Faculty Corner

Debate as a Learning Tool

– By Dr. Kavita Chawla

Most of us are familiar with debating in an informal environment, such as convincing our parents to increase the allowance, negotiating the daily chores with them, or persuading our friends to eat a particular food, watch a particular movie. Building on these skills, we have the concept of legal debates in the Law School. These debates are set in a formal environment, where the law students take opposing positions on a given topic with the end goal of making the opponent agree to their position. Conducting a legal debate in a classroom encourages the budding lawyers to develop critical thinking simultaneously building a relationship amongst them when working in a team.

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How to write a response paper?

– By Mr. Anubhav Raj Shekhar

A response paper is a short piece of writing where the author communicates her reaction to a text she has read. A response paper, in addition to helping a student understand a text better, allows her to become conscious and actively register her thoughts regarding the text she is writing about. The author has written this post with the intention of introducing students to the concept of a response paper. Further, the idea is to distinguish a response paper from a research paper and provide inputs on writing a good response to a text.

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Why should law students study ‘Jurisprudence’?

– By Mr. Aditya Rathore

Jurisprudence is one of those courses where students come with a lot of misconceptions regarding the content and purpose of the course. A common misconception is that this course is dry and boring. Another misconception is that it is irrelevant to the practice of law and is merely concerned with philosophical enquiries suited to academics. Although I disagree with the assertion about the dry and boring nature of jurisprudence, here I shall restrain myself to deal specifically with the second misconception related to the jurisprudence being abstract and irrelevant to practicing lawyers.

Legal problems are not mere problems of compliance, they are problems demanding correct interpretation and application of law. Without jurisprudence, a lawyer may be able to identify issues relating to non-compliance of rules and regulations but not necessarily those of interpretation and application. That ability comes only through developing critical reasoning skills through study of jurisprudence.

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