The significance of law colleges in the grand tapestry of India’s educational landscape is a thing of great admiration and awe.

For in these hallowed halls of legal learning, where the weighty tomes of the law are studied with fervent devotion and the wisdom of ages past is passed on to the eager minds of the next generation, lies the foundation of justice and equity that underpins this great nation.

Through its rigorous curriculum and steadfast commitment to excellence, University Law College, Bangalore, cultivates the legal minds that will one day serve as the pillars of the judicial system.

The erstwhile government of Mysore (now the state of Karnataka) started the College in the year 1948. It was previously known as the Government Law College (GLC). In the year 1964, GLC was brought under the Faculty of Law of Bangalore University, and since then, it has been known as University Law College (ULC).

Initially, a two-year LL.B program was offered. The turnaround in legal education in India came about with the introduction of five years BA. LL.B Integrated degree programme and ULC has the credit as the first institution in the country to introduce the five years LL.B programme in the year 1986-87, with the keen initiation of Prof. V. B. Coutinho, the then principal of ULC.

The College offers a two-year LLM course, offering specialisations in Constitutional Law, Labour Law, Criminal Law and Corporate and Commercial Law. Currently, Prof. Dr V Sudesh is the Chairperson of the Dept. of Studies in Law, ULC, Bangalore.

This was an initiative to achieve higher standards in legal education as designed by the BCI, New Delhi. ULC is well known for organising many academic, research, literacy and extension programs such as National and International seminars, conferences and legal aid, moot courts and many cultural events too.

Empowering Legal Minds

The vision of the College is to achieve excellence in education for the realisation of a vibrant and inclusive society through knowledge creation and dissemination.

University Law College, Bangalore, is committed to imparting quality education, promoting scientific tempo, and blending theoretical knowledge with practical skills. The institution aims at pursuing academic excellence through teaching, research, and publications and by providing access to all sections of society to pursue higher education for promoting leadership qualities among students, making them socially sensitive citizens.

Leading with Legal Acumen

Prof. Dr Suresh V. Nadagoudar is currently the Principal and Dean, Faculty of Law, University Law College, Bangalore. He has also served in various capacities such as Former Registrar and Vice Chancellor (Acting), Rural Development and Panchayat Raj University, Gadag; Former Registrar (Evaluation), Bangalore University; Former Registrar (Evaluation) & Registrar I/c, Karnataka State Law University, Hubballi.

He has also served as a Member of the Syndicate, Senate, and Academic Council of different Universities, a member of BOE, BOS, and Faculty of Law and Chairperson of multiple local enquiry committees to inspect academic standards of the institutions and as an expert in various committees at University, State and National levels. He has multiple publications and awards to his credit and has also guided a number of students at PG and Ph.D programmes.

The College has achieved numerous milestones through the constant support of its distinguished teaching faculty, alumni and its university. These are the few notable achievements under the leadership of Prof. Dr Suresh V. Nadagoudar:

• Infrastructure development.
• Smart classroom with projectors.
• Gender-inclusive admission.
• Transgender reservation (friendly environment to LGBTQ community), the institution has encouraged students to truly identify themselves as to who they are.
• Anti-ragging and anti-sexual harassment mandates are strictly followed in the College; College has established dedicated committees to ensure the same.
• Dedicated Moot courtroom, which is a replica of a court setup.
• Arrangement of special lectures by eminent guests.
• Introduced distinguished visiting faculty who are eminent senior advocates of the High Court and Supreme Court.
• Introduced Model United Nations (MUN) and successfully hosted the annual MUN competition.
• Publication of law journal, research, and development activities.
• MOUs with prominent legal education institutions for student and faculty exchange programmes.
• Updated the course curriculum of the LL.B and LL.M programmes.

Beating the Odds

One of the important challenges which are generally encountered by law colleges or institutions, more particularly in the public institution, is providing the required infrastructure, and recruitment of quality teachers, to ensure student attendance and make students get involved in participating in field learning and activities.

However, these constraints have been overcome in the institution by the construction of fully furnished infrastructure, which includes smart classrooms, a fully furnished moot courtroom and so on, with the constant help of the university funds and the cooperation of alumni.

Measures have also been taken to ensure the appointment of quality guest faculty through a transparent selection process and also encourage students to take up internships, moot court competitions and other fieldwork as a part of the curriculum mandate.

Upholding the Culture

ULC conducts many activities throughout the year for students to participate in, some of them being Moot courts, debates, parliamentary quizzes and Model United Nations.

Ethnic Day is celebrated to uphold the Indian culture and students’ home countries’ culture for everyone to feel included.

The College also has a legal services clinic cell and an NSS wing. The NSS wing is overlooked by Dr Chandrakanti, the NSS Coordinator, operates on a very active basis to provide service to society; the activities include and are not limited to a legal awareness drive, village visits and camps, blood donation, environment meets and so on.

The College also has various clubs, some of which are initiated by students themselves, which include Moot club, Debate club, VCCR’s CRY – for child rights and so on.

The College also has a dedicated Moot Court Society and MUN society (a student body committee run under the guidance of the teaching faculty), which organise and host annual national competitions.

Eminent Faculties

The College is availing the honorary service of five distinguished visiting faculties who are eminent designated Senior Advocates of the High Court and Supreme Court to get the required practical exposure to students. Further, conducting Special Lectures inviting eminent Judges, Advocates, and Academicians has been a saga of great success.

The eight eminent designated Senior Advocates of the High Court and Supreme Court as Distinguished Visiting Faculty are as:

• Sri Ravivarma Kumar
• Sri Uday Holla
• Mohan V. Katarki
• Sri Basavaprabhu S Patil
• Prabhulinga K Navadgi
• M K Ramesh
• Jayana Kothari.
• S R Anuradha

Helping Hands

The College has a Legal Aid Services Clinic to provide legal aid to the poor and needy. This is one of the components of the LL.B program in which the ULC puts its heart and soul into its realisation. Students of the law programme visit villages and enquire about the deficiencies prevailing in the villages through a scientific questionnaire. This includes the day-to-day problems they face, their level of literacy, and their lack of legal knowledge.

Through this method, the students ascertain the socio-legal problems in these villages. In this programme, a group of students assisted by a staff member would provide the necessary advice to tackle their legal routine, social and economic problems. University Law College has been consistently holding this programme since the introduction of the five years LL.B programme in the year 1985-86.

As a part of the Legal Aid Service Programme, the College has adopted the villages in the Bangalore district. The Legal Aid Services Clinic and Literacy programmes are conducted by Dr N. Sathish Gowda, who is the Coordinator of the Legal Aid Services Clinic.

Strive for a Social Cause

The National Service Scheme of ULC has been conducting several activities, such as cleanliness drives in villages, health awareness camps, spreading awareness on socially important issues, and a national integration camp with about 150 student volunteers. Various activities were conducted by the National Service Scheme of the University Law College in the year 2021-22, including voluntary blood donation camps, women’s day and other celebrations.

The annual camp of NSS volunteers is conducted every year in different villages near Bangalore. Various social and cultural activities like cleaning the village, legal awareness to the village people, education, health care, personal hygiene, etc., are part of the annual camp. University Law College has made.

The annual national-level Moot Court Competition hosted by ULC is the flagship activity of the student body, the Society of Mooters. The competition attracts participants from law colleges all across the country. The Judges of the High Court of Karnataka preside over the finals of the Moot Court Competition. This event has achieved an invaluable position among the top Moot Court Competitions in the country.

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