The National Law School of India University (NLSIU) has received a multi-year grant from the Azim Premji Foundation, to support programmes on Clinical Legal Education (CLE) and Litigation Fellowships. This project will support the establishment of an office of Clinics and Fellowships, run by the Director- Clinics and Fellowships. Under this project, five clinics will be established across the following areas:

• Child Rights Law
• Citizenship and Immigration Law
• Criminal Justice
• Labour Law
• Caste Justice

In addition, this grant also supports the creation of a Litigation Fellowship programme, which will provide financial, technical and mentorship support to early-career trial court lawyers across India, with a focus in Karnataka.

Under this programme, the University invites applications from accomplished, committed, and dynamic individuals for the following positions. Please click on the titles to view the details of each position with roles and responsibilities.

1. Accountant – Finance [Applications Closed]
To apply, click here

2. Assistant Director- Litigation Fellowships [Applications Closed]
To apply, click here 

3. Executive – Administration- Clinics and Fellowships Programme [Applications Closed]
To apply, click here

4. Finance Lead – Clinics and Fellowships [Applications Closed]
To apply, click here

5. Manager – Litigation Fellowships [Deadline Extended to Jan 30, 2026 (5 pm IST)]
To apply, click here

6. Researcher – Fellowships [Applications Closed]
To apply, click here

Clinical Legal Education at NLSIU

Clinical Legal Education offers a practice-based pedagogical method to law teaching, and it also allows law schools to further the constitutional mandate of access to justice. In addition, CLE programmes can demonstrate to law students the practice and possibility of lawyering for social justice. CLE programmes can accommodate a diversity of practices and goals, including legal aid, strategic litigation, and policy advocacy. Meaningful clinical legal education must be immersive, i.e. students must feel that they are directly responsible for the outcome of the intervention.

At NLSIU, we are committed to designing curricula that encourages law students to engage with the practice of law in controlled and supervised environments. We are also encouraged by student feedback on ongoing experiments with clinical legal courses, which have demonstrated that students deeply value experiential learning that is rooted in live cases and issues, and which allow students to make public interventions using the law.

In AY 2025-26, we launch five clinics across the following areas of practice:

(i) Juvenile justice and child rights: The Juvenile Justice Clinic will work with children in need of care and protection under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015. The Clinic will provide legal aid to children in conflict with the law, provide capacity building support to practitioners, and conduct research on child rights. The Clinic shall be headed by Dr. Madhubanti Sadhya.

(ii) Labour Rights: The Clinic will primarily attempt to fill in representational gaps that currently exist, especially for informal workers. It will address lacunae in research related to sector-specific work in India which is over-looked and under-written. The Clinic shall be headed by Vijetha Ravi.

(iii) Caste Justice: The Caste Justice Clinic will focus on providing legal aid and strategic support in cases arising under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 to complainants bearing in mind the low rate of convictions. The Clinic will undertake research aimed at identifying inconsistencies in the interpretation of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, with a view toward informing both judicial interpretation and legislative reform. The Clinic shall be headed by Dr. Ashna Singh.

(iv) Criminal Justice: The Criminal Justice Clinic seeks to advance civil liberty and due process protections for vulnerable individuals and communities in their encounters with the criminal jurisdiction of the State, through legal and public interventions anchored in the methods of human rights lawyering. The Clinic shall be headed by Radhika Chitkara.

(v) Citizenship and Immigration Law: The Citizenship and Immigration Law Clinic seek to provide legal assistance in cases under the Citizenship Act, 1955, and the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, and allied legislations, and conduct research and capacity building in this area. The Clinic shall be headed by Darshana Mitra.

Governance Structure

Each clinic is to be headed by two co-directors. The co-director from faculty will be responsible for pedagogic inputs while the other co-director will primarily be responsible for the supervision of the clinic’s output, be it in the form of research, advocacy or litigation. In addition, each clinic will have a staff of paralegals and researchers, who are responsible for legal outreach, data collection, research and advocacy.