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.
Today, Law is viewed not merely as an instrument of
social control, but also as an instrument of social
change. Lawyers have been characterized as social
engineers. As liberal education, legal education may
serve the society by imparting to law students general
and cultural education making them good law-abiding
citizens. Such education will instill into the students
the significance and relevance of democratic culture.
As professional education, legal education equips law
students for filling different roles in society, and
discharging various law jobs, the range and scope of
which is always expanding in the modern democratic
society, e.g.—Policy makers, administrators, lawyers,
law teachers, etc. Accordingly, it is realized in modern
India that the legal education ought to have breadth.
Compared with science, technology and medicine,
legal education is less technical or less professional.
Legal education in India had began during the British
period. Much before India gained its Independence in
1947, law courses were started in the Hindu College,
Calcutta, Elphinstone College, and Bombay and at
Madras.
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. Before India gained independence in 1947,
the study of Law was not taken as a very serious
exercise. Consequently, when India gained
independence, “Its legal profession and legal teaching
were thus not able to play the role they ought, by
Western standards, to have played.”
With the dawn of independence in India in 1947, the
whole scene concerning legal education started
undergoing a transformation. Perspectives about legal
education started changing and efforts began to be
made for its improvement. The constitution of India is
basically a document for Lawyers; there has been a
great increase in constitutional legislation since 1950,
especially in the area of fundamental rights.
A basic knowledge of law has become necessary for
all those who are engaged in administration, trade or
industry.
“A citizen to be effective in enjoyment of his civic
capacities needs a basic knowledge of at least some
aspects of 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.”
Hence, a change in the quality, content and
complexion of legal education is now viewed as a
great social necessity.
During the last several years there has been a lot of
ferment in the area of legal education and it has been
a very much discussed and debated subject.
At present there is need to have reform in legal
education because today legal education does not
fulfil the demands in society. Therefore, there is need
to change pattern of centralized body to deal with the
body of legal education in the vast changing society;
the complications in socio-economic relation of people
with each other have increased and this creates lot of
litigations; variety of new crimes generate need a
novel situation; selfishness of people has increased
day by day and to fulfil greed of human nature deviant
people try to exploit common people.
Thus there is needed to make the people aware about
their rights and duties, as well as remedies which are
available to common people when they are exploited
by someone. In India, illiteracy is still not totally
eliminated and poverty is the curse of Indian society
and because of lack of knowledge about legal aspect
such helpless people are always exploited by cruel
and shrewd people.
In such a changing society there is need to improve
the legal education and expand its scope, with the
concept of modernization it is time to enhance its
boundaries. There is 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.
We can differentiate legal education according to its
purpose one of which is taking degree of law, i.e., LLB
and LLM from profession point of view. In such
purpose, legal education is taken for earning and
second, which is given to the layman in the society is
to make him aware about the laws and its procedure
and also about his fundamental rights and duties so
that his rights cannot be violated and to fulfil this aim,
it is necessary to provide legal aid to the public at
large.

Legal Aid:
Legal Aid is an instrument to get equality before law
and equal protection of law as enumerated in Art. 14
of our Constitution, as a fundamental right. Majority of
people in our country are poor and because of their
poverty, they are unable to afford expensive legal
procedures and so they keep away from it unable to
get these freedoms and they are prevented from
getting justice.
In legal education, legal aid is one of the major parts.

Law Reform:
Legal education plays a vital role in law reform. Law
reform means some reformation, correction in existing
legal system or enactments. When a set of rules or a
set of principles is enacted by the legislature or a
specific principle is declared by the court, sometimes
they are not adequate for the society or are ineffective
to control any social problem for which such laws are
implemented.
In such situations Legal Research, Legal survey, etc.
helps in investigation for making new laws on any
current issue or changing the existing law which is not
adequate for their proper implementation.
Many enactments are result of efforts of law
reformers, such as Dowry Prohibition Act, Child
Marriage Restraint Act, Sati Prohibition Act, etc.
Legal education helps in changing the attitude of
public; it enables people to think on social problems; it
makes people more aware about their rights to duties;
it helps them to make the ideal citizens to the concept
of law reforms performed through only legal education
and to fulfil all purposes of legal education. One of the
most important aspect is legal awareness and it is
possible only through legal literacy.

Legal Awareness:
It is said that, India lives in villages and therefore to
understand the relation of law with society one has to
concentrate on Indian villages. Most of the villagers
are unaware about their own fundamental rights, legal
rights and remedies available to them and so they
have no knowledge of various legislations in force for
them.
There are number of legislations intended to reduce
socio-economic disparities and to bring about
equality, but most of the people are unaware about it.
It is essential to make not only village people but also
urban population, unaware of their rights, aware that
educated persons also sometimes get cheated by
crafty persons.
Many times educated people are also exploited by
shopkeepers, etc. but they are unaware of their rights
given in Consumer Protection Act, etc.
Women especially from villages are also unaware of
their rights which are especially enumerated for them
by our Constitution and for all these purposes legal
awareness is very essential. Legal awareness is
possible through legal literacy, but in a country like
ours where illiteracy is a curse and rampant in our
society, how is it possible to legally educate people
who are illiterates. For this purpose legal camps with
the help of audio, video instrument should be held in
villages or legal literacy can be enhanced with the
help of media too.
There are also some major steps to improve legal
education and one of the most important is to
increase the quality standard of law field. For that
there should be more establishments of law colleges.
For effective legal education there is need for
improvement in legal academic education to maintain
standard of legal education.
The Supreme Court in State of Maharashtra v.
Manbhai Pragaji Vashi (1995) 5 SCC 730, held that in
order to provide the free legal aid it is necessary to
have well trained lawyers in the country and this is
only possible if there are adequate number of law
colleges with necessary infrastructure and good
teachers and staff.
This verdict of the Supreme Court clearly shows that
for improvement of Legal education there is need to
improve quality of legal academic education and it is
also suggested that there should be separate
provisions of budget regarding Legal education. The
law ministry of every state should have a reasonable
contact with every law university.
Law possesses both creative and moulding power
and, therefore, persons dealing with law, as
legislators, judges, teachers, or practitioners should
be, more than highly trained craftsmen and for that
purpose it is important to study law along with social
science and language to improve legal education.
For the improvement of legal education, it is also
suggested to engage active social workers,
sarvodaya workers who can easily interact with
common people, and find out the deficiencies in the
enactment and the problems of implementation of any
legislations and also make the people aware about
various legal remedies; the social workers eliminate
the fear about legal procedures and courts from the
hearts of common people and for that purpose it is
beneficial to give legal training to social workers.
If all objectives of legal education have been achieved
then it is possible to protect the neglected and
downtrodden poor and indigent against the
onslaughts of the more powerful and elite sections of
society and provide them an opportunity of getting
justice. No one is exploited, everyone becomes aware
of their own rights and duties and no one should be
deprived of his rights because of poverty and
illiteracy.