The law serves number of functions in nursing. From 600 nurses, 152 nurses had been booked under lawsuit during service in the midwifery nursing (Web based survey ANA, 2010).Nurses should be updated with the legal and ethical issues in midwifery nursing in order to protect themselves from lawsuits. Pre experimental one group pretest posttest design was used ,30 nurses of obstetrics and gynaecology ward were selected conveniently. After obtaining ethical permission and informed consent pretest was conducted on knowledge using self structured knowledge questionnaires then self instructional module regarding legal and ethical aspects in midwifery nursing was distributed among the nurses and posttest was conducted o the 7th day. Majority of the nurses were between the age group 21-24 years The comparison between the pretest and posttest knowledge level showed an increase in the knowledge with statistical significance at p<0.001. There was a significant association of knowledge level with the monthly income, total years of professional experience and years of experience in the obstetrics and gynaecology unit level of involvement on the general facts of legal and ethical issues during pretest was significant at P<0.05. This study suggests that self instructional module helps in improving the knowledge among nurses with a high statistical significant t value at the level of p <0.001.