Legal eagle

St Stephen''s College at Delhi University always believes in being first. Whether, it''s being labelled as the most preferred option among students to study at the Under Graduate (UG) level or a bastion for producing steel-frame of Indian bureaucracy; St Stephen''s has always taken the lead in being first with everything.
According to the principal of St Stephen''s College, Anil Wilson in an earlier interview given to Education Times, "We were the first ones to initiate language courses, school of media studies and a mathematical centre in the college to what he calls ''adventure beyond curriculum''."
Now, the college has another first to its credit.St Stephen''s has join hands with Preconcept, a corporate law firm with specialisation in intellectual property and technology laws to start ''St Stephen''s School of Legal Studies'' in the college.
Rodney D Ryder, an advisor to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India on the implementation of the Information Technology Act, 2000, is the director of the school. According to Ryder, "The school is an innovative step in advancing practical legal training with focus on legal management, including issues like managing litigation and commercial confrontation, managing an intellectual property portfolio in India and abroad and training managers and in-house counsel in working with external legal counsel. In fact, the school is a research and learning centre for basic and advanced legal management."
The programme at the school will focus on ''practising law''. The programmes whether theoretical or research projects will be based on ground level implementation of law and policy. "The courses are structured and taught by practising legal professionals whether in professional service or in the Government," added Ryder.
The ''School for Legal Studies'' has centres for Technology Law and Policy, Intellectual Property and Media Law Studies. During the current academic session, the school will conduct workshops and training programmes, such as ''Patent Law for Engineers'', ''Brand Protection and Trademark Law for Marketers'', ''Data Protection and Corporate Compliance'' and ''Intellectual Property and the Art of War for the Sales Team''. This year, the school has introduced diploma courses, such as ''Internet Law and Policy'' and ''Intellectual Property: Law, Practice and Management''.
"At present, we have a batch of 25 students. This batch comprises students who are pursuing LLB from the DU, practising lawyers from the high court and the Supreme Court and managers from the corporate world. We will have a separate programme for UG students dealing with legal literacy. Apart from these, we plan to start a correspondence course in ''Diploma in Intellectual Property, Cyber Laws and Corporate Laws''," remarked Ryder.
The duration of the programme at the school is six months and the course fee is Rs 10,000 per student.
www.preconcept.org