An Ode to My Law School: The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata

How has been your personal experience at the college? 

I still remember the day the CLAT results were declared and I secured an All India Rank of 194. 

NUJS was my first-choice program. I had a fascination for the school since I was from Kolkata and had seen the beautiful sandstone-coloured façade multiple times. Would I make it with my rank? It might be touch and go, I thought.

After a few nerve-wracking days, a hard copy letter from NUJS arrived at the mailbox. And that sealed my fate.

The initial days at The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata (NUJS) however, were a reality check of sorts. From kindergarten to high school, the only student diaspora I had been in touch with was a mix of Marwaris and Bengalis. It was going to be my first time meeting students from across the country and getting exposure to the aspirational world of debating societies and moot courts!

Through the first couple of years, a lot of growing up happened – both within and outside the classroom.  Any arrogance that I may have had from my previous life was tempered in the presence of people far more talented. Credit also goes to the exchange of thoughts in a milieu that encouraged one to critically question all ideas and shaped me into the person I am today.

I also landed up in the most socialist of all societies–the Legal Aid Society, which though not as glamorous as some of the other student clubs, became my home for quite a few years, and moulded me into wanting to take law to the masses–a thread that I carried with me well outside the law school. 

From learning to create 5000-word projects in one night to making my best set of friends at the eponymous Biju Da’s canteen, from organising cultural soirees to going on decadent parties, and learning to accept the world as a melting pot of beautiful people with wildly different personalities – I thank my alma mater for giving me a bittersweet taste of reality outside its gates.

Having spent some good years in the profession, what according to you are areas our colleges must focus on to cultivate the legal minds that the country needs?

The law schools of our country are places where young, bright minds enter, many times not knowing what they really want to do with their lives, but with a keen curiosity to find out. In my opinion, it is the utmost responsibility of educational institutions and the alumni to give these young kids a taste of various options available to them – some traditional, some non-traditional and some completely off the beaten path. No choice is inherently good or bad, it is what you make of it for your own life. At law school, we are often given a glamourised picture of some of these options while not enough is said about the others, leading everyone to clamour for the same goals whether or not the same is attuned to their behavioural traits.

Future of Legal Education in India: What needs our immediate attention and what are the ways we can improve?

I am not in favour of a five-year pedagogy model within classrooms and believe that just like the medical profession, we need to get students to get full-time practical training for the last year or two of their courses. Four-week internships do not suffice in giving students a full breadth of the professional rigour expected of them later, and also lack sufficient investment from the organisations towards the students’ learning curve. The only way to mitigate this is to give the option of full-time internships for the last year or two of the courses, to those students who wish to opt for the same instead of optional courses, and evaluate the students based on organisational feedback and practical skills gained. I am also in favour of removing the restriction on law professors from practising in the profession. In my view, this hinders their ability to train their students on real-world case studies that they can work on. 

And lastly, I think it is important for us to realise how important a law degree is. The skills that one gains in law school are not only useful to the profession of law but just as useful to any other profession. Many professions require one to determine the right questions, find answers through research and surveys, learn quickly, deal with people, negotiate, come to agreements, collaborate, work on a cross-section of ideas, work with regulations, make presentations, assimilate volumes of information, look at data and interpret the same–all of which are learnt in some form or the other in law schools.