NLSIU Bangalore VC: CLAT exam reforms urgent; AI can reshape legal education in India

By Sudhir Krishnaswamy

Legal education in India is undergoing an intense phase of growth. The total number of law schools has surged to above 1,700 with growth in all types of law schools – NLUs, premium private law schools, low cost private and public universities and law colleges. The number of students attempting national, state and private entrance examinations has grown impressively. However, there are emerging structural concerns with legal education that need serious attention to prevent them from derailing the ongoing rejuvenation of Indian legal education. I will highlight three such concerns below:

CLAT Exam: Quality concerns

The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is the largest Indian national examination for law school admissions. Over the years, CLAT has largely done well to avoid the significant logistical and integrity concerns that have risen with other national entrance exams. However, there have been serious quality concerns reflected in the exceptionally high number of objections submitted in the last two years. Litigation and judicial intervention has highlighted several question paper errors leading to much uncertainty and anxiety for students and delayed admission schedules and increased costs for all parties.

Unless educators, students, parents and the court are assured that the examination selects the best potential students for legal education, fairly and consistently, the radical reforms to Indian legal education introduced by the National Law School of India University in 1988 will unravel. Restoring the CLAT examination to its original purpose – the selection of the most talented school leavers from across the country – is an urgent and imperative task.

NLSIU Bangalore: BA LLB (Hons) curriculum

In 1988, NLSIU designed and delivered the integrated 5 year BA LLB (Hons) curriculum. This curriculum was the most advanced legal education curriculum at the time and almost all universities – both public and private – adopted this in the next four decades with few modifications.

In 2025, NLSIU has launched a comprehensively revised new BA LLB (Hons) curriculum that engages with contemporary challenges and developments in legal education. The 2025 curriculum revitalises the BA elements by introducing a new set of common core courses, major and minors, as well as a new emphasis on professional ethics and writing. In this note, I will emphasise on our reframing of Clinical Legal Education (CLE) and our approach to new technology.

Clinical Legal Education

Clinical Legal Education (CLE) offers students pedagogical engagement with cases and problems in the world through which they may develop the skills, knowledge and attitudes to become lawyers of consequence. NLS will now mainstream clinical education by launching five new clinics staffed by faculty and practitioners responding to real legal needs of various communities. These new clinics will have dedicated support staff and office space allowing for extended engagement with clients and cases supervised by faculty and practitioners. These clinics will be offered for academic credits and we aim to ensure that every NLS graduate undergoes significant clinical and experiential learning before they embark on their professional careers.

Law courses and AI

The emergence and use of generative AI and LLMs has the potential to reshape the legal profession and legal education. Much has been made of the potential loss of jobs in the legal sector. We are yet to see any impact and in any event, are planning ahead with necessary curricular and pedagogical changes.

As a first step, we have introduced a basic introduction to algorithms, programming, and the basic conceptual aspects of LLM software to all law students in our core courses in the programme. Second, we offer several electives on advanced skills in using LLMs in the law including predictive analytics, contract review, compliance monitoring. We equip our students to work with AI tools professionally and critically assess AI outputs. Third, we offer several electives on the legal and regulatory challenges of AI including AI Ethics, Automated Decision-Making and Automated Mobility and Manufacturing.

AI tools pose serious challenges to higher education pedagogy. The university has adopted academic codes on AI use and monitoring software to detect unauthorised use. More significantly, we are moving away from the take home research essay towards a small group writing and discussion format to ensure that an NLS education continues to challenge and develop our students abilities to be the best in the field. The renewed emphasis on educators directly engaging their students in oral argument and discussion promises to ensure sustained motivation and engagement to be the core of an NLS education in this new technological age.

Sudhir Krishnaswamy is the VC of NLSIU Bengaluru. He is also the co-founder of Centre for Law and Policy Research and a member of Facebooks’s independent Oversight Board.

This piece first appeared in the 200th issue of the Careers360 magazine, published in August 2025