The National Law University, established by the National Law University Jodhpur Act, 1999, is the fifth national university for legal education in the country, following the institutes in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Bhopal and Calcutta.

The integrated five-year law programme here lays emphasis on clinical education and professional training. In five years (divided into 10 semesters) students have to undertake 65 courses to earn their BA-LLB (hons), BSc-LLB (hons) or BBA-LLB (hons) degree as the case may be. The students are taught 34 compulsory law courses including the 17 specified by the Bar Council. There are five clinical courses, four optional courses and six courses for each honours subject. At present, the honours subjects offered are public law and constitutional governance, criminal justice, business laws and international legal studies. At the end of the course, the university conducts a placement programme for all those who want to practise at the Bar or join corporate law and solicitors’ firms, the government or the corporate world.

The prospectus and application form is available at the National Law University, NH 65, Nagaur Road, Mandore, Jodhpur-342304, from the first week of January. Send a demand draft of Rs 1,200 (or US $150 in case of NRIs and foreigners) drawn in favour of the Registrar, National Law University, Jodhpur and payable at Jodhpur. The form can also be downloaded from the website (www.nlujodhpur.ac.in).

Eligibility

The qualification required for admission to the undergraduate course is 10+2 with 50 per cent marks in aggregate.

Entrance examination

Selection of students for admission to all the five-year undergraduate courses (BA-LLB, BBA-LLB and BSc-LLB) is on the basis of performance in the National Entrance Test (NET), which is held in the first week of May at 16 centres all over India.

Pattern of exam

NET assesses the applicant’s linguistic ability, analytical skills, level of general awareness, mathematical aptitude, legal reasoning and aptitude for learning law.

How to prepare

To make sure your linguistic ability is up to scratch, go through the grammar books by Thomas and Martinet, Nesfield and Wren and Martin.

You can also consult Objective English by Prasad, and English is Easy by Chetan Anand. Doing exercises of usage and comprehension from the SAT guide by Barron would also be useful.

To brush up your analytical skills, refer to books by R.S. Agarwal, Edgar Thorpe and Tata McGraw Hill. Prepare from books like Quantitative Aptitude by Abhijit Guha, Objective Question Bank (Mathematics) by R.K. Gupta and J.P. Arya for the section on maths.

To tackle the section on legal reasoning, you need to have a clear understanding of fundamental rights, directive principles, fundamental duties, law of torts and law of contract. Go through the recent Constitutional amendments and Supreme Court judgments.

Brush up your GK from the CSR or the Manorama yearbook as well as from magazines like Competition Master and India Today. It would be a good idea to solve previous years’ question papers within the given time limit.

sample test paper

Legal aptitude

Retrenchment includes:
a) retirement of the workman
b) voluntary retirement
c) termination without compensation
d) serving prescribed notice to the appropriate government

Reasoning

Select the lettered pair that has the same relationship as the original pair of words. Dubious: Indisputable
a) Slander: Libel
b) Painful: Tormenting
c) Avaricious: Generous
d) Perspicacious: Tenacity

Maths

Rs 120 is to be divided between A, B and C. If A receives twice as much as B and B receives thrice as much as C, then the share of C is:
a) 12
b) 36
c) 72
d) 20

English

If more teams withdraw, the tournament…
a) may have to be cancelled
b) will have been cancelled
c) will have cancelled
d) would cancel

General awareness

India’s rank in the Human Development Index for 2006 is:
a) 150
b) 126
c) 130
d) 120