Navigating growth: the challenges of maintaining legal education quality in India's expanding law schools

Rahela Khorakiwala and Daksh Saroha

Chapter 6 in Research Handbook on Global Legal Education, 2026, pp 105-126 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: While the explosive proliferation of the number of law schools since the 2000s has improved access to legal education in India, it has raised serious concerns about the maintenance of the quality of education disseminated in these new law schools, the academic rigor, institutional infrastructure, and quality outcomes as the number of graduates goes up every year. This chapter seeks to examine the quality “crisis” in Indian legal education through an ethnographic study of 15 private law colleges affiliated with Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU), centered in South-East Haryana. The study draws on fieldwork including over 100 interviews with students, faculty, and administrators, analyzing indicators such as student enrollment data, evaluation practices, pass percentages, attendance patterns, law school culture, and program learning outcomes. Findings from enrollment data, in-person conversations, and telephonic interviews reveal that many institutions fail to fulfill their sanctioned student intake capacity and suffer from inconsistent teaching practices, rote-based assessment models, and minimal career support systems. Despite the presence of libraries and moot court activity, poor attendance enforcement, lack of faculty accountability, and weak placement infrastructure suggest a fragile academic environment. The chapter situates these findings within broader regulatory trends, highlighting the Bar Council of India's (BCI) limited oversight capacity and the implications of its rapid approval of law schools. The study argues for a shift in BCI's regulatory focus from expansion to quality control and quality enhancement, calling for systemic reforms tailored especially to under-resourced, “non-elite” legal institutions such as those affiliated to MDU.

Keywords: Indian Legal Education; Private And Public Law Schools; Expansion And Massification Of Legal Training; Elite Models Of Reproduction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781788117005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781788117012.00016 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:18207_9

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().