Introduction

I finished my law school but soon realised that a career in litigation or landing myself in a corporate job was not my true callings. 

I believe that there is more to law than a fixed law school curriculum; perhaps like medicine, the legal domain is multidimensional and dynamic. 

Looking forward, I do wish to have a work-life balance but not at the cost of not finding joy, satisfaction and passion in my work. So much so that never a day goes mundane. 

I wish my career chart to be marked by personal growth and the same to be an ever-evolving process. 

Maybe aspiring for a tough competitive exam like UPSC or Judiciary or having some experience of the uncertainties and rigours at the Bar is not a bad idea, but is keeping all eggs in one basket the best option? I must think about some backup!

Do these thoughts revolve in your mind every once in a while? Well, there is no doubt that the foundation of every professional endeavour must be based on growth. But then how does one grow together in law as well as life skills? Isn’t it an ever-evolving process, one has to learn, re-learn and constantly keep learning? And what is the best way to ‘learn’? Well, this one is easy, it is to teach! Though one may say that the art of teaching never comes in easy.

Even after graduation, you must be having fond memories of your favourite law professor, ever thought why is that so! Well, because this person not just taught you the concepts of law with utmost clarity but was empathetic, took interest and ensured that you develop an interest in the subject in order to derive the maximum benefit out of it. This one academic truly made you a scholar out of a law student. 

Think about it. Do you often see yourself as that one person who has the potential of inspiring thousands of students towards legal education or contributing toward legal reforms through effective research? Well, if this is the case, then pursuing academics is your calling. However, the first step towards defining this roadmap is to know about the UGC NET Examination. 

On behalf of the University Grants Commission (UGC), the National Eligibility Test (NET) is conducted for determining the eligibility for Assistant Professor only or Junior Research Fellowship and Assistant Professor both. The several Indian States also conduct a parallel State eligibility exam for the same purpose, i.e. to chalk out grain from the chaff when it comes to academic teaching and research. One may ask, ‘isn’t a Masters Degree/ an LLM sufficient if one wants to teach in a university or research under a centrally recognised institution?’ Well, there is a reason that approximately 10 lakh candidates appear in the UGC NET exam, but only the top 6% of the candidates are able to qualify for it. Why is this exam required? Consider the following: 

• Career Opportunity after qualifying JRF

Enrol in Doctorate and grant for fellowship - After qualifying for JRF, a candidate can take direct enrolment in a doctorate from NET coordinated Universities. A few benefits of a Doctorate degree are -

- Not only does your analytical skill take a boost after having a Doctorate degree,you are also taken on priority in all academic jobs with the same.
- You specialize in an area of your interest. Isn’t having a prefix of ‘Dr.’ in front of your name quite an exciting idea! 
- Work as an Assistant Professor - The additional benefit to JRF qualified candidates is that they can also work as Assistant Professor and are considered on priority for permanent positions.

Work as a Research Associate at Central and State Universities.

- Under the JRF Scheme, candidates get assistance as they undertake advanced studies and research leading the Mphil and PhD. 

- After the initial tenure of 2 years, a fellow’s work is assessed. If the work is satisfactory, a fellow gets an extension of three years and enhanced assistance of Senior Research Fellowship.

• Career Opportunity after qualifying for Assistant Professor

- Work as an Assistant Professor - After qualifying for Assistant Professor, you can opt for teaching as a full-time career.
- PSUs also recruit UGC NET qualified - You can also find a good career opportunity as Law Officer in PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings), which offers job opportunities to UGC NET qualified candidates. (PSUs like ONGC, IOCL, BHEL, etc.)

Before moving ahead, let us briefly understand the demands of the syllabus: 

Syllabus

The UGC NET examination carries 300 marks, including two Papers, i.e. General Paper (100 marks) and Law (200 marks). The duration of the examination is of 3 hours.

What lies next? As mentioned above, this is a tough competitive exam. The number of Law Colleges offering a Masters Program has significantly increased in the recent past as more and more law students are looking for opportunities in the Government or private sector that provide for a more stable career option. A yearly escalation in the number of candidates appearing for this exam is thus observed. 

This brings us to highlight some of the common concerns shared by lawyers struggling to settle down while looking at the UGC NET exam as one of the strong contenders amongst various career options.

Common Concerns

• Lack of Job Security and pay cuts in recession/lockdown/ contracting economy. 
• Pressure to succeed. 
• The endless cycle of attempts and re-attempts. 
• Fear of losing time if one fails to crack the exam. 
• Anxiety, stress and lack of motivation lead one to fall off the bandwagon. 
• Unable to identify the exact reason for failure.
• Peer Pressure and High Competition.

Challenges Faced by Budding Lawyers and Academics while appearing for and Cracking the UGC NET Exam: 

Annually, several candidates fail to clear the exam on account of facing the following difficulties and challenges: 

Common Challenges

• Confusion as regards the selection of correct study material.
• Lack of right mentorship and guidance.
• Fear of vast syllabus.
• Absence of guidance on General Paper.
• Increasing competition.
• Not practising papers within a limited time.
• Falling off the bandwagon due to stress while preparing.
• Not getting personalized advice and coaching.

Individual Challenges

Apart from the above-mentioned complexities, one has to face challenges at an individual level too, which often result in hurdles  in achieving the goal; these are:

• Lack of an organised study cycle.
• Not able to adopt a particular style of studying.
• Not adopting scientific techniques of strategizing and retention.
• Personal difficulties and mental blocks For Instance, often a busy housewife does not have enough time for preparation or a working professional is not able to manage work with studies.
• Location disadvantage, i.e. the candidate, is residing in a region from where. access to quality content becomes difficult.
• A high degree of competition and a high failure rate leaves no scope for errors.
• Difficulty in memorization of the vast syllabus: The trick here is to identify one's weak points and focus on areas that have a relatively higher weightage. 
• Uncertainty because of a change in format and non-availability of past year papers: There have been significant changes in the examination pattern post-2017 and in 2020. 
• Lack of an accurate source for Past Year Papers adds to one's already long list of worries while preparing for the exam. 
• Lack of Practice as per the exam’s format: Time Management has a crucial role to play in cracking UGC Net along with JRF, for which a sufficiently targeted practice is the key. 
• Absence of progress indicators along your preparation journey. You can study for hours but still not know where you stand with respect to the rest of the competition. You need a measurable mechanism that tells you every day how much of the preparation is complete and how much is left. You also need to know where you stand with respect to others who are preparing for the exam, and else you risk losing focus and slowing down your preparation.  
• Absence of a systematic strategy for exam preparation and at the time of the examination. When you have limited time, how should you plan out your preparation? What aspects should you focus on? What can you leave out or focus least on during your preparation? How to find out your strengths and weaknesses? How to manage your time in the examination hall? Which questions to attempt first and which ones to attempt later? When should you take a calculated guess? These are some of the questions which need to be factored in by you at the beginning of your preparation itself.   
• Preconceived notions about the exam or your strengths and weaknesses: You might think that you are really good at certain subjects and hence, do not require any effort to prepare for the same. However, such an idea without proper assessment (mocks and practice tests) often leads to a miscalculated attempt.
• Technological and other difficulties in attempting a competitive exam online. We are slowly getting used to online classes on Zoom, Google Meet and MS Teams, but how exactly will an online exam environment work? A change in the medium of attempting exams (online vs physical) requires some acclimatization to the new technology. 

Other Factors

Besides, the unfortunate truth that needs to be addressed is as regards the current trend of Coaching institutes whereby:

• There are not many Online as well as Brick and Mortar Coaching institutes dedicated to both the Papers of UGC NET (Law).
• No flexibility in the timing of classes.
• Not self-paced in terms of the subjects taught. 
• Only selected few good faculties to teach a couple of subjects well, thus not holistically providing quality content. 
•  Mechanical motivation and guidance without considering individual differences.
• Lack of focus on past year papers. 
• Lack of focus on a teaching methodology that is appropriate for the exam. 

Why has LawSikho launched this Course?

LawSikho indeed takes pride in launching a Course that would help the future law teachers of this Country. This Course would be helpful for UGC NET (Law) Aspirants as it provides for: 

• Personal guidance: Every candidate will be given personal attention for the preparation of their examination. This is not like a coaching centre with hundreds of students in a batch, where teachers don't know your name or your dreams.
• Top-notch content: Exhaustive notes will be provided to the students so that they don’t have to purchase any other book or read material after taking this course.
• A unique presentation of the content: Content will be presented in a colour-coded format to help you to figure out important keywords and sentences. While revising, it will be easier to find out case laws, maxims, and important points related to every topic.
• Speed reading friendly content: Our content is specially designed with the help of experts to help you to read it at a much faster speed as compared to any other content.
• Smart study techniques: Every candidate will be guided about how much to study on which topic according to the importance of the topic in the examination. 
• Special tools to make learning faster and easier: Flow charts, Videos Lectures, Mind Maps, and much more. All these unique techniques help in learning things in a faster and better way.
• Past year paper analysis: An unique feature of this course is a Scientific Analysis of the Past Year Papers of both the papers, i.e. Paper 1 and Paper 2. This would assist a candidate in charter out a tailor-made strategy, knowing exactly what to read and what to leave. 
• Live practice session: Live online practice sessions will be conducted to discuss various important concepts in the form of questions as per the examination question pattern. This will help you to handle the questions at the time of examination. 
• Bank of MCQs: A bank of MCQs will be provided on every topic so that you can practice and play with them as much as you can for your preparation.
• Regular tests: Every Sunday, there will be a practice mock test for 1 hour based on the present pattern of UGC NET, including Paper 1 and 2 on the topics covered in the week.
• Self-paced: You can use reference material provided by us and prepare at your speed. There is no compulsion to attend sessions on every concept to understand it.
• Solutions to queries through various platforms: You can ask your queries to our mentors, experts, evaluators, and support team on various platforms like our Learning management system (LMS), WhatsApp groups, emails, calls, and live practice sessions.
• Special webinars: Special webinars for sharing insights to crack the exams, tricks, myth-buster sessions, experience of experts, toppers talk, and much more will be discussed at frequent intervals.
• Time management: Personalized time management tips will be given.
• Actionables and Deliverables to do before and after the class.
• Time-Table - Weekly schedule for assisting your preparation.
• Guidance in PhD application and planning, along with guidance in pursuing a career in academics.

What will you learn?

• Understand and adopt the technique of ‘Divide and Learn’ along with the skill of ‘What to Learn and What to Leave.’
• Shortcuts to solve Mathematical problems, Data Interpretation, and Logical Reasoning questions. 
• Exhaustively cover the relevant syllabus, specifically from an examination point of view. 
• Relevant and recent case laws on all subjects from the examination point. Along with a table of cases chart to memories the chronological order of relevant case laws.
• To manage your time effectively during the examination.
• Techniques to teach and research for the practical implementation of theory after cracking the examination.

Money Back Policy

After following the weekly time-schedules, attending all the live classes, and attempting weekly Mock Tests for the initial one month, if you feel that the course is not up to the mark, we guarantee you a refund.

View Refund Policy

Training Methodology

Online 24/7 access

Access to basic study material through an online learning management system, Android and iOS app

Live Online Classes

Based on the exercises, there will be a live video-based online class. You can ask questions, share your screen, get personal feedback in this class.

Convenient Class timings

Classes are held after regular work hours. Typically classes are kept on Sunday afternoon or 8-9 pm on other days.

Live Doubt Clearing

You can ask questions, get your doubt cleared live as well as through online forums

Weekly Time-Table for self-study and Practice Tests (covering over 6000 MCQs)

The weekly time table will help you in completing your syllabus in time.

Course Description

• The targeted timeline for the Course Launch is 15th September 2020. The classes will commence from 1st October 2020.
• As the design of the Course is self Paced, the enrollment will be open throughout the year. 
• Post the Launch, the Course would be granted at a one-time payment of Rs. 10,000/- (Ten Thousand Rupees) 
• The duration of the course is available for 6 months, access extendable to the date of the exam.
• The provision for Hard Copies of the Course Material is currently not available in this Course.

Note: Hard Copy

The provision for Hard Copies of the Course Material is currently not available in this Course.