A growing relationship between the University of Hawaiʻi William S. Richardson School of Law and Jindal Global Law School, a leading law school in India, includes the start of a student exchange program for law students, with the chance to evaluate similarities and differences in approaches to justice in both places.
Two groups of law students from the Jindal Global Law School have already spent summers in Hawaiʻi as interns with Hawaiʻi Supreme Court associate justices, and last summer William S. Richardson School of Law student Eileen Nims went to India for a two-month internship studying juvenile justice. As part of her internship, Nims compared the juvenile justice systems in both countries and evaluated the Indian system for leaders there. She now hopes to use what she learned to consider proposing changes in Hawaiʻi’s juvenile justice system as well.
Nims is specifically looking at ways to strengthen laws that provide more defined rehabilitation for incarcerated juvenile offenders. “Moving the whole system toward diversion and rehabilitation is one of Judge Browning’s missions,” said Nims of Senior Family Court Judge Mark Browning, with whom she has worked. “He has cultivated court programs to facilitate that, but it still hinges on the intention and grace of those who are in charge of the facility.”
The strong partnership between the William S. Richardson School of Law and Jindal began more than three years ago as the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court began to look to India’s Green Tribunal for guidance in developing Hawaiʻi’s Environmental Court that launched in July, 2015. Part of that friendship included leaders at the two law schools who saw the potential in building a partnership halfway around the world to share perspectives and to offer law students international internships.
For more on this story, read the William S. Richardson School of Law news release.
—By Beverly Creamer
