20,000 students expected to appear for CLAT

By Sruthi Gottipati/CNBC-TV18:

One lakh fifty thousand, that's the number of hits the website of the Common Law Admission Test has seen since the exam was announced in January this year. Not surprising, as it holds the key to ten of the country's top law schools like the National Law School, Bangalore. Around 20,000 students are expected to sit for the exam in its first year; that's twice the number of students who usually take individual law school entrance exams.

But what's the structure? With just 937 seats available, the question's got both students and teachers guessing.

Pratichi Vaidya, Trainer, Career Launcher Coaching Classes said, “We're expecting somewhere around 50-55 marks allotted for General Knowledge and Logical Reasoning, 40-45 marks weightage may be given to English and Legal Aptitude and Maths may carry a a weightage of only around 20 marks.

CLAT is designed to make an entry to law schools simpler and more cost-effective. But it's not just students who have been gearing up to become the first ones to sit this new exam. Coaching institutes too, have been busy.

Many have included the exam in their portfolio and as more clarity on the exam emerges, they are banking on the rush to make law a career, to grow exponentially.