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Law entrance exams in India — exam-ready notes. The Indian legal-education route runs through two national gates and one international one: CLAT for the twenty-plus National Law Universities, AILET for the National Law University Delhi alone, and LSAT India for private law schools. This card maps the landscape, the patterns, and how a single reading-heavy preparation serves all three. For the substance of law itself, the criminal-law overhaul card the new criminal-procedure notes and the constitutional-amendment story the simultaneous-elections amendment story on this site show the material a law entrance candidate is ultimately signing up to study.

The Landscape at a Glance

1. The national gates. CLAT, run by the Consortium of National Law Universities, opens all NLUs except Delhi; AILET, run by NLU Delhi itself, opens only that university — two separate applications, separate patterns, separate dates.
2. The private route. LSAT India, run by the Law School Admission Council, serves private law colleges across the country — a reading-and-reasoning paper with no general knowledge.
3. The calendar. CLAT and AILET are held in December, making the winter of Class 12 the decisive window for the five-year integrated programme; LSAT India sits in its own announced windows each cycle.
4. The shared spine. All law entrances test reading comprehension, logical reasoning and some quantitative work — the lawyer skill set, tested early.
5. Who sits them. The five-year integrated BA-LLB after Class 12 is the flagship; the three-year LLB after graduation uses a different, largely university-level entrance universe that this card treats as a sibling, not the focus.

CLAT: The Main Gate

1. The consortium. The Consortium of National Law Universities conducts CLAT on behalf of its members — a rotating presidency among NLU vice-chancellors is the governance detail quiz banks use.
2. Comprehension-based since 2020. The redesigned paper is built around passages — English, current affairs including general knowledge, legal reasoning, logical reasoning and quantitative techniques — each section delivered through passages rather than standalone questions.
3. The December slot. Held in December for the five-year programme — the exam moved from May to December in 2024, a calendar shift prelims-style questions cite.
4. Eligibility. Class 12 with forty-five percent marks — forty for reserved categories — and no age limit; final-year students appear provisionally.
5. The seats contest. Tens of thousands of candidates for a few thousand NLU seats — CLAT is among the most selective single-day exams in the country.
6. After the score. Consortium counselling allocates seats across NLUs by preference lists; NLU Delhi stays outside this process entirely.

AILET: The Delhi Gate

1. Single university. AILET exists for NLU Delhi alone — one exam, one university, its own counselling, no consortium entanglement.
2. The pattern. English language, current affairs and general knowledge, logical reasoning and mathematics — with legal aptitude a long-standing emphasis.
3. Also December. AILET sits in the same winter window as CLAT — most serious candidates prepare for both and sit both.
4. The selectivity gap. NLU Delhi admits a small cohort through AILET — the exam is several times more selective per seat than CLAT, a fair statement without quoting exact seat maths.
5. Why both. The preparation overlap is near-total; the marginal cost of the second exam is one application fee and one December morning.

LSAT India: The Reading Route

1. The conductor. LSAC — the same body behind the global LSAT — runs LSAT India for private and other law schools accepting its score.
2. Skills, no GK. Analytical reasoning, logical reasoning and reading comprehension — the global LSAT tradition, with no general-knowledge or current-affairs section at all.
3. The modern window. The exam runs in announced online windows each cycle — check the current calendar on the official LSAT India page, as windows shift year to year.
4. Who it suits. Candidates targeting private law schools — Jindal Global Law School being the most prominent accepter — or those who want a GK-free, pure-reasoning paper.
5. Score use. Scores go to accepting colleges for their individual processes — there is no national counselling; each school runs its own admission.

The Shared Spine: Reading and Reasoning

1. Reading comprehension is king. CLAT passages, AILET English and LSAT reading all reward the same muscle — dense prose, unfamiliar domains, questions on inference and tone.
2. Logical reasoning transfers. Assumptions, arguments, strengthen-weaken — the LSAT question grammar dominates LSAT India and fills CLAT and AILET logic sections.
3. Math stays school-level. CLAT quantitative techniques and AILET mathematics sit at Class 10 difficulty — the barrier is speed and reading the data, not calculus.
4. Legal reasoning is principle-application. CLAT legal-reasoning passages assume no law knowledge — they test applying a stated principle to facts, the exact skill law school will drill.
5. Current affairs as habit. A year of newspaper discipline serves CLAT and AILET GK — and becomes professional habit for a legal career.

LLM and the Three-Year Route

1. The LLM gates. CLAT-PG and AILET-PG serve the postgraduate LLM entries to NLUs — comprehension-of-judgment papers for law graduates.
2. The three-year LLB. After graduation, universities run their own entrances — Delhi University’s LLB entrance, BHU and state equivalents — a parallel universe from the five-year gates.
3. The bar ahead. Whatever the entry route, the All India Bar Examination awaits after enrolment — the licence exam every law graduate must clear to practise.
4. Practice paths. Litigation, corporate practice, judiciary and academia are the four broad outcomes — entrance choice barely constrains them; performance does.

How Exams Ask This Card

1. Conductor matching. CLAT — Consortium of NLUs; AILET — NLU Delhi; LSAT India — LSAC; three bodies, one matching question.
2. Pattern discrimination. Which exam has no general knowledge — LSAT India; which delivers all sections through passages — CLAT; a two-statement pair that examiners love.
3. Eligibility numbers. CLAT forty-five percent in Class 12 with reserved-category relaxation — a number that appears directly in prelims-style quizzes.
4. The December pairing. CLAT and AILET share the December window — the scheduling fact that defines the Class 12 winter.

Quick Revision: Ten Lines

1. CLAT — Consortium of National Law Universities; all NLUs except Delhi; December.
2. CLAT pattern — passage-based since 2020: English, current affairs, legal reasoning, logical reasoning, quantitative techniques.
3. CLAT eligibility — Class 12, forty-five percent; no age limit.
4. AILET — NLU Delhi only; own exam, own counselling; December.
5. AILET pattern — English, current affairs and general knowledge, logical reasoning, mathematics, legal aptitude emphasis.
6. LSAT India — LSAC; private law schools; no GK section.
7. LSAT India skills — analytical reasoning, logical reasoning, reading comprehension.
8. The three tests share a reading-and-reasoning spine; preparation transfers.
9. CLAT-PG and AILET-PG are the LLM gates for law graduates.
10. All routes converge on the All India Bar Examination for the licence to practise.

Conclusion: Two December Mornings

The law-entrance landscape rewards the well-read candidate twice over: CLAT and AILET in December cover nearly the whole national-university universe between them, and LSAT India offers a reasoning-pure alternative for the private-school route. Prepare passages, arguments and newspaper discipline once — then sit both December papers, because the marginal cost is one morning. The destination is a legal education whose first-year constitutional-law classroom will feel familiar to readers of this site’s current-affairs cards.

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