The development of lawyers as a class of legal professionals can be attributed to the need for proficient, trained professionals who can form a competent interface between the judiciary and the laypersons. The role of this interface comes with a lot of responsibility and something hose value should not be understated.
To be a competent lawyer, one must have proficiency in a multitude of skills like researching, debating, critical analysis, reasoning and logical thinking ability, communication skills, public speaking skills, decision-making skills, comprehension skills. In addition to that, lawyers also need to have a good understanding of the client’s life and business; they need to be organised, responsive, patient, and emotionally balanced. In short, going by the variety of disciplines one needs to be good at, to be a good lawyer is nothing short of being a polymath dealing with high stakes.
To train such a cadre of legal professionals, we need institutions that go far and beyond the basic educational offering to help aspirants develop a cognitive framework to deal with issues concerning the law whilst learning, i.e., a trainable mindset. Institutions who sport scholarly and cultivated faculty who play an active role in the judiciary, and an infrastructure to make this rigorous learning process maximally engaging and optimally challenging. We need institutions like the SVKM’s Pravin Gandhi College of Law.
Marcel Proust once said, “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” This observation clearly enunciates the goals and objectives of SVKM’s Pravin Gandhi College of Law. The institution recognizes the fact that every student has a spark of creativity within them, which is the essence of individuality.
Where Excellence is the Norm
The college’s learning curriculum is built on this premise, with the goal of identifying, honing in on, and unearthing this reservoir of creativity. To this effect, the college harnesses modern methods of teaching which encourage students to learn inside and outside the classroom. PGCL institution provides the students with varied platforms to develop their skills; by way of debates at the intra- and inter-collegiate levels; Seminars, workshops, trial advocacy through moot competitions, the Juris-cine club, ‘L’avocat’ – an in-house student’s newsletter which enables students to air their passionate concerns on issues, topical or otherwise, and innovative interactive methods of study in the classroom create an ambience that fosters intellectual growth.
This methodology intersects a legal education with a contextualization that embraces social, political, and economic systems. An excellent faculty serves as a facilitator in helping students materialize this vision. It is this holistic approach to education that justifies the claim SVKM’s Pravin Gandhi College of Law makes, of being a law college with a “Difference”. For at the end of their voyage of self-discovery students emerge confident, positive thinking individuals, ably equipped to discharge their assigned roles responsibly on a world stage.
The college library, with its vast and eclectic collection of books and journals, satiates the thirst for knowledge of both staff and students and gives utmost attention to the overall development of the personality of students.
Students are also encouraged to participate in co-curricular activities and sports. While ensuring academic and co-curricular facilities to a vibrant student community, the institution is conscious of its role as a constructive and responsible component of the larger society. Its consistent and unstinting efforts in this direction are borne out by the fact that students enter the college, young, immature, uncertain, bewildered, but leave its portals still young, but much more mature, self-confident, and focused, ready to lead rich lives of their own even while enriching that of society.
SVKM
Shri Vile Parle Kelavani Mandal (SVKM) is a Public Charitable Trust registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and The Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950. SVKM has always been committed to the cause of providing high-quality education at various levels. From its humble beginnings in 1934, when it adopted the Rashtriya Shala, a school established in 1921 in the wake of the National Movement, the Mandal today has grown into a large educational enterprise imparting high-level education to more than 32,000 students.
The ethos of the Mandal is marked by patriotic fervour, selfless service, and the spirit of indigenous enterprise, has its genesis in the days of India’s struggle for freedom.
Training the Legal Acumen
The interactive teaching methods are designed to aid comprehension and retention for a lifetime. PGCL’s focus is to train the student to think and act from the very inception with a legal mind, acquiring lawyering skills for varied legal services in the modern world. The teaching methods provide rapid socialization into the standards of legal thinking and blends training with knowledge management.
The Inspiring Infrastructure
Pravin Gandhi College of Law has a vantage location on the eighth floor of the Mithibai Complex in Vile Parle West; the heart of Mumbai city. This location facilitates its connectivity to the various Courts and the offices of major law firms in Mumbai. Pravin Gandhi College of Law is renowned for its infrastructure; an infrastructure that goes a long way in facilitating numerous services. This includes a state-of-the-art moot courtroom, Wi-Fi enabled library, computer laboratory, fully furnished air-conditioned classrooms with multimedia facilities. It also has auditoriums, seminar halls as well as conference halls. Closed-circuit television systems contribute to the enhanced security of the college environs in the college corridors and library. Additionally, the college also has dedicated counsellors for the students.
The World-class Library
The well-stocked, Wi-Fi enabled library is designed for comfort and its spaciousness creates a conducive environment for research. Students have access to legal and non-legal journals, subject related reference resource and a wide range of online services and programs which support and supplement the syllabus, enables unhindered continuous research, hence promoting legal scholarship.
Leading international and national law journals, law reports and magazines are subscribed by the college and are available to students. In addition to print collection, the library has electronic resources and databases accessible to students through links. The use of laptops is permitted in the library.
Where ideas battle
Pravin Gandhi College of Law has on its premises a simulated courtroom in which the dignity of the institution of the judiciary is upheld and revitalized by mooting students. Mooting nurtures students’ analytical skills indispensable to courtroom advocacy. Thus, students learn doctrine through real-world context skills, a ‘learning by doing’ approach.
The Computer Lab
Computers facilitate research for moots, presentations, projects, and syllabi related queries. Internet access assists in this endeavour. Pravin Gandhi College of Law has all this and more available at the click of a mouse in the well-equipped twin computer labs with its seating capacity of more than thirty students.
Courses offered
The institute facilitates the B.L.S. (Bachelor of Law Sciences), L.L.B (Bachelor of Legislative Law) which is a five-year course. Entry into this law specialization is completely merit-based, but the intake capacity is limited to 120 students per batch. On completion of this course, students acquire the knowledge and skills required to thrive in the cut-throat legal sector and pursue careers in practicing law, corporate sector, judicial services, defence services, LPO’s, NGO’s, academics and more.
Word to the Wise
Students have benefited vastly from the opportunities afforded by PGCL of exposure to interaction with eminent personalities from the legal and allied fields. This has contributed to widening their perspectives. The institution also hosts regular lecture series, featuring luminaries from amongst judicial officers. These judicial officers field questions on law students at ‘Q&A sessions’. At the annual event SHASTRARTHA – a Legal Philosophical Discourse, leading lights of the industry, the legal fraternity, governance, media, and entertainment are invited to deliberate.
