Law Exams
The law system not only acts as an entrance of any judicial structure, but also forms a prominent part of proper functioning of any country!
Law Entrance Exams
It feels really good to know that there are numerous entrance exams for the law admissions in India. In a way, it portrays the enhancements in the law admissions procedures and huge developments in the law infrastructure in the country. It’s logical that there can’t be a unique entrance exam procedure for law admissions across the country, because the law system and procedures differ from each states of the country. As we know that India is a land of diversity in many things, like, languages, regions, religions, political system, etc… it would be difficult to have a unique selling preposition for the judicial procedures in the country. Some of the important entrance exams are described, as follows:
Common Law Admission Test (CLAT)
The under graduate and the post graduate admissions are accomplished through the Common Law Admission Test to the 11 National Law Universities in India. It is a two hour admission test comprising of questions from English, Mathematics, logical reasoning, and general knowledge with mandatory questions from the legal sections of the law. Every year, the CLAT will be conducted by one of the participating national law universities, which would be topping the priority list, according to seniority.
Law School Admission Test (LSAT), India.
It is a standardized test, which is adopted by multiple law colleges and universities in India. The LSAT is been established by the USA based ‘Law School Admission Council’ (LSAC) for the specific administration of law school activities in India. Hence, the colleges and universities, who are admitting their students through LSAT, would also have the opportunity of registering the international students through the overseas testing center facility. It is a two hours and thirty five minutes exam, comprising of questions from three sections, such as, logical reasoning, analytical reasoning, and reading comprehension in addition to the mandatory questions from the legal section. It doesn’t contain any negative markings, i.e. the marks will be allotted only to the correct answers.
Kerala Law Entrance Examination (KLEE)
This entrance test is conducted by the ‘Commissioner for Entrance Examination’, Government of Kerala, Thiruvanathapuram. This exam is basically conducted for the admissions to the government colleges in various districts of Kerala. The admissions are provided to the 5 year, 3 year LL.B courses and 2 year L.L.M course. The entrance exam comprises of 65 questions from general knowledge, 65 questions from English and 70 aptitude type questions from legal studies.
KIIT Law School Admission Test (KLSAT)
This entrance test is conducted majorly for the law admissions to the KIIT Law School, Bhubaneswar. This entrance exam is conducted in 60 cities, across the country. The significant part of this law school is that it offers three conjoined degree courses, such as, B.A.LL.B, B.B.A.LL.B, B.Sc.LL.B, which provides an integrated platform to the law degrees by providing the choices of major and minor papers in the subjects of liberal arts, management, and natural sciences. The KIIT Law School has implemented the suggested curriculum of the ‘Bar Council of India’ in the year 2009 and has also been admitted as the member of the ‘International Association of Law Schools’, Washington, U.S.A, ‘LAWASIA’ and ‘Australia Legal Aid Clinic’.
No one can ever deny that India has got a strong judicial system, but at the same time, everyone can also remember the complications of implementing the same in the country. This is because, India is a land of various cultures, languages, regions, caste systems, etc… the most prominent thing of all, is the complicated political system of India. All these reasons make it impossible to have a unique procedure of law system in all the states of the country. Because of this, the law admissions also differ in each state of the country and of course, the law entrance exams too differ! Though, the Supreme Court holds the ultimate control of the entire judicial system in the country, the sub control of the law activities are handed over to the respective judicial system of each state.
After seeing the complications of the law admissions, a memorandum had been signed among the premier law institutions in the country, agreeing for the Common Law Admission Test. Some of the premier institutions, which are admitting the students via the Common Law Admission Test, are National Law School of India University, Bangalore, National Law University, Jodhpur, and The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, etc… At present, there are around 11 premier institutions in the list. The implementation of this procedure differs, each year. Again, nobody can be assured about the procedures, as it differs according to the institutions. I would say that in India, definitely the law system and procedures are standardized, but not simplified.
In any profession, first comes the premier institution. It is good that there is a common entrance test for most of the premier institutions in the country, as more number of students would aim to get into the premier institutions. But, this is not a completed list, as there are many premier institutions, which still didn’t sign up the memorandum. Hence, the confusion starts at this point, so if a student wants to try a premier institution, which doesn’t accept the CLAT, would be left without choice and in turn should write the entrance exam conducted by that specific institution. Likewise, a student would be forced to write as many entrance exams as possible in order to check the availability of seats in at least in few of the best colleges.
There is another type of entrance exam, which is accepted by many of the institutions, called as, Law School Admission Test, India. It is important to specify ‘India’ in the LSAT, because it is established by an international council of USA. Though it is accomplished by an international council, its procedures and structures are framed according to the Indian judicial system. The colleges, which accept this type of entrance exam, are Jindal Global Law School, Haryana, Law College Dehradun, MATS Law School, Raipur, etc… Hence, the students are in the panicking situations in order to decide on the entrance exams of their preferred choice of colleges/universities. The complexities majorly persist to decide on the standards of the law college/university, because the students are not provided with either, the clear guidance, or with the specifications of the standards of the entrance examinations.