Plan to make paralegal education a component of vocational stream

Updated on: Thursday, July 01, 2010

Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal will on Thursday chair a Roundtable on Legal Education that proposes to make paralegal education a component of vocational education.

While the meet will discuss a report of a University Grants Commission committee on a one year LLM course as in other parts of the world, as against the existing two year course in India, the meeting is likely to discuss a concept note on paralegal education.

Paralegal education does not fall under the Bar Council of India but is closely related to the legal profession. It will be on demand as legal practice gets corporatised and legal assistants of lawyers become more professional. Many services that touts perform can be formalised and ethical norms laid down.

A fairly new concept, there is enormous potential for employment and self-employment. Many services that trained paralegals can provide would also lower costs to litigants. Paralegals can also be of great help and use in Gram Nyayalayas and in spreading legal literacy. At present the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) offers Bachelors programme in paralegal studies, and there are a few online certificate programmes as well.

Paralegal studies are very popular in the U.S. and Europe. The Roundtable is likely to consider several options for popularising paralegal studies and for laying down curriculum framework for this discipline as a vocational stream involving the UGC in the future.

Once cleared by the Roundtable which is an informal arrangement, the concept will be taken up formally with the UGC and other Ministries. The members of the Roundtable include chairman of the Bar Council of India as well as Adviser to Union Law Minister along with other eminent lawyers and law teachers like Professor Madhava Menon, Professor Chandrasekharan Pillai, several senior advocates of the Supreme Court and representatives of India's leading law firms.

Plan to make paralegal education a component of vocational stream

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