The Practitioner King - A Study of Legal Education and Practice in Pakistan

This dissertation is a study of legal education and practice in Pakistan and investigates the rise of the legal practitioner through a socio-historical examination. It seeks to determine the extent to which legal education in Pakistan is bound by colonial norms of practice through a genealogy of the legal practitioner in South Asia where the practitioner emerges as a dominant actor in the legal field.

This dissertation argues that the fields of legal education and practice cannot be studied separately because the two are intimately connected for three main reasons: firstly, the law degree serves as an entry requirement to legal practice, secondly, practitioners are preferred as faculty to teach law at universities and law colleges, and thirdly, the Pakistan Bar Council shares regulation of legal education with the Higher Education Commission. The curriculum for the LLB degree is decided by the Bar and Commission and has historically been pulled towards a practice-focus, which is reflected in the 2018 reforms.

The methodology adopted draws from the three disciplines of law, history and sociology. Archival sources at the British Library in London, UK, the Library of Congress in Washington DC, US, and the Sindh Archives in Karachi, Pakistan, provide the historical frame upon which this work based (1800 – 1947). Legal method allows for a detailed study of the Supreme Court cases on legal education and statutory context (1998-2018). Focus groups and interviews with key members in the reform process help inform the current context in Pakistan and the Bourdieusian theoretical framing on fields and habitus serves as the glue that brings these seemingly separate components together.

During and following Independence in 1947, the fields of practice and politics have also been interconnected through the gains made by the practitioner in the national political field. These gains have continued in Pakistan where the practitioner has emerged as a King in the twenty-first century in the fields of education, practice, and politics. This study aims to fill the gap in the existing literature in the area in Pakistan and can help guide the reforms in the area.