The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is a national level entrance exam for admissions to undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) law programmes offered by 22 National Law Universities around the country. National Law Universities belongs to the kitty of the best Law Schools in country for 5 year integrated Law course (BA-LLB, BBA-LLB, Bcom-LLB etc.) just after class 12. CLAT is held by the Consortium of National Law Universities which is a body that constitutes all the NLUs.

CLAT would focus mainly on evaluating the comprehension and reasoning abilities of law aspirants. All in all, the exam will judge the students on their aptitude and skills that are necessary for any lawyer. Further, the exam is not based on prior knowledge; though prior knowledge may find usefulness in the Current Affairs section

Pattern of Exam

• 120 MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions)
• Time: 2 hours
• One mark for each correct answer
• There is negative marking of 0.25 for each wrong answer.
• Offline Exam (taken on an OMR sheet)
• Medium of Exam: ENGLISH
• 5 Sections (English Language, Current Affairs including General Knowledge, Legal Reasoning, Logical Reasoning, Quantitative Techniques)

Syllabus:

English Language:

In this section, the students will encounter passages of about 450 words each. These passages will cover a multitude of topics varying from historical fiction and non-fiction to science, business, social sciences etc. The difficulty level will be such that a 12th standard student may easily read in 5-7 minutes. Each passage will carry with it a number of questions that will be based on understanding of the text and language skills. Apart from comprehension, these questions will demand thorough reading and understanding of the main ideas discussed in the passage and any claim and/or opinion discussed in the passage. The questions will demand you to draw inferences and conclusions from the passage, summaries the text, compare and contrast the different arguments or ideas presented in the passage; identify the meaning of various words and phrases used in the passage.

Current Affairs Including General Knowledge:

This section will offer passages of about 450 words each. The passages will be extracted from news, journalistic sources and other non-fiction writing. The questions may test you on knowledge presented in or related to the passage, but would not require any prior knowledge of the law beyond the passage. Each passage will be followed by a series of questions that will be based on your awareness of various aspects of current affairs and general knowledge, including contemporary events of significance from India and the world, arts and culture, international affairs, and historical events of continuing significance.

Legal Reasoning:

This section will contain passages of around 450 words each. These passages may relate to factual situations or scenarios involving legal matters, public policy questions or moral philosophical enquiries. The important point here is, you will not require any prior knowledge of law. General awareness of contemporary legal and moral issues will prove to be an advantage to better apply general principles or propositions to the given factual scenarios. You are expected to answer the questions that will be based on interferences drawn from the rules and principles given in the passage, apply such rules and principles to various fact situations and understand how changes to the rules or principles may alter their application to various fact situations

Logical Reasoning:

This section will include a series of short passages of about 300 words each. Each passage will be followed by one or more questions that will be based on concepts like identifying an argument, its premises and conclusions; critically analyzing the reasoning, and figuring out how conclusions may be derived from particular premises or evidence; drawing inferences from the passage; identifying relationships and analogies, contradictions and equivalence, and assessing the effectiveness/validity of arguments.

Quantitative Techniques:

This section will include short sets of facts or propositions, graphs, or other textual, pictorial or diagrammatic representations of numerical information, followed by a series of questions. You will be required to derive information from these graphs, or other representations, and apply mathematical operations on such information. The questions will be based on understanding numerical information given in such passages, graphs, or other representations; and applying various 10th standard mathematical operations (ratios and proportions, basic algebra, mensuration etc.) You should work on developing your reading abilities and comprehending text from diverse sources. Make sure that you stay updated with the news and current affairs, read quality newspapers and periodicals, and improve your speed and accuracy while answering questions on quantitative techniques. You can refer to the study material of 10th standard mathematics textbooks.

CLAT Eligibility

There is no upper age limit for UG Programme in CLAT.

As regards minimum percentage of marks in the qualifying examination (i.e., 10+2 or equivalent examination) , the candidates must have secured:

1. Scored Forty five percent (45%) marks in case of candidates belonging to Unreserved/OBC/Specially Abled Persons (SAP) and other categories, and
2. Scored Forty Percent (40%) marks in case of candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) categories.

Candidates who are appearing in the qualifying examination in March/April are also eligible to appear in CLAT examination. However, they shall be required to produce an evidence of their passing the qualifying examination at the time of admission, failing which they shall lose their right ­to be considered for admission.

CLAT Application Process

In order to register for the CLAT Exam, you need to follow the given steps:

• Online registration
• Filling of the application form
• Uploading of documents
• Application fee payment

Candidates seeking admission to undergraduate law courses offered by the participating NLUs can fill the application form of CLAT from January 2021 on the official CLAT website (consortiumofnlus.ac.in). The last date to fill the CLAT 2021 application form is usually in end  March.

Participating National Law University CLAT

Download Latest NLU information Brochures from here: https://consortiumofnlus.ac.in/clat-2024/participating_universities.html

Application Fee and General Instructions for CLAT: https://consortiumofnlus.ac.in/clat-2024/ug-instructions.html