GAINING A PRACTICAL APPROACH

Online courses train lawyers in newer branches of law, help students gain practical experience and keep other professionals updated on the regulations that govern their sectors.

- Pritha Roy Choudhury

“I was always interested in the law on the prevention of sexual harassment. Such acts are among the small ones and not every college includes them in its five-year curriculum. In my college, this was one of the acts left out. I wanted to know more about it, so I joined the Indian Academy of Law and Management or IALM,” said Shreya Gupta who is presently pursuing LLM at a private university in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.

The Indian Academy of Law and Management is an online platform that offers skills training in various branches of law. Gupta took the one month course on the 2013 law on the prevention of sexual harassment of women at the workplace.

Similarly, Jesse Jacob, a fifth-year student at National University of Advanced Legal Studies in Kochi, Kerala, studied two short-term certificate courses online, on another platform, Lawctopus. “One was on ‘legal research and writing’ and the second was on ‘courtroom one-on-one’. I wanted to prepare myself for a more practical approach,” said Jacob.

With the proliferation of online courses, several platforms have emerged that focus specifically on law. Some universities and top public institutions also offer courses. These include OP Jindal Global University, XLRI, Indian Law Institute and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. In many cases, the course addresses branches of law that are relatively new and may not be taught in detail in the formal system. In others, the courses are not designed for lawyers alone but for employees in other professions who nevertheless need to be conversant with the specifics of certain laws – for example, human resources managers with workplace harassment laws.

Online platforms