We will introduce Cyber Security course with IIT Madras, says Lloyd College Director

Dr Akhilesh Kumar Khan- Director of Admissions & Administration from Lloyd Law College spoke to Shiksha and talked about various aspects of legal education in today’s time, read here the full interview.

What do you think about the future of legal education in India with new career opportunities coming up?

For me since the law is a dynamic and ever-evolving field and what we have seen recently now the subordinate courses are also strengthening every day and the legal profession has seen significant changes. If you see around traditional areas such as litigation to cyber security laws, media laws are there, technology laws are there and many more things are coming up even AI laws are nowadays coming up also recently you see the Bar Council of India has opened up the law practice in India to foreign lawyers and firms. So, this will make India the Centre for international commercial arbitration in near future as well. Even in our college also, we have constituted Lloyd Alternative Dispute Resolution Centre which we call LIMA – Lloyd Institute for Mediation and Arbitration. So, through these kinds of exposures now things are going to be very different and what I can see is that definitely it is going to change the whole number of career opportunities for law students.

How do moot courts help a law student in preparing for the legal field?

Whenever law students come and join any law college, the first thing they need to learn is about drafting, pleading and all these things. So, the moot court is one of the exercises wherein students come in contact with real-life situations through this problem and through studies of these things, they analyse and rationalize social issues which require critical engagement in order to approach a sound conclusion. It is important to come up with those kinds of moot court activities and it basically prepares you for all kinds of skill development.

Moot court is one of the important things and one of the important activities through which the students acquire the basic skills of advocacy.

What are career opportunities after completing BA LLB (Hons) and LLM courses?

Nowadays, things have changed a lot but there are traditional things that are going on already which is that once they pass out this degree course they generally go for legal practice. But, then nowadays also after earning the degree and getting registered with BCI, they also go for different kinds of practice in criminal, Intellectual Property, etc, but then you see the number of law firms and corporate opportunities also available so even at least in our situation like we are put up in Delhi NCR, there are lots of opportunities such as journalism field, one can join as a legal correspondent, legal analyst or legal advisor or they can also apply for the judiciary and they can be one of the Judicial Officers when they pass out examinations. Also, if you see the corporate sector, they can join as Associates, Legal Advisors, or Legal Officers. Through LLM and PhD, once they qualify for UGC net, they can join as a Professor or Assistant Professor.

Now, a different research field is opening nowadays where they can join as a Research Associate. Our students are working under the Ministry of Law and Justice, where they are kind of working as Research Associates, advising how to come up with new laws and what are changes required, what were the traditional things which are not acceptable in today’s society.

What according to you are the best traits a law student must have for a promising career?

If we talk about students’ progression since it is a professional degree and it adds great value. So, it is not only limited to just acquiring the knowledge but we are more focused on the skill building of the students and personality development of the students than only providing them with bookish knowledge and this is one thing which you can see that in this particular field, people acquire not only the knowledge because the knowledge is endless because being a lawyer you are expected to know everything but then if you acquire the skills then you can survive in this particular field and what happens in mooting competition, a great deal of assistance and exhausted research is required to prepare. 

So, for me if any students are in the field of law, for a promising career they need to develop these kinds of analytic skills, legal skills are definitely needed, and then they need to develop some drafting skills. So, these skills are more important than only having a bookish knowledge or having a traditional approach which earlier people were having.

What are your plans and vision to make the institute better in terms of education?

Again, I would start with the same thing that to give more and more enhanced skills to the students. So, basically what we plan here is to continue building on the college legacy of providing practice-oriented, profession-oriented, and practical-oriented legal education. It means continuously updating the academic activities alongside a set curriculum to reflect the latest development in the legal field and we also ensure that our students have access to the most relevant and up-to-date legal knowledge. 

We are going to introduce one more course through the tie-up with IIT Madras is Cyber Security. So, through that, we are just trying to enhance the skills of the students and at the same time, we are trying to give maximum opportunities to them through their learning, internships and other kinds of placement activities.

Tell us about Lloyd Law College's placements.

About placements since we are situated in a little bit benefit position because we are situated in Delhi/NCR. So, we have tie-up with law firms, we have ties- with more than 750 law firms, 125 corporate house tie-ups wherein not all the tie-ups are done in writing but most of the tie-ups are there, we have tie-ups with NGOs and almost 50 AOR are on boards, and also our students are working with different government agencies, the students are also in all kind of law firms be it Amarchand Mangal Das, Luthra and Luthra, Deloitte, DSK Legal, Anand and Anand etc, and also they are working with Tech Mahindra, Thomson Reuters. These opportunities have been provided since we have a full-fledged internship placement cell, besides we have developed a centre for learning and development through which we are training our students with the daily requirements of the legal field.

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