At a recent Bar Council event, the Attorney General made remarks about the declining quality of the legal profession—reviving a long-standing debate. His observations were unambiguous: first, many enrolled lawyers cannot even draft a simple petition; second, clerks are outperforming barristers and graduates of public universities in the enrollment examination. Both comments point toward a deep structural flaw in the process of creating future “officers of the court.”
Naturally, a question arises: why does a candidate who has passed a rigorous three-stage examination still fail to draft a competent petition? The answer lies in the design of the examination itself. The enrollment process has gradually drifted away from testing legal reasoning, drafting skills, advocacy, ethics, and procedural knowledge. Instead, it has become a rote-learning–based exercise—one that advantages clerks with years of office experience while academically trained graduates fall behind. In short, the current system does not measure the skills required for actual legal practice.
This leads to a second question: are barristers and public-university graduates genuinely less competent? Most of them possess a strong academic foundation and training that meet international standards. The problem is not their capability—the problem is an enrollment system built on flawed criteria that rewards bureaucratic familiarity instead of legal reasoning. It is therefore unsurprising that those trained for courtroom practice fall behind in an exam that does not evaluate any of those competencies.
In world-renowned publishing platforms—Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Harvard University Press, and other international law journals—the number of publications by Bangladeshi lawyers in the last ten years is virtually zero. In the same period, India alone has produced more than 150 law-related publications under OUP. Other South Asian countries—Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal—also surpass Bangladesh in international research output.
This is not just a research deficit—it is the global reflection of a deeper crisis in the professional standards of our legal system.
A fundamental question therefore remains: if the enrollment examination is comparatively easier and more advantageous for clerks—where rote memorization and bureaucratic skills are the main determinants—why do we expect flawless, analytical, and high-quality petitions from new entrants to the profession? The standard used to admit someone into the legal profession inevitably determines the standard of their professional competence.
Similarly, have we ever asked why barristers and public-university graduates fall behind in this examination? The reason is simple: the exam does not evaluate their actual strengths—legal analysis, reasoning, drafting, ethics, and advocacy. Instead, it is designed in a way that disproportionately benefits clerks with years of routine office experience.
Without reforming this defective enrollment structure, neither the quality of legal services nor the dignity of the profession can realistically be restored in Bangladesh.
*Miraz M Zaman is a Barrister-at-Law.
*The views expressed are the writer’s own.