Law is important for a society as it serves as a norm of conduct for its citizens. Liberally, legal education serves the society by imparting law students general and cultural education, making them good law-abiding citizens. Such legal education instills the significance and relevance of democratic culture in the students.
Law, legal education and development have become interrelated concepts in modern developing societies, which are struggling to develop into social welfare states and are seeking to ameliorate the socio-economic condition of the people by peaceful means. The same is true for our country. It is a crucial function of legal education to produce lawyers with a social vision in a developing country.
As professional education, legal education equips law students for fulfilling different roles in society and discharging various law jobs. The range and scope of which is always expanding in the modern democratic society; for example- Policymakers, lawyers, law teachers, administrators, etc. Accordingly, it is realized in modern India that legal education ought to have breadth.
Legal education in India had begun during the British period. Much before India gained its Independence in 1947, law courses were introduced at Hindu College in Calcutta and Elphinstone College in Bombay. The primary aim of legal education at the time was to equip law students so that they could help the lower courts and the High Courts in the administration of justice.
Basic knowledge of the law has become necessary for all those who are engaged in administration, trade or industry. “A citizen to be effective in the enjoyment of his civic capacities needs basic knowledge of at least some aspects of the law. Officials and others who perform important law roles, e.g., a policeman, businessmen or politicians, need an understanding of parts of the law and its underlying policies and values.”
In such a changing society with modernization at its peak, there is a need to improve legal education and expand its scope. There is a need to increase its ambit and for that, it is necessary, that legal education is not limited only to the study of law and legislation, but to the study of various procedures of law.
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