Karnataka > Legal Education
The first Law College in Karnatka was started at Belgaum in 1939 by the Karnataka Law Society, a private body and the name of the college was Raja Lakmangauda Law College. There were four Law Colleges in the state at the time of reorganisation-two in Mysore area and two in Belgaum area with a total strength of 758 that included two women. The course was of two years duration, leading to the B.L.Degree of the Mysore University and the L.L.B Degree of the Karnataka University. The latter also conducted examination for the Master Degree in law (LLM). By 1968, the number of colleges went upto 13 with the region-wise break-up as, eight in Mysore, three in Belgaum (including the University law College of Dharwad), one each in Mangalore and Gulbarga. The total enrolment in all the above colleges was 4,080, including 147 women. By 1981-82, there was a total of 32 Law Colleges in the State including the two University Law Colleges-one at Bangalore and the other at Dharwad. The rest were managed by private agencies, where classes were conducted either in the morning or in the evening to facilitate employed students.
The Law course which was to be previously taken up after graduation was changed and the Bar Council of India proposed a drastic change bringing legal education at par with the other professional courses. It was made a five year course to be taken up after the +2 course, common to students all over the country. However the old system still prevails in a majority of the law colleges. The National School of Law University is a prestigious institute in Bangalore, established in 1988. For the year 1999-2000 the number of Law colleges was 68 with 23,302 students in them (including the two University Law colleges).
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