend to discount this ranking as dubious, but my personal opinion is that RAE rankings reflect LLM rankings better than say Guardian or Complete University LLB rankings. But lets be objective and collect all the top 10 unis from the three lists Guardian, Times/Complete University Guide and RAE – obviously there are going to be repetitions, and there would be some unique ones (unis which are mentioned in one list but nowhere near top 10 in other list). So finally you would get somewhere between 20 unis in your list. This is the master list. My list looked something like this Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, UCL, KCL, QMUL, SOAS, Nottingham, Warwick, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol, Kent, Reading, Strathclyde, Exeter, Dundee (this list is not of any ranking but merely collection of unis that I culled out from longer lists for more in-depth examination).

Let us look at the usual marks which a student needs to gain an offer of admission into these unis (please do remember that these are just ball park representative figure and may be different from the official minimum), to get into Oxbridge and LSE one needs at least 65% marks, for UCL, KCL and Edinburg its 60%, for QMUL, Nottingham and other red brick and plate glass unis its 55% and some other unis like Cardiff and SOAS even take student having a bare pass. Having said this I must remind readers that to get into the top 5 unis one needs to have some extra curricular achievements  (not just marks) and must be duly embellished in the statement of purpose.

So now depending on the marks you have scored you can shorten the list to say 15 (towards either the higher end or the lower depending on which end of the spectrum you fit in – this means that if you are a 70% holder only apply to the top 15, if you are 50% holder don’t waste your money by applying to Oxbridge)

However there is a small twist, an average LLM in UK including tuition and living cost would cost around 15-18 lakhs INR, thats a lot of money and many students want a scholarship, most of the unis have scholarships for masters students but the competition is fierce (I would in a later post write on how best to apply for a scholarship). So if you are a scholarship aspirant the list makes no sense as it is going to pit you against the best students in the top 20 unis, so spread the net wide and check on every uni website if they have scholarship and apply to all of them (they say beggars cant be choosers, but there’s no limit for number of attempts).

So the post in nutshell if you have unlimited budget, outstanding marks and influential reco then only apply to the first three on my list - Cambridge, Oxford, LSE and maybe UCL as an insurance. If you have unlimited budget, average marks then apply for KCL and QMUL (basically stay in London). If you require scholarship (which means you must have outstanding marks and influential reco) then apply to any uni which has a scholarship for masters and then select the topmost uni in your list which offers you a scholarship.

Ranking of law schools based on CLAT student preference 2010

Last year after several periodicals published their law school rankings, I devised my own method of ranking Law schools, that takes in students through CLAT, based on student preference, this year I am back at the game.

So first the methodology – take average weighed rank of the general candidates who were offered seats in the first round of counseling. We only take the general quota and state general quota and first list as otherwise numerous distortions creep in and the preference data gets diluted by other factors. After taking the mean rank we look at standard deviation and look at diffraction quotient, in simpler terms we see how close to the mean the students opt for the same college, this way the number of seats would become immaterial. The only difference from last year is that this time around we would look at standard deviation rather than median (to find out the swing or the diffraction).

Getting the data from CLAT website fed into an excel sheet as shown in the image alongside, we get the mean rank of various colleges as follows: NLS 30.2728, NALSAR 131.077, NUJS 146.295, NLU-B 270.857, NLU-J 263.514, GNLU 597.138, NUALS 526.191, RMNLU 491.663, RGNUL 624.364, CNLU 630.5, HNLU 1054.593 (unprocessed data, containing the ranks is given in the table to the right).

Thus the colleges would be ranked in the following order NLS, NALSAR, NUJS, NLU-J, NLU-B, RMNLU, NUALS, GNLU, RGNUL, CNLU and HNLU.

If we see last year’s preference analysis we would find that the only change this year is that NLU-J edges past NLU-B, RMLNU moves ahead of NUALS and RGNUL pips CNLU. Below please find a comparison of this year's CLAT preference ranking and the ranking given by the commercial press, highlighted schools take students through CLAT.

From the minor changes in student preference we conclude that there hasn’t been a major upheaval in the law schools which would create a radical shift, unfortunately we can’t compare this data with that of NLU D, personally I hope that NLU D and ONLU would soon join the CLAT fold. Thus from a cumulative analysis of this year and last year’s students preference we find that as far as perception of students sitting for CLAT is concerned NLS is in the league of its own (Category I), catching it is NALSAR and NUJS (Category II), behind them is NLU J and NLU B (Category III), the rest of the law schools are in Category IV.

An afternoon with Nozick

While many bloggers have posted on the CLAT LLB paper, unfortunately there has been almost nothing on CLAT LLM paper. In this post I seek to analyze the paper and try to find out how India’s next generation of law teachers (I know CLAT is for NLUs only and that law teachers can come from myriads of other law colleges, but ‘next generation’ has a nice ring to it:) were chosen.

First let us start by looking at the syllabus, as per the CLAT 2010 Brochure page 3 column 2 last para the subject areas were Law of Contracts, Law of Torts, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory. The pattern of paper as per Brochure was Objective type 50 questions of one mark each, short answers 100-150 words 10 questions 5 marks each and finally 2 essay type questions of 50 marks each approximately 500-600 words.

On the appointed day I trudge to the examination centre which falls at an old school in a posh locality. And behold my wonder, 5 years ago when I went for the entrance test there were hardly 300 odd candidates at my centre which was the law school. Here a rough guess put the number to around 2000 and there were 3 more centers around the city. My heart swelled with pride at the large number of LLB aspirants (who says law is for engineering rejects?). Armed with my knowledge :(sat for 5 medical entrance about 5 years ago, didn’t crack a single) to avoid the rush to the halls, I lounged at the gate and when the crowd thinned I made my entrance. When I found my seat I was disappointed a bit only around 40 odd people in the PG aspirant room (but some of them were great lookers). From the college gossip I knew I was only one for the CLAT LLM test but still I looked around to see a known face, none. So I settled down.

Preparing for my final semesters I was confident that I would be able to beat any questions that NLU-B might have come up with, also the night before the test I had gone over Bangia on Contract, Bangia on Torts and Baxi on Constitution (little did I know what was in store for me). Finally the papers were given and after scanning through the MCQs I wondered if I got the right paper (what the @#$%) 30% of the MCQs were from Jurisprudence/legal theory, around 20% from Contracts around 25% from criminal law and the rest from torts ohh… sorry one MCQ from constitutional law. For the medium essay type again most emphasis was given on legal theory, one question from Constitutional Law (a ridiculously easy one: who form the electoral college for presidential election, these questions made me to question again as to whether I am sitting for the correct exam) few good questions on contracts. Finally the long essay type questions (3 choices for each question) I chose one on minor’s ability to contract and the other question seems to elude my mind.

What was startling was the examiners persistence with Fuller’s inner morality. First a MCQ on what did not constitute Fuller’s inner morality, then a 5 marks short note on the same topic and finally a long essay on the same topic. It seemed as though the NLU-B professor could not move beyond Fuller. Invariably when Fuller comes in he brings with him Rawls, Dworkin, Duguit and the surprise entrant Nozick. They collectively made me sweat (and it was also very hot). Around me people were marking the MCQs at furious pace and I cursed myself for not paying attention in Jurisprudence class (Duguit on sovereignty?) oho.. Rawls I heard about, Dworkin I know from the cover of his book “Taking Rights Seriously” reprinted by Universal for a low price edition in India, the cover looked like the face of a girl on fire and I had avoided it, now I just thought why didn’t I turn few pages like few others did. After the collective beating and knowing that my chances at CLAT LLM is over, I went to the next set of questions the contract MCQs were straight out of illustrations from the Contract Act, nothing fancy, torts were similar. So ended the MCQ for me battered by legal theory, soothed a little by contract and tort, indifference from criminal and disappointed by constitution.

Now the short notes Duguit again drew blank from me, Fuller got the MCQ options written in good measure with lot of cement in between (experience in paraphrasing for 50 projects came handy). Absolute liability was a smash hit so were the questions on liability and a puny question on constitution. I wrapped the last two big essay questions in double quick time and was done with one hour to spare but could not get out of the exam hall so I wasted my time by going over the same questions knowing fully well that I could hardly discover my power of teleportation at such advanced age (who knows).   

Overall the paper was of varying quality while the jurisprudence side was quite heavy and lifted few questions straight out of UPSC the questions on tort and contract were ludicrously easy and criminal law questions were a microcosm of  the entire paper (meaning some were superbly nutty while others were a walk in the park). All the questions tried to examine the cramming capacity of a candidate rather than critical analytical powers of the candidates. LLM as I had said in the beginning is a higher educational degree which generally is chosen by those who want to opt for academics. So the very foundation of tomorrow’s law teachers is based on how much he/she can cram. A question on absolute liability could well have been disguised in a form of illustration and could have become a short answer rather it became a MCQ. Thus yet again the gates of post graduate education at India’s finest institution would be on the basis of those who can cram best not those who imbibe them. No wonder Prof. Madhav Menon, the founder of National Law School movement in India, recently said that LLM studies in India is far behind the global standards, at this rate I doubt if we can ever catch up.

Tips to land your dream law firm internship in your second year

There was once a time when law firms were few and law schools were fewer still, good law firms are still rare but number of law schools have exploded exponentially. A direct fallout has been gradual worries in getting an internship opportunity at the top law firms, in this post I would like to share some tips on how to beat the competition and land the dream law firm internship which may well be the first step in getting absorbed by the same firm or even better ones. I have interned at over six law firms in last 5 years including firms in big four, boutique IP firms, old firms where the furniture could well have been used since time of Wellesley, so whatever experience I have gathered I would like to share it with you all. To get best results try to implement these tips in your second/third year unless of course your father owns the firm; in other words this post target audience is second and third years.

Tips 1: Prepare a Good CV – this is going to be the window of opportunity to showcase yourself to the guy sitting on the opposite side of the table/PC, first thing CV should never be more than 2 pages, people often make a mistake of sending long CVs having 5-6 pages!!! Don’t waste your and the other guy’s time, second follow the CRC (or whatever your college calls the committee which tries to get everyone placed at the end of the 5 year course, conditional to the fact, after they get placed first) CV style sheet every college has its own (whatever you do don’t stray beyond Garamond or Times New Roman fonts, remember this is not a calligraphy contest) and the regular HR guys or the recruiting partner would know by the layout which college you are from, in case you want to explore other styles try to stick to any of the other law school styles, don’t take up style sheet provided by the job portals they are not worth the effort. Now lets discuss the substance in the CV, first the marks, if you are from a name-brand college like NLS, NUJS, NALSAR then a 5 pointer in a 7 point scale would classify you as good property anything less than that you have hard sell yourself, as small tips many CV templates have option of ranks, put in rank if you are within the top 20 anything more than that would devalue your CV. If you are not within top 20 neither is your CGPA above 5 in a 7 point scale then mention your last sem GPA if it is above 5 or even 1 grade better than your CGPA it would allow you to later explain that you are improving over your past performance. For a non top 3 law school aspirant you have to be within top 20 to land a good internship but don’t get discouraged try to follow other tips and you may even outscore your snooty top law school colleagues. After CGPA etc. you have to provide your internship experience if you are in the second year then you must have done some NGO internship, try to also do internship at some lawyer in your first year trial court or HC, of your father is a lawyer try to get certificate from some HC lawyers also. If you were associated with any NGO at school also mention that, you can also get involved with LPOs if available at your law school (also get involved with the legal aid society at the college, these things earn dividends like long term deposits). Describe the experience in one or two lines be specific don’t write everything associated with that internship bring out the main points and highlight your responsibilities and interactions with people and peers. It would be great if you could have a firm internship however small in your first year, but if you don’t have any then it is not the end of the world. After previous experience you need to mention achievements which can be divided into three broad areas curricular achievements, co-curricular achievements and extra-curricular achievements, in the first category you may put academics related achievements like say highest marks/grade in any subjects etc. for co-curricular you need to mention winning prizes at any essay writing competitions etc. and for extra-curricular you have achievements in debate, extempore, quizzes etc. If you don’t have any such achievement yet at college mention some school achievements but it should be unambiguous that they are not university experience and try to get such experience at college (what did you do in last 2 years at college) or at least take out the relevant director of such societies on treat and get some fake certs. After achievements write down any publications that you might have got if you have no hard copy publications upload few of your last years projects on SSRN and put them in your CV as ‘Working papers’, register yourself at conferencealerts.com try to present at least 3 papers a year and mention them as ‘Conference Papers’ after all these publications talk about any positions of responsibility held, special abilities like speaking Mandarin (not cooking or driving). Finally if permitted by space then mention one or two lines about hobbies (keep them safe, don’t put something exotic like snorkeling or skiing). Also remember what not to put in CV unless specifically asked for 1) date of birth (they are not going to prepare your horoscope) 2) your fathers name and profession (unless of course he is a MP or MLA or covered by Art. 312) 3) put any achievements which are 5 years old. Also an old trick if your CV is not interesting enough or is not punchy get hold of a faculty and try to convince him/her to write some sort of reference letter praising you etc. and then put that as testimonial, try to get as many copies as possible.

9 semesters, 5 exam committees, 4 exam rules, 3 Registrar, 2 VC, 1 university: Next is what?

Well it is said that university experience is one of the finest in life and I am sure it is true for me but the only hitch is the over-overwhelmingness of such experience especially in the field of constantly changing exam rules. In last 9 semesters I have been evaluated under 4 different exam system, coupled with the ever changing administrative set up, this rolling stone of examination rules have never gathered any constancy, in this post I seek to bring forth the various exam system faced by my batch in last 4.5 years and then try to juxtapose it with the variation in the semester wise GPA of my class to try and find out if such excessive meddling in the examination process had any effect on the marks of the batch.
But before that let us go through the examination pattern followed in the last 9 semesters, at Indian law schools there are two types of subjects, compulsory which are basic law subjects like Contract law, Constitutional law etc. and the optionals which are usually specialization avenues and offer subjects like Comparative law, International contract law etc. Optional subject are offered at my university only from 6th semester.
Compulsory subjects
When I started my university career in 2005, the marks were divided into 6 categories, End Semester, Attendance, Subj. Viva, Project, Rough Draft, Project Viva, such extensive division ensured that there was continuous evaluation and students are focused on the course. In 4th semester the marks component of rough draft and project viva was scrapped. In 7th semester the component of attendance was also scrapped, but the most tremulous change came in 9th semester when the written component was hiked to 100 and to be later scaled down to 65%.

Semester 1		Semester 2	Semester 3
End Semester Attendance Subj. Viva Project Rough Draft Project Viva	60 5 5 20 5 5	Same as Semester 1	Same as Semester 1
Semester 4		Semester 5	Semester 6
End Semester Attendance Subj. Viva Project	60 5 5 30	Same as Semester 4	Same as Semester 4
Semester 7		Semester 8	Semester 9
End Semester Subj. Viva Project	65 5 30	Same as Semester 7	End Semester Subj. Viva Project	100 5 30

Optional subjects
In my 6th semester there were 5 marks component to optional courses viz. End Semester, Attendance, Subj. Viva, Project, Presentation just like in compulsory subjects in 7th semester the component of attendance was scrapped, in 8th semester the subject viva component was scrapped for optional, and like compulsory papers in 9th semester written component was hiked to 100 to be scaled down in final result to 50%.

Semester 1		Semester 2		Semester 3
No optional subjects		No optional subjects		No optional subjects
Semester 4		Semester 5		Semester 6
No optional subjects		No optional subjects		End Semester Attendance Subj. Viva Project Presentation	40 5 5 30 20
Semester 7		Semester 8		Semester 9
End Semester Subj. Viva Project Presentation	45 5 30 20	End Semester Project Presentation	50 30 20	End Semester Project Presentation	100 30 20

Also another important change in the marking pattern was the supposed introduction of bell curve for the first time in India.

Yet new islands of excellence.

Few days ago the Central Law minister announced the setting up of four ‘law schools of excellence’, it can be presumed he is speaking of setting up of four new ‘National Law Schools’. In one of my earlier posts I had tried to shed light on the rapid rate at which new law schools are being opened in this country without any care about the quality of students it is producing, recently a newspaper brought out a story that a 120 year old law college in a metro city having around 350 LLB students in its rolls had just 2 full time teachers (and BCI was thinking of revoking accreditation). Yet instead of addressing the problems plaguing legal education like paucity of faculty, inadequate libraries in 90% law colleges, improper curriculum etc. the minister goes on to decide to open new law schools. The apparent reason as given by the minister is that ‘Instead of the present islands of excellence in legal field, we require an ocean of excellence’, it is true that we need an ocean of excellence but why not invest the money in the present system instead of opening four new law schools. There are at least 3 law schools in India which are of international standards why not put whatever grand plans the minister may have ‘for legal education reforms’ in these law schools rather than just create more ‘islands of excellence’ in an ocean of ignorance. These 3 national law schools could be a template for revolutionizing legal education whereby the command and control of the legal education like syllabus, teaching pattern, examination of all the law colleges could be transferred over to the VC and a team of senior academicians of the national law school. This would ensure that the quality of legal education in these premiere law schools would also permeate to the lesser know cousins. Yet the minister takes the easy (populist) road out rather than take the hard (in long run beneficial) decision.

A Dummies Guide to opening a law school in India

In one of my earlier posts I had discussed on the high rate of new law schools that are being opened in every nook and cranny of India. In this post I try to list out ten main points the education czars who may want to enter this lucrative segment of Indian education business sector.

• Infrastructure: Find out a 10,000 square feet building within 30 KM (preferably 20 KM) from a well established law school (False click syndrome). Make sure that the institute is residential and all students have to stay at university hostels (or arranged guest houses). For library ask one of the retired judge of the neighborhood to donate few books and then buy second hand books from flea markets of Delhi, Kolkata etc. and say that the library has collection of rare law books from so and so judge. Get someone to copy GrandJurix and manupatra CDs from a law school and claim that you have a fully equipped modern IT enabled library. Set up an understanding with the local book seller that he would get a monopoly over books to be sold to the students and in return the institute would get 25% of the sale proceedings.
• Name of the institute: It must contain ‘national’ or ‘international’, ‘law school’ (optionally one may also add the name of any of the past prime ministers, chief minister, MLA, councilor or the local strongman to the institution; look around for examples) (Barnacle marketing). Do not use your surname or your father’s name or any caste name or religion name, gives negative vibes, may use regional state name e.g. ‘XYZ [state] National Law Institute’.
• Competition: Use your dominance in one sector to enter the legal education sector. It is difficult for an ‘educationist’ to break even in short term in legal education field, thus it is advisable to foray in other areas first (preferably engineering or medical) and then open a law school (examples abound like a world renowned institute on technology in India known for producing reputed engineers for USA at the cost of Indian taxpayer’s money entering into management, law and medicine or an institute mainly known for management starts opening university on every kind of subjects etc.). So its an added bonus if you have strong brand perception in one field then its time to diversify.
• Advisory Board: Hire around 10 people for your advisory board. 2 should be judges (any kind of judge preferably from appellate courts, but in these days of scarcity even trial courts would do but for sake of prestige 1^st class judicial magistrate should be the bar) one sitting and one retired, 2 should be local politician from 2 different and opposite political parties (this would ensure that both sides of the bread are buttered), 2 local influential bar member, 2 retired govt. personnel (preferably IPS, IAS but minimum state service may vary as per budget) and 2 academicians (preferably ex VC/Director of any of the law schools). Make sure that the advisory board meeting takes place at the nearest 5 star hotel with buffet lunch and pick & drop services; negotiate hard on the fees payable to the members of board (always remember there is a huge pool of potential board members).
• Faculty and Administration: Make your relative who has a degree in law (if not get a law degree from any of the correspondence courses available and once the school opens award an honorary PhD degree) the director of the institution (never hire the top man, he costs most and is most unreliable). Install a professional dean (preferably a retired pocket judge or administrator, never appoint an academician, they interfere with business). Poach some 5 teachers from any of the national law schools with 2 years experience (there are many dissatisfied teachers around, some can always be hired) call them professors, ask the lawyers and judges to give one lecture each week (so we get minimum of 4 assured lectures) call them visiting faculty, befriend some retired judges (at least 2 years into retirement and who has not gone into practice) offer them post of research associates, get few LLM students and appoint them as teaching assistant and aggressively ask for applications for post of assistant professors (mention in the advertisements that only those with distinction marks from class I to PhD will be considered, must have 10 publication in peer reviewed journal, must have attended 10 conferences in past 6 months, must have qualified NET etc.) and then don’t take any candidate who may have such qualities/qualification, but take the worst 4 rejected candidates in equal gender ratio (this will lead to higher retention rates). Also get some firang faces (if nothing works out ask the casting directors of Bollywood to arrange for few firang extras for few days, the cost should come to around Rs. 150 per day, Polish or Russian faces make good photo-session). Outsource cleaning jobs, security jobs, auction off canteen, appoint only 6 peons and 6 data entry operator and buy 20 computers from any garage sale network them and claim that you have paperless administration, god willing you may get some eco friendly award. Employ most of the support staff on 2 years negotiable non-renewable contract.
• Admission: Should have both 5 year and 3 year curriculums (the number of subjects in both are different, the subjects are same). For 5 year course the number of students should be 150 divided in two sections, for admitting these students, take part in CLAT, if the big national law schools does not want to share the admission form sale booty no worry this way would ensure that one fills up entire quota, also there should be 33% NRI quota and 2 free seats given to meritorious students coming from poor family (Make sure that you keep the Class X and XII marks sheet of the students in escrow until the final year). Take 50 students on 3 year course and divide them in two sections and send each section to each of the 5 year classes, these students can be admitted through interview). Offer LLM and MPhil from 3 years after opening of law school.
• Academics: Copy the semester model from any of the top three law schools (NALSAR, NLS and NUJS; NLS follows a trimester model, it is too much work on faculty to check so many copies also the students don’t get to enjoy the law school properly so a bimester model is ideal). Give more emphasis on corporate law subjects (proudly proclaim that you have the best corporate law faculty in the country, no one would challenge given that no one wants to open their corporate law teachers to scrutiny). Organize moot courts, get lawyers from the local bar who want to become judges, to judge such competitions, you may make moot compulsory for the first 2 years and say that you give special emphasis to develop the argumentative powers of the students. Inaugurate a university law journal, copy the font and mast head of Harvard Law Review, make lot of fanfare while launching the maiden copy of the journal, call the local political heavyweights, judges, lawyers, friends of the advisory boards, journalists, circus artists etc. the bottom line is the world must know that you are publishing something and that you are encouraging legal scholarships. Open up various societies which does nothing but has its own office bearers from the students and a faculty advisor, claim that this process inculcates leadership habits among students. Organise conferences, symposiums, workshops, seminars etc. at regular intervals and invite all the local cable channels to cover it, given that the local cable channels don’t have much to cover they would happily take the offer.
• Fees and Finances: Make an average of the money charged by all national law schools per semester and reduce a 1000 use the tag ‘National education in less than average fee’. For NRI candidates the fee would be $4000 + extras. The fees for 3 year course is negotiable but should not fall below 1 lakh p.a. Ask any of the private sector bank to set shop in your campus and promise them tie up and they would be happy to provide student loans (this would secure you against any non payment by students). Also the compulsory hostel fee should ideally be half of the tuition and allied fees. Apart from this charge an annual placement fee which would be paid by students who wish to get internships.
• Tie ups: Tie up with foreign universities, look at Nordic countries where the universities are always on look out for partnership, also look at private UK universities visit your local British Council office and look at the latest UCAS ratings and contact the bottom 10, with luck all 10 would respond; in any MoU mention that the students who would go for student exchange program would have to pay for their fees in the mother university. May also look at the civil law countries of continental Europe, they are always in look out for partnership. Get a center on corporate affairs and get it accredited with NFGC.
• PR: A sound website is a must for a viable starting point of PR, visit various US law university websites and select the motif of one, change the color combination and copy it in toto. All faculty pictures should be suitably photoshopped such that it looks like they are descendants of true blood Indian Aryans (fair face, no crease, contrasting backgrounds etc.). Prominently highlight all the tie-ups with foreign countries, accreditation with BCI, NFCG etc. Also give emphasis on the societies that you have at your university and brag about the excellent library that you have inherited. Have suitable photos of conference, moot courts etc. showcasing student achievements. Also buy a full page ad in one of the journals which come out with law school rankings and barter with the editor to push your university in the top five and a special mention. Have special tie-ups with the CLAT coaching centers so that they allow one of your faculties to address its students once every fortnight in its programs, this would entail that the students know of your university and you get a steady and regular flow of students.