Your license to practise

Updated on: Sunday, November 14, 2010

Our legal profession finds itself sorely lacking in various areas,” said Gopala Subrahmanyam, Chairman Bar Council of India (BCI), in his letter to students of law talking about the need for the All India Bar Examination (AIBE). There are around 11 lakh registered advocates, 1000 law colleges with five lakh law students of whom about 60 thousand are graduating aspiring to become lawyers. These students now need to register with the BCI before they can begin practicing. Earlier an apprenticeship of one year in any law office was required — this is now not a mandatory requirement. The need of hour today is to qualify for the AIBE.

The AIBE is an open book exam which is held on 5 December in nine languages across 27 centres. So, a candidate should know where a particular legal point is located in the books he carries into the exam hall.

Hearing that BCI has planned an open book exam, fresh Bachelors of law might have heaved a sigh of relief. But the exam demands a spontaneous analysis of a point sought to be replied to in a multiple-choice examination, where more than one answer appears appropriate. So, despite a duration of three and half hours, if students don’t know where to look, they will lose time in just thinking and randomly flipping through the pages of their books — making this exam is a tough nut to crack! Students cannot carry any electronic devices or any devices equipped with radio transceivers (such as pagers).

The exam is structured with multiple-choice questions (that is, the correct answer would have to be marked out in the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) format answer sheet provided, where no writing of an answer is required. These questions are divided into ‘knowledge-based’ and ‘reasoning’ questions. The emphasis is on assessing a candidate’s understanding of an area of law, rather than on his/her ability to memorise large texts or rules.

A biannual examination, the AIBE will have one hundred (100) multiple-choice questions spread across various subjects, taken from the syllabi prescribed by the BCI for the three-year and five-year LL.B. programme at law schools. Of the two categories of subjects, the first comprises ‘foundational’ subjects that form the basis of large areas of law; the second comprises other subjects, which a new entrant to the legal profession must also have a basic understanding of.

Log on to www.barcouncilofindia.org in order to download two preparatory material books which will help you in your preparation.

Your license to practise

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