As a branch of knowledge, “Law” can be described as “the principles and regulations established in a community by some authority which is applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision.” For social welfare state, the concept and need for “Rule of Law” can never be belittled. There is and will always be, the demand for practitioners of law in every human society.
In order to fulfill this fundamental demand for legal functionaries, what is therefore required is the imparting of a specialized education in the subject of “Law” to young students and legal aspirants who have an avid interest in the subject and who would like to go for it as a matter of career choice.
Generally speaking, law course/studying law was all about pursuing a 3-years LL.B. degree from a Law School. However, today, students also have the choice of undertaking a 5-year integrated B.A.LL.B. course just after the completion of their Class XII. This integrated course differs from this traditional LL.B. course in many ways, all to the benefit of the students who opt for it early on after completion of their + 2 level at school.
In India, legal education is offered by the state universities and the specialized law schools & universities. The era of legal education in India started with the 3-years LL.B. course. However, the structure of the legal education kept on changing with the passage of time. In fact, NLS (National Law School Bangalore) established in 1986 became the first university to offer the 5-years integrated course with the degree titled as B.A.LL.B. (Hons).
The 5-year integrated B.A.LL.B. course is basically aimed at providing multi-disciplinary and integrated framework to legal education. The other pivotal aim of BA.LL.B. course is to get “Industry ready” lawyers as they are exposed to rigorous Industry experience before they go to real courtrooms , corporate firms or any other legal institution.
The BA.LL.B. course is a foundation course where a student is enrolled with the law school just after he completes his Senior Secondary Examination (12th).
Some of the benefits of enrolling in the B.A.LL.B. course can be enumerated as below:
1. It being a course dedicated to law , the student has a clear-cut path and vision about his career in the legal field.
2. It is a 5 years’ duration course where a student gets plenty of time to actively participate in extra-curricular activities like Moot Courts, MUN’s, Trail Advocacy, Legal Aid, Client Counselling, Debate, etc.
3. B.A.LL.B., provides great opportunities of Internships during the semester breaks, which helps in making a law student industry-ready.
4. It being a dual course covers law subjects and pre-law subjects and how they are interlink which is very important to understand for a law student.
5. By pursuing the B.A..LL.B. course the students save one full year in comparison to students who pursue 3 years LL.B. after their graduation.