Texas A&M University School of Law and LawSikho team up to give scholarships to lawyers from developing countries
New Delhi : LawSikho, India’s leading legal edtech startup has teamed up with the fastest rising law school in the USA, Texas A&M University School of Law, to bring young lawyers from developing countries in South Asia up to date with international IP careers worldwide.
Texas A&M University, a public university in the state of Texas, boasts of the largest alumni and student base in the USA. Texas A&M Law School has been climbing US law school rankings very fast in the last 10 years and has been ranked 6th amongst all US IP law programs as per latest rankings by US News.
The law school identified that a large number of lawyers from developing countries harbour aspirations for building international legal careers, but due to high cost of education as well as comparatively high living costs in the USA, cannot access high quality international higher education.
Under leadership of Dean Robert Ahdieh and Senior IP Law Professor of Indian origin SrividhyaRagavan, a graduate of National Law School in Bangalore, the law school started working on a special LLM program along with substantial scholarship opportunities in 2019, which culminated in the law school announcing an LLM program for students from developing countries on its blog in April 2022.
“There is a great deal of legal talent in developing countries, but they often struggle to access high quality international legal education. Often, it is a question of affordability, which we will address through this program” said Professor SrividhyaRagavan who is spearheading the program. “Personally, I look forward to contributing to the development of international legal scholarship, creating a pool of international lawyers who understand the U.S. legal system and can contribute to growing cooperation between the U.S. and their nations.”
This LLM program, with an emphasis on international IP law, has been formulated to allow increased global participation from students in South Asia.
Dean Robert B. Ahdieh said, “We want to extend this opportunity to a carefully selected group of international students from developing countries this year and create outstanding learning & career outcomes for each of them. The first batch is expected to begin in August 2022 with 20 lawyers.”
Ramanuj Mukherjee, CEO at LawSikho stated that LawSikho will play a key role in growth of the programme by offering outreach through its platform, placement support & training, preparation courses for several international bar exams, and international outreach opportunities for the learners. “This is going to be a game-changer for many lawyers who are already benefiting from global talent arbitrage opportunities and international remote work as they can enhance their credibility and track record massively through a program like this. A top US law school recognizing this growing opportunity will accelerate mainstreaming of international remote work in the legal domain” added Mukherjee.