The founding of the NLSIU was a culmination of over 2 decades of effort by a legal team including Chief Justice M. Hidayatullah, Ram Jethmalani and Prof. Upendra Baxi. Efforts were being made especially through the Legal Education Committee of the Bar Council of India to establish a university on the lines of the Harvard Law School. These efforts culminated when the Bar Council of India Trust and the Government of Karnataka reached an agreement to found the first National Law University in Bangalore. This agreement was in large part thanks to the leadership of Mr. Vinay Chandra Mishra who was then the Chairman of the Bar Council of India and the enthusiastic support of Ramkrishna Hegde, the then Chief Minister of Karnataka. As such, in 1986, NLSIU was established under the stewardship of its founder, then Vice-Chancellor N.R. Madhava Menon.