Legal Education and Feminist Pedagogy: A Bridge to Radical Legal Change

Education plays a pivotal role in shaping a person’s life choices and the conduct of the profession. Education forms the theoretical aspect for the applied part, vis-a-vis professional conduct and choices. Likewise, legal education affects the person’s knowing and approaches to professional life. Legal education has a potential to transform the entire legal tapestry. However, given the current scenario legal education in India is marooned in a sorry state. The legal education regulatory body, Bar Council of India has put in meager efforts to free the legal education of the old methods. In this article I outline the premise that feminist pedagogy is the answer for arriving at a transforming legal learning methodology and changing the legal system from within by juxtaposing an extrinsically imposed regulatory regime. In doing so, I first analyze the existing legal learning techniques and their enduring effect on applied aspect. Then I shift the focal lens on problems with the existing learning methodology of law, examine why these issues exist and, the following part would make incursions into feminist methodology and substantiate the potential role of it in reshaping the legal system. The last part would state some final remarks and reflections.