Hitherto, individual law schools were conducting their own entrance tests. Sale of application forms for the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) from designated banks will commence on February 4.

Online application filing began on Thursday. The coming together of these law schools has led to far-reaching decisions to encourage girls, foreign students and domicile students in legal education.

The National Law Institute University, Bhopal, and the NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, have 30% horizontal reservation (reservation for women in every category) for girls. The former also has an open category, besides the women's quota, where girls can compete.

The law schools have set 50% as the cut-off for students to qualify for a seat. Simply put, no matter how well a student performs in the CLAT, she will not be able to secure a seat if her qualifying examination marks are lower than 50%.

Foreign students: The law schools have been liberal in admitting foreign students. Of the seven law schools, which are conducting the CLAT, six of them have earmarked some seats for foreign students. The West Bengal University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, has a separate category of 18 seats for students sponsored by NRIs.

While NLSIU, Bangalore, has a 5% quota for foreign students, NALSAR, Hyderabad, and Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur, have reserved 10 seats (two foreign and eight NRI). National Law University, Jodhpur, has 3% reservation in each category for physically challenged students.

In other words, physically challenged students from every category -- general merit and SC/ST -- will be given 3% reservation. NLIU, Bhopal, and Hidayatullah varsity have a 50% all-India quota, the rest being open to students in the respective states.