CLAT

What is it?

Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is a centralized national level entrance test for admissions to twenty two National Law Universities (NLU) in India. Most private and self-financed law schools in India also use these scores for law admissions. Public sector undertakings in India like ONGC, Coal India, BHEL, Steel Authority of India, Oil India etc. use CLAT Post Graduation (CLAT PG) scores for recruitment of legal positions in the companies.

Who takes CLAT?

The test is taken after the Higher Secondary Examination or the 12th grade for admission to integrated under-graduate degree in Law (BA LLB) and after Graduation in Law for Master of Laws (LLM) programs offered by these law schools.

Eligibility:

Only Indian nationals and NRIs can appear in the test. The foreign nationals desirous of taking admission to any course in any of the participating Law Universities may directly contact the concerned University having seats for foreign nationals.
The eligibility requirements are as follows:

Under-Graduate Courses:

Senior Secondary School/Intermediate (10+2) or its equivalent certificate from a recognized Board with not less than 45% marks in aggregate (40% in case of SC and ST candidates). There is no upper age restriction for the test.

Post-Graduate Courses :

LLB/B.L Degree or an equivalent degree from a recognized University with not less than 50% marks in aggregate (45% in case of SC and ST candidates). The candidates who have passed the qualifying degree examination through supplementary/ compartment and repeat attempts are also eligible for appearing in the test and taking Admission provided that such candidates will have to produce the proof of having passed the qualifying examination with fifty-five/fifty percent marks, as the case may be, on the date of their admission or within the time allowed by the respective universities.

Exam Pattern:

This law entrance exam is of two hours duration. The CLAT question paper consists of 150 multiple-choice questions. There are five sections in CLAT exam paper which are:
- English including Comprehension
- Current affairs including General Knowledge
- Legal Reasoning
- Logical Reasoning
- Quantitative Techniques (Mathematics)

All the questions will be paragraph-based starting from CLAT 2020. One paragraph will be followed by 5-6 questions. The breakup of marks is generally as follows –

The list of National Law Universities in India according to their year of establishment: