Advancements in Legal Education in India: Challenges and Opportunities for Interdisciplinary Research

Abstract

Social, economic and political changes have brought new challenges and divergent views to twenty-first-century legal education. Law is an expression of the social idea, and more creative solutions evolve from interdisciplinary collaborations. The resolution by legal luminaries to elevate legal research to a high standing, on par with other disciplines, is yet to find a foothold even after the introduction of reforms to legal education in the past two decades. This article makes an attempt to explore the emerging interdisciplinary trends, with the innumerable challenges that require exploration, identification, analysis and quality enhancement while conducting legal research in order to strike a fine balance between teaching and research, as they supplement each other. Law is a mechanism for ushering in social change, and the fact that it can never be studied in isolation demands the convergence and divergence of multiple disciplines. Yet, the traditional conceptualization of legal research is largely confined to the judicial process and the exclusion of social process. Keeping in mind the benefits of interdisciplinary association of law with other areas/disciplines and of research being a continuum, the article emphasizes law’s collaboration with other disciplines. The article accentuates the role of law schools to undertake and encourage interdisciplinary legal scholarship to diversify the learning experiences of students in conjunction with other disciplines. Learning through such experiences enables students to find solutions beyond the strict academic discipline of law and at the same time offers ample opportunities for them to explore a wide array of possibilities that interface with legal profession but transcend courtroom practice. A comparative analysis of two educational institutions imparting legal education, taken as cases in point, is performed for the present study.