A student, who aspires to be a professional law teacher, ought to be a postgraduate in Law. The primary goal of the Master’s course in Law should be to provide research incentives, rather than teaching law. The focus should be attributed to the development of research skills in various contours of law which subsequently leads to the development of a perception with firsthand knowledge of the concerned subject matter. The Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD), in this regard, suggested a number of measures to revamp the legal education system by introducing a one year LL M (Master of Laws) program with an objective of providing an environment of research and deliberations to young law graduates possessing legal information, and gradually transforming them into individuals with legal knowledge, as rightly pointed out by Prof. Upendra Baxi. This paper examines the recent changes in curriculum for the LL M program, and against this backdrop, highlights the changes expected in law teachers. The role of the two inseparable elements of legal education and the benefits that the new curriculum might be providing to the present generation of law teachers are highlighted.

.... Every system of legal education which is designed to achieve the ultimate objective of preparing persons for a legal career, must not only aim at preparing good legal practitioners who will function in a court of law, but must also impart legal skills and equipment to men who want to specialize in various job opportunities and requirements which have already opened up and are opening up, and must also be designed so as to prepare academicians, researchers, scholars and critics in the legal field.

The profession of law has been one of the noblest professions practiced since time immemorial. Law has multifarious functions besides dispute settlement in a democratic country like India. Legal education in India was imparted in the Departments of Law of universities where courses were taught as three-year programs after undergraduation, resulting in the award of an LL B (Bachelor of Laws) degree.

Chief Justice A M Ahmadi has pointed out in one of his lectures, “I think we have waited long enough to repair the cracks of the legal education system of this country and it is high time that we rise from our arm chairs and start the repair work in right earnest”.2 A similar concern can be seen in the following statement made by the Law Commission in its report on “Reform of Judicial Administration”, while assessing the standards of legal education obtaining in the country, portrayed a dismal picture and lamented, “The portals of our law teaching institutions manned by part-time teachers open even wider and are accessible to any graduate of mediocre ability and indifferent merits. It is not surprising that in this chaotic state of affairs in a number of these institutions there is hardly pretence at teaching.... This character is followed by law examinations held by the universities many of which are mere tests of memory and poor ones at that, which the students manage to pass by cramming short summaries published by enterprising publishers.... The result, a plethora of LL Bs half-baked lawyers, who do not know even the elements of law and who are let loose upon society as drones and parasites in different parts of the country”.

Law Review Journal, The Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD), Reform of Judicial Administration, Bar Council of India (BCI), University Grants Commission (UGC), Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE), Centers for Advanced Legal Studies and Research (CALSAR).