TN expert panel suggests revision of law curriculum

CHENNAI: An expert committee constituted by the Tamil Nadu government has suggested that the law curriculum should be changed and ought to be developed to match constitutional goals and directive principles of the state policy.

Quoting the expert panel suggestions, a senior official from the Higher Education Department said community lawyering, pro-bono advocacy, social responsibility for legal services to all sections, constitutional governance, and access to justice for all are ideas that compel thinking on the part of legal educators on new ways of framing curriculum.

He said the syllabus of legal education should be as such to prepare professionals equipped to meet new challenges and dimensions of internationalisation, where the nature and organisation of law and legal practice are undergoing a paradigm shift.

"Legal curriculum must be multidisciplinary, innovative, adaptable and following international practice, logic and public reasoning", he said, adding reforms in clinical legal education, practitioner's workshops, legal writing, and alternative conflict resolution must all be included in a national/State course module.

Pointing out that the legal information is increasingly digitised and access to legal databases makes transactions quick, reliable, and inexpensive besides courts have introduced e-filing and online arguments, he said accordingly, law students depend a great deal on online databases and use the internet to compare and contrast transactions across the globe.

He said the panel also suggested that the new generation of lawyers need a higher level of awareness in relation to cybercrime and cyber security. "The Curriculum should aim at achieving it", he added.