How to Become a Lawyer After 12th Arts, Science, Commerce: Law is one of the most elemental parts of our constitution and the lawyer is one of the highest-profile career options. If you want to solve the legal mysteries and fight for the rights of others then you can make a career in the field of law. The lawyer provides solutions to legal issues like property, marriage, criminal offenses, etc. So if you want to be a lawyer then let’s talk about how to become a lawyer after completing higher secondary.
How to Become a Lawyer After 12th in India (A to Z details)
Law Courses in India and Duration
If you want to pursue law as a career after 10+2 level then you have to get a degree in law, which is a 5 years integrated LLB degree.
And if you want to pursue law after graduation then you can do 3 years LLB course.
The interesting thing is that you can study law after passing 12th from any stream (Arts, Science, Commerce).
Let’s know about the process to become a lawyer through the integrated 5 years law course after the 12th standard.
This 5 years program includes graduate programs like BA, BBA, B.Com. and LLB degree. Some courses are…
- BA-LL.B
- BA-LL.B(Hons.)
- BLS-LL.B
- BBA-LL.B
- BBA-LL.B (Hons.)
- B.Com.-LL.B
- B.Com.-LL.B (Hons.)
The duration of these courses is 5 years and you can pursue these courses after passing 12th from any stream. But if you want to pursue B.Sc.-LLB or B.Sc.-LLB (Hons.), then you must take the science stream in 12th standard. And for B.Tech.-LLB, you also need to pass the 12th standard from science and the duration of this course is 6 years.
Admission Procedure
For admission in law courses, you have to give entrance exams like-
- CLAT (Common Law Admission Test): The CLAT exam is a national level exam, through which one can get admission in UG and PG law courses of 21 National Law Universities of India. In addition, more than 50 other law colleges and universities accept the CLAT score. This exam is conducted only once a year. You need to fill online application form for this exam and the mode of the exam is offline. There is no age limit to appear in this exam and you can give this exam many times. You need to have 45% marks in class 12 if you’re general and for SC and ST category the students need to have 40% marks.
- ALLET (All India Law Entrance Test)
- LSAT (Law School Admission Test)
- SET (Symbiosis Entrance Test).
These all are top-level exams. Apart from these national-level exams, some colleges and universities have their own entrance test for conducting law admission. We recommend you, check the official website of the college or university where you want to take your law admission.
Some Top Law Colleges in India
India’s leading colleges for integrated 5 years law course:
- 21 National Law Universities of India
- Symbiosis Law School (SLS), Noida
- Guru Gobind Sing Indraprastha University (GGSIP), Dwarka, Delhi
- University of Petroleum and Energy Studies(UPES), Dehradun, Uttarakhand
- Jaipur National University (JNU), Jaipur, Rajasthan
- Alliance University, Bangalore, Karnataka
- Amity University, Mumbai, Maharashtra
- Teerthanker Mahaveer University (TMU), Moradabad,
- Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), Bhubaneswar, Odisha
- National Law School of India University (NLSIU),Bangalore, Karnataka
Apart from these law colleges, many colleges and universities in India offer various law courses in the regular, distance, and online mode.
Next Steps to Become a Good Lawyer After Completing LL.B.
If you want to do further study then you can do LL.M (Law Masters degree) after completing the degree course. You can also do business-oriented courses like MBA, MBL (Masters of Business Law). Also, there are many other courses available for LL.M. and you can take any course according to your interests.
In this way, you will be eligible to become a lawyer after LL.B and LL.M.
So after completing graduation in law, you will have to move on to the next step i.e. do an internship in a law firm with a senior advocate. And this will take place according to your university’s guidelines. The duration of this internship is 1 month. You can also do this internship during and after your course.
After this, if you want to practice law in court, then you need to enroll yourself as an advocate in State Bar Council.
You should know the difference between lawyer and advocate. The advocate is the one who defends cases in court and is a registered person of the State Bar Council of India. Where a lawyer is the one who provides legal advice in business, firms, and companies but the lawyer can’t present his client’s case in court. Because a lawyer is a graduate in law but does not enroll in the Bar Council of India. So after registering yourself in the Bar Council of India, you need to clear the All India Bar Examination (AIBE) then you will be eligible to practice in court. AIBE exam is conducted through offline mode and this exam is held twice a year. In this way, after getting the certificate of practice you can work as a SA lawyer or an advocate in many sectors like a corporate business, multinational companies, media, and entertainment houses, engineering firms, political parties, finance companies, consulting firms, colleges, and universities.
Some common specializations of law are the civil law, criminal law, tax law, intellectual law, property law, corporate law, environmental law. So you will have many job role options like a family lawyer, security lawyer, tax lawyer, environment lawyer, legal assistant, conciliator.
