May 17, 2025
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"It is one thing to know that the law and quite another to practice it."
This remark by N.R. Madhava Menon definitely highlights the fundamental gap between legal theory today, and practice that continues to trouble the Indian legal education. Clinical Legal Education (hereinafter CLE) is basically an experiential method of teaching law and it addresses this divide by allowing the students to engage with real or experienced legal processes under supervision. CLE has a particular relevance in the context of understanding and practising Evidence Law, which is in itself procedural, technical, and central to any criminal or civil practice of law.
In India, the Evidence Law is often taught as a classroom subject focused on the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 or now the new version of the laws i.e. Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA). However the real-world application especially in courts, various investigations, and legal proceedings definitely demands more than the rote and classroom theoretical understanding of the laws. CLE gives you a path way for exposing students to tasks such as evidence collection, drafting, cross-examination question formulation, simulations, and document authentication, which helps in transforming the theoretical knowledge into practical legal skills for the real world.
It has the origins in early 20th century law schools, specifically from America and then it gained traction in India from the 1970s, particularly with the legal aid movement and pedagogical reforms led by legal academics like Madhav Menon. Eventually the Bar Council of India formalized CLE's role by including it in its Rules on Legal Education (as we know they love to have a control over what law schools are teaching or not teaching), which made clinical courses such as moot courts, internships, drafting and legal aid mandatory in the LL.B curriculum.
CLE in India encompasses various formats:
The objectives of the Clinical Education in Law are threefold: skill-building, ethical development (if that is possible for lawyers), and social justice.² It teaches practical lawyering competencies, client interviewing, drafting, litigation strategy, while embedding professional responsibility and empathy for marginalized groups.³
Evidence Law is both foundational, substantive and to an extent procedural in its working, which makes it complex. Provisions related to electronic evidences or certain presumptions in sexual offences, and the exceptions of the hearsay rule usually require contextual understanding. Yet in most Indian law schools (majority), teaching such a law remains predominantly lecture based, and students never or seldom encounter the procedural realities and skill behind these rules.⁴
This disconnect between theory and the courtroom procedure is often exacerbated by lack of faculty training in clinical methods (at both the masters and the professional level) and restrictions on students participating in actual court proceedings.⁵ A study in 2015, the UNDP India report found that while 82% of surveyed law colleges had legal aid clinics, most of them did not offer course credit or even the formal integration into the pedagogy related to that of Evidence Laws.⁶ As a result, in abstract, the students may learn evidentiary provisions but they fail to understand how to apply them effectively in practice (internships and jobs).
CLE provides a robust pedagogical strategy to address tsuch limitations. For example:
Why Clinical Legal Education in India Is Struggling — And What We Can Do About It
A good example comes from my alma mater, the Good Governance and Citizen Participation Clinic at Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) where students assisted in legal research and community litigation involving evidentiary issues such as land rights, drafting and public documents.¹⁰ These experiences definitely enhances student understanding of the technical rules while cultivating critical thinking and legal reasoning, few of the skills which CLE focuses on. Also, these type of Clinics strengthens the student familiarity with one of the most essential skills from Evidence Law i.e. cross examination techniques, question framing and evidentiary burdens (For example Shift of burden of proof), which are seldom grasped through textbooks alone.¹¹
Many of India's top law schools (NLUs and Private Law Schools) have embraced clinical education as part of their pedagogical models. All National Law Universities have operational legal aid clinics (how effective? Deeper research is required) and offer the courses which have the CLE integration. Several of such colleges also collaborate with District Legal Services Authorities, NGOs, activists, adopt nearby villages as well to provide the community legal services and the practical legal training.¹²
Key initiatives:
As usual, despite these gains, a lot of significant structural challenges still persist. Many law colleges outside the NLU network lack infrastructure, trained faculty, or the administrative support to implement CLE. Moreover, BCI rules currently bar students and teachers from appearing in court, limiting real-client exposure.¹⁵ A 2013 survey concluded that clinics were "underutilized" due to absence of academic credit and poor integration with core subjects like Evidence Law.
Clinical Legal Education offers a transformative approach to teaching Evidence Law not just in India but internationally . By integrating the experiential learning techniques into legal instruction, it ensures that students not only understand the abstract Evidence Laws but are also equipped to apply it ethically and effectively in real-world scenarios. As Menon argued, CLE is essential not just for professional readiness, but also for promoting access to justice.
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