The International Association of Law Schools (IALS) organised 3rd Asia’s Regional Law Deans’ Forum in National University of Malaysia from May 14th – 16th 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Lex Witness brings to you viewpoints of Dr. K. Parameswaran, Associate Professor and Dean, Academic Affairs at Gujarat National Law University on a few vital aspects related to Legal Education which he shared in the forum.
Generally speaking, in this world of competition and speed, ranking has become an inevitable tool for assessment of contribution. We cannot restrict or avoid ranking. But we can certainly regulate it to bring credibility to it. This can be done if we can fix certain parameters for assessment of contribution.
There are four parameters in my opinion based on which a law journal must be ranked for their contribution. They are;
Ranking methodology of journals must also be objective and scientific. It should be based on statistical data. This “is” because a law journal is an intellectual outcome of serious research where subjective elements plays a great role in legal writing such as research skills, legal cognitive perception, legal awareness and conscience. Specific importance must also be given to the contribution to propagation of Sustainable Development through legal curriculum, legal teaching, legal research and legal publishing. This sustainable development in legal education includes;
All the parameters referred above for ranking of journals are also applicable to ranking of law-schools as they both share a symbiotic relationship. However lawschools as an institution has a tripartite structure with teachers, students and the administration in front of the society and State at large. As a result law schools require two other things such as financial support from the government and private entrepreneurs and finally good terms and conditions for attracting qualified facultymembers. This in turn will bring quality in faculty-members and legal research. Ranking of law schools must also take this in account.
These verifiable parameters will bring continuous appraisal and reality-check on the outcome of legal education as a whole towards society and nation at large. Ranking based on this will create a trendsetting path of meaningful contribution and not bitter competition.
This is a complex matter to judge and understand. But this process must start somewhere and legal education is the place where academics, teaching, questionpapers, examination and evaluation originate as defining standards as to what quality legal education is given to the society
In Gujarat National Law University our director Dr Bimal N Patel addressed this problem differently “along with facultymembers collectively.” GNLU evolved a model which contains a 10-point formula to work on how to teach the law-subjects to students with quality research and teaching. This model is now known as Research based Teaching Methodology (RbTU of GNLU).
If a subject is taught as per these 10 points it helps faculty-members for a quality delivery of knowledge, guidance on legal thinking and research and above all continuous dissemination of knowledge from all sections and contributions of the society. “However one should not forget this structural pattern is only an external aid and should not replace the live soul of a teacher where real understanding takes birth from experiencing a knowledge.
The most popular methods are lecture oriented, case-study, Socratic and analytical. Each has a merit with mild variations and approaches to legal thinking. In my view teaching style and methodology must also include the different intellectual orientation of the students as they have different capacity. Some of them I have classified in my research are;
In addition to this, law-teaching must result in the development of legal cognitive perception, legal insights, legal consciousness and conscience, legal skills, research writing and finally legal oratory
Quality question papers and evaluation tests are the real outcome of a good teaching. A good question paper must contain descriptive, problem-solving, case study, analytical or critical writing on landmark judgments, contemporary and emerging issues, short notes on principles or doctrines or tests, drafting, pronouncement or revisiting of judgments, policy formulation to the Government, advisory to clients and finally international ramifications at the global level. This givesa wide range of issues testing the knowledge of the students at various levels.
Finally a quality legal education must result in enhancing the students to do explorative legal research. A student might have a need not go to a teacher or library or refer books but this must not be always. Legal understanding or legal solution for a problem must become intrinsic and an internal spirit. Legal thinking and legal solving must come first from ‘within’. Then to corroborate the finding a student can seek teacher’s guidance and external aids. This I call as the ‘legal spirit’ that a student must embody in his consciousness. Students’ “individual consciousness” and “legal consciousness” must become one and not separate. This is the integral consciousness of a law-person who as a student or teacher, researcher, drafter or policy-maker or judge must be concerned with. In short the ‘legal being’ and ‘legal becoming’ must be one and the same in any law-person. This must be the defining standard and quality of legal education.
This in the end will cater all the stakeholders of the society, policy formulation of the government, nation and world at large and above all creating and sustaining a human society in which justice, peace, equity and prosperity will grow in a pattern that takes society to move forward and not backward.
A competition is good if it is positive and healthy. In order to determine what is positive and healthy it must satisfy all the points we discussed in the aforesaid aspects. Other than these we must understand the integral dimensions to a competition.
Competition resulting in implosive (intra institutional) and explosive (inter-institutional) situation is not healthy and must be avoided at all cost. Competition must be ‘within oneself’ and not ‘among others outside’ or ‘between people’. It is ‘vertical within oneself’ and not ‘horizontal among others’. This external race among colleagues may give initial spur and attractive outcome but slowly results in a serious damage to true intellectual pursuit and creativity. Competition must be from one’s own past or previous situation to another improvement forward, futuristic and improving the situation from the existing one. As explained that legal education in a law school has a tripartite structure with teachers, students and the administration. The law school must hold these partners in harmony without dilution to legal academics and students’ orientation for studies and law academicians in thecontext of attractive terms and conditions for employment. This must be the chief aim of legal education that must bind the whole legal-family. A competition must be in making this legal family strong, healthy, creative and sustainable.
A good competition of ‘vertical within oneself’ rather than ‘horizontal among others’ can lead to good and sustainable growth. Right competition is with oneself. It is from former- contribution to a forward contribution to legal education. To put it simply it is from one’s previous semester taught courses to next succeeding semester of to-be taught courses. Law schools must nurture this spirit of competition. Competition must come from willing cooperation and positive opportunity. This alone will create conducive organizational opportunity and collegiality. In turn this will create a scope for true development for legal personality of a law teacher, his/her lawthinking individuality, sense of legal plurality and finally universality, creativity, unity as well as diversity which is the ultimate aim of core legal philosophy. This also will result in legal constitutionality of the society in the end. Constitutional goals of justice, equality, liberty and fraternity, peace, progress, equity and prosperity will become a natural expression of the society. This is the job of legal education and business of law schools. Competition must be to judge these true contributions. This holistic understanding of competition isapplicable to educational institutions as well.
Before we know how law schools must respond to these challenges we must know why law-schools must take this response serious. In simple terms law is nothing but order in the society. This order comes from an ‘inherent spirit of harmony’ in the nature of things. I call law is a part of law of nature. Science, Sociology, Philosophy, Physics, Mathematics, and every discipline of academics understand this spirit, dynamics and energy called law. All their laws point out to one and the same thing that is ‘order’ except different approaches and explanations. Birth and death of everything in life is a matter of law. It is said law is ubiquitous – omnipresent, omniscient. But to make it omnipotent law schools must emerge with powerful alternatives. Some powerful alternatives to meet all the challenges of legal education in the context of globalism, development and new-age integral thinking are;
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