Nalsar Hyderabad has proposed a regular full-time course for paralegals to widen the scope of legal education to include non-LLB professionals for imparting functions of mediators, conciliators, negotiators and counsellors. Nalsar vice-chancellor (VC) Veer Singh told The Hindu about his intention to introduce a certificate course for paralegals to impart knowledge of the basic law courses as part of the university’s curriculum. According to Singh legal knowledge coupled with training would equip those with ten-plus two and higher education to handle elementary adjudicatory and conciliatory roles related to land disputes and other issues. The law school has had prior experience in training approximately 400 paralegals for various legal aid programmes initiated by the Andhra Pradesh State Government, reported The Hindu. The proposal is currently at a nascent stage with the VC planning to write to the Human Resources Development Ministry for necessary approvals. Until now only institutes such as the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) have offered vocational training courses for paralegals with the Nalsar initiative perhaps being the first of its kind by a national law school.
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I feel there should be more emphasis on practical training for the para legals, if they have to handle elementary adjudicatory and conciliatory roles. Legal drafting skills also may be included in the curriculum.This important field of law is ignored in the various structured courses in law.