The National Law School of India University, Bangalore, the premier centre of legal education has become a bench mark of excellence in law. It was the of first of its kind to have been established in 1987 and today the fact that there are 14 different Law Schools in different parts of the country bears testimony to the saga of success of the National Law School. The ever increasing demand for securing admission into this prestigious school is a clear demonstration of the prowess of the National Law School.

NLS offers students a program of legal education unique in several ways - a program of unparalleled intensity packed into 5 hardworking years. The program, spread over 15 trimesters, involves some 4000 hours of classroom instruction, several clinical courses that teach skills, writing legal articles, participation in moots and debates, involvement in law reform and other research projects commissioned by national and international agencies, national roundtables and leadership and management of several University and student activities. Students work to a syllabus that was overhauled to reflect the fast changing demand for legal knowledge and skills arising from globalization. The program provides a platform for specialized learning of cutting-edge areas of law. National Law School students were the first in the country to be taught and evaluated by leading international law professors, emerging with flying colours from this international benchmarking.

At the core of the National Law School experiment is the unprecedented emphasis on practical and clinical education. Throughout their years here (compulsorily from the third year on) NLS students are placed with leading judges, law practitioners as well as agencies involved with the law. At these placements, students experience the living law. This experience infuses reality into their academic study in the classroom, prompting them as to why the law they learn is not always implemented as intended and what should be done to improve its effectiveness. Placements provide students not only a special privilege of seeing the law in action but also seeing professional excellence at its best and learning from it. Our students never fail to be inspired by these opportunities. The work of students during placements is evaluated as part of their academic performance on the basis of diaries they maintain.

The lawyers or organizations that provide placement opportunities to our students thus play a central role in the education of our students and contribute vitally to the success of the NLS mission of improving legal education in India. Those who provide placement opportunities for our students are key partners in legal education whose contribution is highly valued.

The National Law School believes that the best is yet to be.

Prof. R. Venkata Rao
Vice Chancellor
Vice Chancellor