The academic calendar operates on a trimester system, with terms beginning in July, November, and January. Elective courses at the National Law School typically run for 10 weeks in a term and have 4 hours of lecture and 2 office hours every week.

Anyone who is  desirous of teaching an elective course at NLSIU  must invariably possess a graduate and post-graduate degree in law or the Social Sciences. In lieu of a postgraduate degree, one should alternatively have at least 7-10 years of post-qualification experience in practice. Preference will be accorded to individuals who have published widely in their fields of expertise, and possess work experience of 3 years or more after completion of their postgraduate degrees.

We recommend that interested persons should obtain the necessary permission from their employer or the government (wherever applicable) before they submit their application.

Applications are typically invited approximately three months before the start of each term. International applicants are advised to contact the University well in advance, as visa processing and related formalities may require additional time.

Those seeking an early decision may contact the Academic Administration Department of the University at

All applications to teach electives are evaluated by the Academic Review Committee (ARC) at NLSIU for viability, academic merit and professional utility of the proposed course. We try to offer a range of courses in any given term, to give students the choice to further areas of interest. The selection process is competitive and the Committee shortlists a limited number of courses to be offered to students. The ARC may wish to discuss suggestions or comments on your course plan, including the mode of evaluation or curriculum design. In general, we provide faculty teaching elective courses assistance in curriculum design, to tailor their experience to pedagogical methods.

Students are offered this set of shortlisted courses prior to the start of the trimester, and course allocation is completed based on student preference and seat availability. An elective course usually has between 15-35 students. An elective course is confirmed only when a minimum number of students, as determined by the University, subscribe for the course.

The Academic Review Committee will approve the Electives courses no later than 2 weeks before the start of the trimester. After this, students will sign up for the course. If your course is part of the final allocation based on student subscriptions, we will confirm your appointment as visiting faculty in writing. Simultaneously, the team from the Academic Administration Department will reach out to confirm your preferred teaching days and time as they plan the timetable.

The ARC evaluates your proposal based on the course outline. The outline should cover your objectives, the course layout (including a session-wise lesson plan and readings list), pedagogical methods and overall approach to the course. The outline has to be submitted in our prescribed template. The course templates for the full term elective and the clinical elective course can be accessed on the form. The template also assists practitioners through the curriculum design and pedagogical methods.

All classes of Full-Term Elective courses shall be conducted in-person on campus and an instructor teaching a full-term elective course shall have to be on campus for the classes. Ordinarily, there will not be any online lectures.

Yes, we pay an honorarium to the visiting faculty. The University will reimburse economy-class airfare, to-and-fro from Bengaluru for the faculty.

The University will make necessary arrangements for accommodation in an off-campus facility arranged for postgraduate students, research scholars, visiting faculty and research staff for individuals selected to teach electives after mutual discussion for an initial 10 days from the commencement of the Trimester only. Based on availability, the University may be able to extend the accommodation on a paid basis for the whole trimester.

The course requires 4 hours of classroom engagement and 2 office hours for discussion with students every week. From our experience, preparing for class, office hours, oral examinations and evaluations takes approximately 40-50 hours on top of this. This time can vary a fair bit depending on your prior experience, pedagogical methods and evaluation methods. You will have flexibility in scheduling your interactions over the course of the trimester. If your proposal includes fieldwork, this number may increase. Do budget in time for your commute to campus, too. Lastly, some new teachers have found that they have underestimated the time it takes to check answer sheets and essays/ response papers.

Electives are offered to students of not just our law programmes: B.A. LL.B. (Hons), LLB (Hons), LLM but also to students of our other programmes: B.A. (Hons) and MPP. The University offers electives in a range of disciplines – literature, philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, and history, among others. Therefore, based on relevance and potential student-interest, the Academic Review Committee (ARC) approves inter-disciplinary elective courses beyond the field of law. For example, the ARC has approved courses as diverse as ‘Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century’ and ‘Culture, Ecology and Politics’ to ‘City Making: Negotiating Built Environments’, ‘Violence and Non-Violence’ and ‘An Introduction to the Political Thought of Shri Aurobindo’.

The class for an elective course would comprise 15-35 students from the 3rd, 4th and 5th years of the 5-year-BA LLB (Hons) programme, 2nd year students of the 3-year-LL.B (Hons.) programme and from the one-year LLM programme. Selected courses are cross-listed for the BA (Hons) and Master’s Programme in Public Policy (MPP), in which case the class will also include MPP students.

We appreciate that certain courses will develop on a prior course and prerequisites may be relevant for the student to meaningfully participate in your course. We are happy to discuss this while evaluating your proposal. Please indicate your preferences and reasons for restricting the course  in the ‘Any other information’ section of the application form.

Based on the domain and the course design, certain courses may be specifically listed for the MPP Programme. You may indicate this in the form for submitting your proposal. Where the Academic Review Committee finds your proposal a good fit with the MPP programme, we will reach out to you to confirm if the course can be cross-listed for the students of the Master’s Programme in Public Policy as part of the same class.

A majority of our visiting faculty teach in conjunction with their full-time work commitments, whether court-based practice or otherwise. Classes are held between 9 AM and 7 PM on weekdays. Elective courses are usually scheduled between 2 PM and 7 PM. Our evening class slots typically allow faculty to fit in other commitments. For some courses, on a special basis, classes may be scheduled on Saturday.

Yes. We recommend that the course is co-taught by no more than 2 faculty members. In exceptional cases, we may allow up to 3 faculty members (visiting or full-time) to co-teach. Ordinarily, each faculty member must independently fulfill the eligibility criteria to teach. Where the course has one or more co-teachers, one identified faculty member has to teach at least 50% of class hours and anchor the course.

Yes, we welcome you to invite relevant guest lecturers for your course. In the weekly sessions plan, please indicate which classes are proposed to be guest lectures. Not more than 10% of the classes should be taught through guest lecturers.

A course is evaluated for a total of 100 marks. The following components may be considered in arriving at the evaluation pattern:

1. Class Participation: Consider not assigning more than 10 marks

2. Term Paper Submission: This is a research paper of around 5000 words. Since students will be writing the paper over a period of 8-10 weeks, it is ideal that there are identified submissions during this process, such as
(i) An Abstract
(ii)An Outline of the paper
(iii) A Preliminary Draft
(iv) Final Draft
There should be an oral component like viva, individual consultation or small group discussion linked with the abstract/outline/preliminary draft.

3. Viva/Presentation of the Research/Term Paper
Wherever there is a term paper, there must be a viva or presentation linked with the term paper.

4. Response Paper: Response papers require students to reflect on readings assigned to them for class/reflect on class discussions or questions posed by the instructor.
A response paper must be linked with an oral component like viva, individual consultation or small group discussion.

5. Examination: The faculty should consider having an examination component so as to test the student’s understanding of the breadth of the course. This can be done through a mid-term examination, or a written examination in the last week of the term or during the examination week at the end of the term.

6. Moot Court exercises, in-class exercises or any other method of evaluation of the breadth of the course is also acceptable, subject to the approval of the Academic Review Committee.

An instructor may choose to adopt multiple methods of evaluation, such as having both a term paper and an examination. In elective courses, it is ideal that the examination is not the only matrix for evaluation.

The evaluation scheme proposed by the instructor will be reviewed by the Academic Review Committee. The scheme approved by the Academic Review Committee shall be final. Any deviation from the evaluation structure indicated in the course outline shall require approval from the Academic Review Committee.

You will have to complete your evaluations on the same schedule as the full-time faculty, in order that the results can be prepared in time. Typically, this means you will have 7 days to complete evaluations after the final exam, to allow for timely computation of year-end results.

Yes, we open a detailed anonymous feedback form to all students with structured responses to help you evaluate how the course went and improve upon it for the next iteration. You will receive this feedback after the results of all courses of that trimester are released.

Clinical electives play a significant role in exposing students to the practice of law and policy, as opposed to courses that are more academic in nature. These courses are traditionally taught by practitioners who lend real life experience in a classroom setting, thereby bridging the gap between academics and practice. Therefore, these courses are highly coveted by students and are recognised as a separate category of elective teaching on account of the difference in both content and pedagogy.

Practitioners in any discipline engaging in research, litigation, transactional work, advisory services, or any kind of work that is grounded in practice are well suited to teach clinical electives. For other general perquisites, please read the General FAQs.

As clinical electives are practice oriented, the course must provide either real life practical exposure, simulation based practical exposure or both to qualify as a clinical elective. Examples are studying primary case papers (FIRs, evidence, contracts, transactional documents etc.), negotiation exercises, drafting, client interviewing, mock arguments, mediation exercises, writing policy briefs, fieldwork, court/tribunal/site visits Past examples of clinical electives that have been offered at NLSIU include “Advocacy in Practice”, “The Principles and Practice of Tech Policy”, “Diligence & Drafting Real Estate, Loan & Security Contracts”, “Litigating Capital Punishment Cases.”

If you are providing students with actual case papers, please specify the same in your course outline and mention confidentiality in the last section on “Guidelines to Students”. We also advise you to cover this in your first class.

In the past, practitioners have provided students with case documents. In some instances, party names were redacted, or the cases had already been adjudicated.

Since these electives provide a greater emphasis on practice, the requirement of an end term exam has been removed so that students can be fairly evaluated in line with the course’s objectives. The evaluation pattern for clinical electives is suggested as follows:

• Class participation – 10 marks;
• Exercises and Assignments/Exam [Faculty may choose to have a Term paper also ] – 90 marks;
• Total – 100 marks.

For Clinical courses, it is preferred that evaluation be done through at least three to four exercises and assignments. Faculty should ensure that there is a reasonable mix of written submissions and oral components in the exercises.

The Faculty should give a very brief description of the Exercises/Assignments and marks allocated to each exercise/assignment in the course outline.

Any deviation from the evaluation structure indicated in the course outline shall require approval from the Academic Review Committee.

These are traditionally offered to students from the 3rd-5th year BA LLB (Hons) course, LLB and LLM Programme. Based on the design of the course, certain clinical courses may be cross-listed for students of BA (Hons) and MPP Programmes. The class will typically comprise 10-25 students.

Yes, prerequisites can be specified.

While the course curriculum is the responsibility of the visiting faculty, we are happy to offer some suggestions and comments before your course is submitted to NLSIU’s Academic Review Committee (ARC) for approval. Please reach out to Ms. Darshana Mitra, Assistant Professor at

If you are offering a course for the first time, do keep in mind that previous visiting elective faculty have taken 2-3 months to develop a robust curriculum and course outline.

Visiting Faculty cannot engage teaching assistants for their course. But if you would like to have another person on the course, you may consider having a co-faculty.

We do not impose any additional requirements. However, in our past experience, your home institution/ employer may have their own housekeeping requirements, e.g. prior notice that you propose to teach at NLSIU as visiting elective faculty, no-objection certificates. We recommend you check for any such requirements and complete the requirements in parallel with your application to us. We would not be able to accommodate any requests for a change in the course schedule on this account.

Applications to teach are invited every trimester and the Academic Review Committee evaluates all applications in a highly competitive selection. So we will not be able to confirm that your elective would be selected for any subsequent trimesters. There is no restriction on re-applying, but the University does not ordinarily accept the same course outline in more than one trimester per academic year.  We hope that you use your experience teaching the course to further refine and develop it for later iterations.

Curriculum development is the responsibility of the visiting faculty, but the ARC may offer suggestions and comments on curricular design and pedagogical methods. You are welcome to reach out to faculty members at NLSIU who work in your area to discuss your course and best ways to structure it. If you are offering the course for the first time, do keep in mind that previous visiting elective faculty have taken 2-3 months to develop a robust curriculum and course outline. The time spent in thinking through your curriculum at this stage will help greatly in avoiding difficulties while teaching the course.