As the CLAT exam and other law school exams are approaching, it easy to find worried faces, tensed regarding which law school to choose over others.

To ease up the line of worries from the face of tensed law school aspirants, at First Taste of Law, I decided to write a series of post dedicated to different law schools judged on the basis of quality of education, recruitment, college environment and infrastructure.

The first in the file is NUJS. Let’s see how does it fare on these criteria.

Quality of Education

NUJS is known to have the best faculty among all the National Law Schools as it boasts of professors who have researched or done LL.M. from top international universities including Oxford, Harvard, and LSE. You can have a look at NUJS faculty by clicking here. Well, international degrees may be an indicator, but unfortunately they do not guarantee a great teacher. Legendary Prof. M. P. Singh, who recently retired, worked hard to bring together a great bunch of teachers and academicians in NUJS. NUJS continues to benefit from the efforts of professor Singh.
As far as the education system is concerned, NUJS has a two-semester structure and the exam consists of written paper and tutorials in the first two years and projects from 3rd year onwards. From third year almost all subjects become optional – giving a choice of specialization like few other colleges.
One good thing about the project system and tutorial is that you are not required to write harassing thousands of word to finish your projects. The word limit in the tutorials/ projects ranges from 1000 to 3000 which also discourages plagiarism and inculcates writing skills.

Recruitment

This is the factor that matters the most at the end of the day and makes the students really anxious, after all 5 years spend in a law school ought to fetch fruitful result.
Placement depends on the quality of students plus the way recruitment and placement committee of a batch functions, nonetheless, if we look at the last year placement record of NUJS, all the 75 students who sat for placement got placed. A plain consideration of recruitment figures shows that NUJS placed more people in the top 5 Indian law firms than any other law school including NLS and NALSAR. NLS is still preferred by international firms over NUJS, but international recruitment has not grown much in the last three years in light of the economic situation in the West. You can read further about it here.

College Environment

NUJS is known to have student friendly environment, where students manage most of the affairs that affect the lives of students – starting from the mess, hostel discipline to activities on the campus with minimal interference from the administration. NUJS has a tradition of student autonomy in non-academic matters. Academic events and fests held by NUJS students see the wide participation of law students from each part of the country and well-known academicians and professors. Curfew time at campus is12am. NUJS boasts of a strong student juridical association, amicable relations between seniors and juniors, NUJS can easily score 10 on 10 on this criteria.

Infrastructure

If a big sprawling campus is something that defines your ideal university, NUJS may not be the place for you. NUJS campus area is of 5 acres – with a state of the art university building and imposing hostel buildings. The campus is compact but is thoroughly enjoyed by students. NUJS has a tie up with SAI which is very close by for sports facilities. NUJS has hit some infrastructural milestones in the last couple of years, with a super high-speed internet connection, WiFi in campus, expansion of reading rooms and a great auditorium.
NUJS is located in the middle of the city, unlike most other law schools, with at least 6 famous malls within 5 minutes (2 of them) to half an hour reach. Everything starting for additional classes you may want to take (foreign languages to martial arts) or multiplexes, restaurants (and nightclubs if you want) or the best hospitals in the city are extremely accessible. Being located in the city brings with it a sense of security, one of the reasons that why the in time of 12 is is conceivable. Also, its an ideal place for you if you don’t want to walk a long way to class, waking up at 9:15 and attending a 9:30 class on time is totally feasible.
If we look at the other side of physical infrastructure that is the hostels, it does not depict a happy picture as far as girls hostel is concerned. There is an acute lack of space in girls hostel. So, if you are a girl, my suggestion would be that please give a serious thought to this issue before opting for NUJS.
As far as academic resources are concerned, NUJS has a rich library where most of the academic journals, books are available and accessible – and the current librarian has greatly focused on making digital archives of books and journals available.

The City

Last but not the least, the city where NUJS is located, Kolkata, is known as the city of joy which indeed it is. Amazingly cheap, with a warm and nice culture, excellent food to sample on every street, nice places to hang out at, cheap places to eat and shop, Kolkata is extremely student friendly. NUJS is in Salt Lake, which is one of the poshest and sought after place to live in Kolkata. It’s clean and has wide roads. As far as the weather is concerned, Kolkata has a decent weather minus the scorching heat and tiring humidity of summer and incessant rain in the monsoon.
Hope this post was helpful for you. Keep an eye on this space to know about other law schools.