Justice Education: A Desired Destination of The Menon Model

Abstract

Since inception of the new-generation experiment in legal education with the National Law School of India University Bangalore (NLSIU), contemporary history of professional education rolls on toward excellence and the ordeal is on with the proliferation of similar institutional entrepreneurship. In the anxiety of competitive edge, few—too few—follow legacy of a model school in Bangalore; invented by N.R. Madhava Menon: the legacy vis-a-vis experiments with discipline, leadership, pedagogy, and the like. Minute prospect and consequence of (t)his model apart, Menon redefined the philosophy of professional education at NLSIU. What went spread over far and wide as trendsetter for the contemporary legal education is the letters of institutionalism, more so for ‘National’. Spirit of the NLSIU legacy but lies elsewhere. A practising lawyer-turned-educator, Madhava Menon has introduced a model to prepare well-baked product for the bench and the bar alike. At the same time, however, he brought in sense of social responsibility otherwise getting dwindled in the contemporary professional lifeworld. Not without reason that there is emphasis upon clinical legal education and legal aid clinic alike. In its essence, the author advances arguendo with the reasoning of his own, that pedagogy thereby initiated has had a teleological end to offer legal education en route to justice education; thereby spearhead progressive social transformation. The Menon Model is meant to raise human resource for professional service to the court and the people; instead of tertiary service to the market. After his model, the market ought to approach qualified professionals; not vice versa. The sooner such internal legacy of the (Menon) model earns appreciation is the better for prospect of professional education.