Office Hours

Office Hours

Legal Methods

Day	Time
Monday	2.00 P.M. to 4.00 P.M.
Friday	2.30 P.M. to 4.30 P.M.
Saturday	2.00 P.M. to 4.00 P.M.

Project Topics

Legal Methods

I Year, I Trimester (July 2007 – September 2007)

Course Faculty: Rahul Singh

Suggested List of Project Topics

1. The Idea of Law: An analysis
2. Special Economic Zone
3. The Methodology of Law
4. Law and Morality
5. Exploring the Concept of Justice
6. Economic Analysis of Law
7. Dhoni-Lara Incident: Law or Morality?
8. “Harry Potter” and Law
9. The Icons of Justice
10. Economic Analysis of Accident Law
11. “To Kill a Mocking Bird”: Role of Lawyer in Social Justice
12. Economic Analysis of Competition Law
13. Representation of Lawyers in Hindi Cinema
14. Economic Analysis of International Trade Law
15. “Liar, Liar” or “Kunki Main Jhoot Nahi Bolta”: Lawyers in Popular Imagination
16. Law and Sociology
17. TRIPS and WTO
18. “A Beautiful Game” and Red/Yellow Cards: Significance of “rules” in Football
19. Law and History
20. Economic Analysis of WTO Law
21. Law and Political Science
22. Legal Philosophy of WTO
23. Law and Natural Sciences
24. Role of Science in WTO Dispute Settlement
25. Science, Technology and the Law
26. Should Software Replace Lawyers?
27. Economic Analysis of Anti-dumping
28. Human Genome Project and Law
29. Dispute Settlement at the WTO
30. Information Technology Act
31. Monsanto at MRTPC and Agriculture
32. GM Foods
33. Cyber Crimes
34. Drafting Legislation
35. Enactment of Statutes
36. Judiciary and Law
37. Ratio Decidendi
38. Obiter Dicta
39. Principles of Statutory Interpretation
40. “The Mischief Rule”
41. The Literal Interpretation Rule
42. “The Golden Rule of Interpretation”
43. Logic and the Law
44. Legal Language: Is it exclusionary?
45. Lawyers and Language of the Law
46. Legal Profession in India
47. Access to Justice
48. Judicial Delays
49. Alternative Dispute Resolution
50. Economic Analysis of Predatory Pricing under Competition Law
51. Role of Corporate Lawyers in Deal-Making
52. The Doctrine of Precedent
53. Politicians and Law
54. Business People and Law
55. Are Judges Above Law?
56. Salman Khan’s Tryst with Law
57. Jessica Lal’s Case
58. Quota in Higher Education
59. Narmada Bachao Andolan Case
60. Contempt of Courts
61. Entry of Foreign Law Firms in India
62. WTO Agreement on Agriculture and Farmers in India
63. Agrarian Crisis and the Law
64. Legal Intervention in Farmer’s Suicides
65. Women’s Reservation Bill
66. Feminist Interpretation of Corporate Law
67. Caste System, Panchayats and the Law
68. Poor and the Law
69. Rich and the Law
70. Social Constructions of Law: How people experience and interpret law in their daily lives
71. Role of Lawyers in Developing Countries
72. Traditional Justice Systems: A case study of panchayats
73. Customary Law in India
74. Common Law and Civil Law
75. Law in Text and Law in Context
76. Inquisitorial and Adversarial Systems of Laws
77. “Law” and “Justice”
78. Indian Legal System: A critique
79. Litigation as an Effective Method of Dispute Resolution
80. Dispute Resolution in India: A historical overview
81. Legal Reasoning: An analysis
82. Legislative Drafting in India: Origins, history and contemporary debates
83. Legal Language: An exploration in contemporary debates
84. Plain Language Movement: A critique
85. The Changing Notion(s) of Justice: A critical examination
86. Judges and Law-making (Interviews with Five Judges)
87. Law and Social Change in India: A critical review
88. Law as an Instrument of Social Change
89. Rule of Law
90. The Authority of Law
91. Is Law Necessary?
92. Law and Legitimacy
93. Inductive and Deductive Reasoning: A note
94. Religion as a Source of Law
95. Dimensions of Justice: An overview
96. Legal Methods and the Critical Legal Studies Movement
97. Law Reform in India: A critique
98. Legal Research in India: A critical commentary
99. Feminist Legal Method: A review
100. Legal Formalism and Legal Realism: A review
101. The Concept of Law
102. International Conventions as a Source of Law
103. The Politics of Legal Language
104. The Colonial Legacy in the Indian Legal System
105. Animal Rights
106. Hostile Witnesses
107. Sting Operations
108. Industrial disasters
109. Coca Cola/Pepsi and Pesticides
110. Legalization of Prostitution
111. Same sex marriages
112. Nuremberg trials

Note: Students are welcome to design their own project topics, in consultation with the course faculty, within the first week of commencement of the trimester.

About the Course

Welcome to the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) and perhaps, to your first brush with “law”, through this course modestly titled “Legal Methods”!

Legal Methods is a foundational course. Nevertheless, it is a window to the vibrancy, energy, and excitement of law. This course has an ambitious package in store for you. It seeks to introduce you to legal methodology; “constitutive” and “functional” aspects of law; legal reasoning and analysis; legal writing and research; legal institutions and justice; and, contemporary issues facing the legal profession and the Indian legal system.

As a student here, the course expects much of you; from the very first day of class, it will challenge you to think and do things you perhaps, didn’t know you could. It hopes to reward you by exposing you to ideas that will captivate and inspire you, by imparting you skills and ways of thought that would serve as building blocks for your academic pursuit at the NLSIU, and hopefully, in your eventual career as a lawyer and in life!