Super Lawyer

Category: Interviews

  • Prashanth Potluri on being a LAMP fellow, career in policy work and taking time out for football

    Prashanth Potluri on being a LAMP fellow, career in policy work and taking time out for football

    Prashanth Potluri is a graduate of 2011 batch from School of Law, Christ University. He has been a LAMP fellow and till recently he worked as a Senior Specialist in Public Affairs and Advocacy at Genesis Burson-Marsteller. He is famous among his colleagues as a passionate footballer and most amazingly he could take time out from a busy schedule for football as a law student and even after joining work. In this interview he talks about:

    • Taking time out for football from a busy schedule
    • Working as a legislative and research assistant for HRD Ministry and being a LAMP fellow
    • A career in Policy
    • Work experience at Genesis Burston-Marsteller and ThoughtWorks

     

    Given that most of our readers are law students and young lawyers, how will you introduce yourself to them?

    I am a graduate from the 2006 – 2011 batch of the School of Law, Christ University (SLCU), Bangalore. I went on to pursue the LAMP fellowship after graduating, shortly after which I completed a course in Leadership Development at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. I am an avid football fan and the game of football has been my biggest teacher.  I have always been very clear since my initial days at law school, that I would want to make a career in a field that isn’t directly related to the law and the two things that I have always loved were football and politics.

     

    Amongst the various career options, what motivated you to choose law?

    Frankly speaking, I didn’t have too many options. I was a mediocre student in school and I was in the commerce stream. I only did well for myself in the Social Sciences. This gave me an indication as to where my interests lie. I have been fascinated with politics since a young age and a law degree felt like a useful tool for me to have to pursue a career in politics and its allied fields such as policy studies, public affairs and administration etc. I have never wanted to be a lawyer during my time at law school and after graduating either. I chose law as a means to my political ends and also because I knew it would enhance my ability to think in a different and more holistic manner.

     

    How was your law school experience? What did you do to keep the monotony off the law school?

    I had a very rough start to my law school experience. I was frustrated that I did not get into any of the top 3 national law schools, which I believed I deserved at that time I made up my mind that I would take the entrance exams the second time. Having failed to get through the top 3 schools again, I realized that I would spend the next 5 years here and that’s when I decided to embrace my fate. In retrospect, it’s the best thing I have done because, I ended up having the best 5 years of my life from 2006-2011 and I had the fortune of meeting some of the best people there and building relationships that I know will last a lifetime. I realized that a law school experience is only as good as the people you are surrounded by and we had some very intelligent and fun-loving people at SLCU. I made sure I took part in quite a few extracurricular activities such as football, quizzes, debates and music and this made sure my mind was active and constantly challenged and there was no room for monotony. I was never much of a mooter and the few times I did moot, it was because I had no other choice or because a friend’s team could have used a researcher. If I sensed any kind of monotony kicking in, I would make sure I start doing something new and fun to keep me entertained and living in a fantastic city like Bangalore definitely helped my cause!

     

    How did you manage time to pursue your passion for football while pursuing a law course?

    I made it very evident to my family, faculty and peers that football was, is and always will be my first love and passion and I wouldn’t treat it as an ‘extra activity’. This didn’t go down too well with my faculty and college staff, but this was a decision that I was entitled to make. The manner in which I managed football and the pressures of a law school was not done in the best way possible, but I managed nonetheless. The classroom chatter included football talk, match analysis and sometimes even sneaking in the occasional YouTube clips during class hours. Once the exam dates were announced, I’d go back to my books and ensure I put in enough hours to get good score. I never missed a football game even during exam time though. In the words of a very wise boy (Calvin), last minute panic served as the best kind of motivation to make sure I did well for myself academically in law school.

     

    Do you still play for or manage football clubs? Please share some tips on time management.

    I don’t play football as often as I would like (everyday) due to commitments at work, but I make sure I play once a week. I was recently offered a trial with Histon F.C., an English club that play at the Ryman Premier Level and I have decided not to pursue that as it didn’t seem pragmatic in many ways. I currently don’t manage any teams although I did so for 5 years at law school with the college team and this experience has taught me critical life skills such as leadership, managing people, identifying talent and nurturing it, managing deadlines etc. and I am truly grateful for that experience. I couldn’t have managed a football team so well without the efforts of the team itself. We were a self managing unit of sorts and I was just leading the way, but on a day to day basis, everyone did what they were expected to. I clearly laid out the expectations I had from them and they always delivered. Everybody played a critical role in making sure there was a sense of camaraderie and family in the team. This ensured on-the-field success and off-the-field friendships. My tip on time management would be to have a clear agenda for your day, allocate specific time for each activity and make sure you are well rested so as to be physically capable of doing what you have planned. Sound sleep, nourishment and clarity of thought in managing your time is very important.

     

    You worked as a Legislative and Research Assistant for the HRD Ministry in your fifth year. How did this happen? What was the application procedure?

    This was a classic case of being at the right place at the right time. I had not formally applied to it and there was no opening per se. I was very interested in education and public policy at that time and thought it would be a good idea to work at the HRD ministry. I later met a family friend who helped me get the opportunity to work in the ministry.

     

    You became a LAMP fellow just after graduation. What are the criteria to apply? How did you go about your application process?

    The LAMP fellowship requires you to be a graduate and within 25 years of age, – from a relevant academic background and expects you to commit yourself for a period of one year. I received an e-mail regarding this fellowship through the college and I looked it up, it was very compatible and accurate with regards to what I wanted to do in my career, which was politics. The LAMP fellowship was a very tangible step I took to ensure I built myself a career in politics and public policy.

     

    What was your work profile as a LAMP fellow? How did it help build your career in Policy?

    I worked with Mr. Tiruchi Siva from the DMK who was a Rajya Sabha MP and the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry and a Member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G Spectrum Allocation.My daily tasks consisted of intensive research that facilitated his day to day parliamentary duties and ensure that he was well equipped for his parliamentary debates, standing committee meetings etc with the best possible research.

    Working closely with an MP gives you the kind of insight into policy making that no other job does. You get to witness a policy from an idea to an actual policy that gets implemented. This is very useful in pursuing a career in public policy in the long run.

     

    We often hear that more lawyers are getting into ‘policy work’. What does this actually involve? What is it that policy lawyers do?

    Public Policy professionals are a bit different from lawyers with regards to what they do on a daily basis. Policy work relates to the study, understanding, drafting and interpreting of rules pertaining to a very specific subject unlike a statute/legislation which is meant for a broader and more generic set of circumstances. This is why lawyers do well for themselves in this field. Every organization has a set of internal policies, every ministry in the government have a set of internal policies that facilitate the working of the larger statutes that come under their purview and lawyers are equipped with a foresight and thought process that lets them know what a comprehensive policy should entail, better than people from other academic backgrounds. Public policy professionals spend a lot of time researching on policies of other countries and organizations and get a comprehensive understanding on what the most suitable policy would be for their specific need. It does have a lot of overlapping with what lawyers do which is why lawyers are most preferred in this field. We get to research, draft and interpret policies on a gamete of issues minus the task of going to courts and presenting our case. We let the lawyers do that for us 🙂

     

    You also worked with Genesis Burson-Marsteller. What was your job profile there? What was a normal workday like?

    I worked as a Senior Specialist in Public Affairs and Advocacy at Genesis Burson-Marsteller and I was based at Delhi/Gurgaon. It was the best experience I had as a working professional dealing with a variety of corporate and political clients. Normal work days varied depending on whether I was working on a corporate or political client. With regards to corporate clients, my job entailed me to map out a comprehensive list of stakeholders, profile them and prepare an outreach and advocacy strategy for the clients. We also had meetings and calls with our clients which ensured we constantly had something to do. Political clients were a completely different ball game and this was the part of my job that I cherished the most. I got to work on a few election campaigns including the recently concluded general elections and my tasks included constant research on various talking points, drafting speeches, articles, talking points for the client, undertaking surveys to assess how much we have progressed, prepare a comprehensive strategy on how to best utilize the resources in hand etc.

     

    You completed a course from Indian School of Business on Leadership Development. Please tell us a little about it. How did you decide to take it up? How effective was the course for your career?

    The leadership development course at ISB was a part of our LAMP fellowship. PRS, the organization that undertakes the LAMP fellowship tied up with ISB that year to undertake a course in Leadership Development so as to supplement and enhance the skill set we had already developed on the job. I had a fantastic time doing this course and it has definitely been a huge value addition with regards to my career options. It taught me to clearly articulate my thoughts and carefully execute a vision and motivate my colleagues during testing times which has proven to be very useful while working with different organizations.

     

    You had worked with ThoughtWorks for some time. What was your job profile there?

    It was a research centric job which taught me a lot on market research and fine tuned my ability to make and give presentations. It was not a conventional policy job but it was fun working there as it provided me with a lot of insight on various business verticals and business trends. I worked with some amazing people there and it gave me a more global perspective on a lot of issues and taught me how to manage expectations with the people I work with.

     

    What would be your message to our readers who would want to take up a career in Policy?

    To put it quite simply, do it. It is a very rewarding and viable career option for lawyers and non-lawyers alike. I hope law students stop looking at this as an ‘alternative career path’ and look at it as a conventional career choice in the future. From my experiences in this field I can vouch for the fact that it is a challenging area to work in and it requires a lot of dedication and an ability to think in a holistic manner with proper foresight. The ability to think and articulate yourself is very important in the field of public policy and its allied areas. There are tons of career options and if anyone is interested in taking it up, I would be glad to provide any kind of clarity they may require.

  • Aditya Parolia on being a partner at PSP Legal, LL.M. from NUS and transition from associate to partner

    Aditya Parolia on being a partner at PSP Legal, LL.M. from NUS and transition from associate to partner

    Aditya Parolia graduated from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi in 2011. Thereafter he pursued an LL.M. in Corporate and Financial Services from National University of Singapore. Later, he had worked as an associate at Advani & Co., and at present he is a partner at PSP Legal.

    In this interview we asked him about:

    • Faculty and academics at NUS
    • Transition from an Associate to Partner
    • Requisite skills for a successful legal career

     

    Tell us a bit about your childhood and pre-college life as well as educational background. Did you have lawyers in your family?

    I did my schooling from St. Peters College, Agra in Science & Computers, where I was more inclined to pursue my career as a Bio-tech Engineer. During my school days I was an average student, however, I tried my best to pay equal heed to academics, sports, debates, quizzes and other extra-curricular activities. I always had that inquisitiveness to learn something new, which turned out be a major reason for me to pursue law.

    Sports and extra-curricular, were really helpful for me when I chose to pursue law, because as a lawyer and a law-student I was not only required to have a mugged up knowledge of law but be spontaneous, a team-player, social, curious to learn and many other things which you can only grab if you have been active in other spheres as a student.

    I am a first generation lawyer and I am thankful for that, if there were lawyers in my family knowing myself I can say I could have been complacent and would have restrained my ability to think out of the box.

     

    What motivated you to choose law for a career?

    Always being more inclined towards science and computers, law as a career option never crossed my mind. Also, Agra not being a metro city did not show much promise for law as a profession and more importantly there was hardly anyone to guide students to various options that are available to them post matriculation. The trend was more towards engineering or medicine.  A lawyer for me, as a child was so stereotyped that it only meant a person wearing a black coat, sitting under an umbrella with a type writer. Law schools were revamping them self and Nationals Law Schools have just entered the academic regime and not many knew about five year law courses.

    Luckily my father had to shift to Delhi for few months, when I was just done with my 12th board exams; there I got to meet a few lawyers who gave me an insight towards law as a profession and five year law course. I always had interest in Political & Social Sciences and the close nexus between law and these subjects made me interested and everything else just fell into place.

     

    Tell us about your internships experiences. Were they all meticulously planned or did they just happen to you as you went through law school?

    Well, being in a law school in Delhi turned out to be very advantageous for me. I got an opportunity to work with many law offices/firms during my LL.B., which included tier one law firms in the capital, Solicitor General of India, two Additional Solicitor Generals, Senior Advocates, and a Judge of Supreme Court of India. This gave me a good insight about various areas of practice in legal industry and most importantly it introduced me to some practicalities of the profession. Additionally, as an intern you get to share and learn from other interns a lot, this I must say is very important part of internship, which is mostly ignored by students. I am thankful to many of my co-interns of introducing me to possible internship opportunities, law journals, online-courses, higher studies and many other such things. Internship is very important and must for law students, if not for being introduced to laws but at-least for being introduced to the profession.

    My plan all along was not to give any particular practice area priority but to gain as much experience as I could from these internships and then reach any conclusion, if possible. As for planning internships I always tried to apply at least 8-9 months in advance so that I have options to choose from as per my convenience.

     

    Did you have an opportunity to study the subjects you chose to specialize in your LL.M. when at college in India? What influenced you to study abroad?

    You never know what will make you change your decision in life, you can have all planned but then you may be introduced to something in absolutely different direction that will make more sense. I found myself in a similar situation, I chose all those subjects which I had studied before so that it would be comparatively easier for me and I could easily grasp their global perspective.

    But I thank my Dean Prof. Simon Chesterman for giving wonderful introductory speech and explaining us why not to choose subjects we have already studied, I ended up taking subjects like Aviation Law, Construction Law, Negotiation and Drafting of Commercial Contracts and Mergers &Acquisitions  which were absolutely new to me.

    I was out of my comfort zone I had to work hard and be prepared before every seminar/lecture. This required daily hours in the library reading some of the best authors on these subjects, which brought the best out of me. Also, after reading these subjects I can claim to have gained a new area of practice.

    Well I cannot say I had lack of influence to go for higher studies abroad, I always wanted to do so. But yes I have few of my seniors from law schools to thank for guiding me to my way there, especially Mr. Shashank Garg.

    However, we cannot ignore the lack of guidance in India for a law student who wants to pursue his/her higher studies abroad. People misrelate higher education abroad as an opportunity to find a good job there or in India, it is a misconceived notion. LL.M.s are purely academic in nature, they enhance your knowledge of law and give you different perspective to practice law.

     

    aditya-parolia1

    How did you go about choosing which college to go to for your LL.M.? Did you ever consider Indian colleges for LL.M.?

    Initially I chose colleges and jurisdictions where I wanted to pursue law followed by expense that was to be incurred for pursuing them. For example, I did not apply to any college in US, for sole reason that it was not in my budget. You need to know where you stand and then weigh pros and cons. As I said, LL.Ms are not something you do to get a better job, you do it to do better in your job.

    When I got an offer letter from NUS, I decided to accept it immediately and reject others, for many reasons.

    The major reasons were:-

    If you want you can read Indian laws; NUS has options like Indian Business Laws, Indian Penal Code, and Contemporary Indian Laws to name a few.

    It is commercially viable as compared to UK and States.

    The legal industry is open and promising for Indian Lawyers. Nearly half of our batch, including me, had offer letters in their hand before the final results were out.

    Also, since NYU was also offering LL.M. course in collaboration with NUS we got to read many modules provided by NYU and learn from many renowned NYU professors.

    I wanted to learn arbitration and Singapore being a major centre for Indian parties showed lot of promise. Further, studies in arbitration at NUS give huge importance to Indian practice & case laws etc. And not to forget that they have Professors like Mr. Gary Born, Mr. Lawrence Boo and Mr. M. Sohanrajha to teach the subject.

    No no doubt it is one of the top most universities in the world and has an excellent dedication towards the students. I can write pages to explain this dedication of NUS.

    No, I did not consider Indian Colleges for LL.M., no disrespect to them but it time that we revamp our higher education system. Indian Colleges rather than focusing on specialized/ super-specialized areas are still majorly focusing on subjects being taught in LL.B. The approach has to be changed, it’s not like we do not have good teachers or law schools. We have alumni who are not reputed lawyers of the country and will be more than happy to contribute.

    For instance, I was taught Mergers & Acquisitions by Prof. Umakanth Varottil at NUS, he is an NLSIU alumnus, former partner of AMSS, ranked as a leading corporate/mergers & acquisitions lawyer in India by the Chambers Global Guide and no doubt an authority on the subject.  I have seen students, in a three hour seminar, willing to stand throughout and learn from him. I had no inclination for M&A and today it’s only because of him that I am advising companies on the subject. It is simply the method and atmosphere that International Universities create that grows that willingness in a student to learn something new.

     

    How difficult was studying abroad in terms of finding accommodation, finances and settling in? Are there any scholarships for studying at NUS available to Indian students?

    I was working for a while before leaving for NUS and since studies at NUS was not that expensive finances was not much of a trouble though I had seek some help from my parents for the second semester.

    NUS has recently come up with a state of the art residential campus, UTown, for international students, which is fully equipped with all the required amenities, including shopping centres, food courts, restaurants, sports complex and not to miss excellent education resource centre. Also since Singapore has huge population of people of Indian origin you do not feel away from India, every food court mandatorily has an Indian food stall and shops are full of Indian food supplies. If one is applying to NUS I will advice that one should apply for hostels provided by NUS they are comparatively affordable and has transport facilities linked to them.

    Every student selected for NUS gets automatically eligible for the university scholarship. To my knowledge NUS awards three from each batch and same it communicated at-least a month before the session starts. I am not aware if there is any scholarship specifically available to Indian students.

     

    How was the faculty & academic schedule at NUS? Was there time enough for non-academic pursuits at NUS? How did you find the work-life balance to be?

    You can find authorities on the subjects teaching at NUS, like Gary Born, M. Sonarajha, Simon Chesterman, Umakanth Varottil, Stephen Girvin, Alan Tan, Franco Ferrari, to name a few. It will be wrong for me to even explain their credentials. The manner in which the faculty communicate and reach the students is unheard of. Then within the especially dedicated campus of NUS Law School you have LKY School of Public Policy, where you find lectures delivered by eminent world leaders every other day. We had opportunities to hear lectures and interact with renowned personalities like Mr. Pascal Lamy, Mr. SashiTaroor, Mr. Henry Kissinger, Mr. Kofi Annan and many others.

    The methodology adapted by NUS in their academic schedule is quite innovative. You generally have 5 subjects a semester, having a three-hour seminar for each subject a week. You are given academic calendar and class-schedule prior to your selection of subjects. So if one wants he can have just 2 or 3 days a week of classes, based on his selections, and rest of the week can be used by the student as he wants. In my batch that we traveled throughout Southeast Asia during our studies and it was hardly a burden on our academic schedule.

    However, since for each subject you have to write an article you will have to put hours in library from these non-class days and manage accordingly. Yes if you ask me that if you can pursue a part time job that is not possible. The modules are very demanding you need to be prepared before sitting for each lecture. The classes are also very interactive you cannot simply go unprepared. NUS had developed special software IVLE to provide students all the required readings for a lecture at-least a week in advance. The Integrated Virtual Learning Environment (IVLE) is a NUS’ custom designed and built course management system for the NUS community. It is designed to facilitate and supplement teaching at the NUS.

     

    Do you think higher studies help shape a successful legal professional? What would be your advice to law students who plan to go for higher studies?

    Yes I believe they do to a huge extent. I cannot say all that I learnt during my LL.M. has been put to test in practice, but surely it enhances you as a person and a lawyer. The way you see or study a subject and write on it changes to a great extent. Further, since you have to settle quickly in an alien land you become more independent and responsible.

    For me, it was a correct decision. Had I not been there I would have never shifted from my orthodox approach of law and have stayed just a litigation lawyer. Thanks to LL.M. that I now advice companies in FDI, Aviation and M&A apart from appearing in courts.

    Well I can just advice that if you are going for higher studies don’t think that you will land up getting a big job there or here in India, one might get it but that is not the purpose of higher studies. One should go for LL.M. to learn new possible approach towards law, how other legal system implement their laws, what can be possible changes that we can bring in legal system. The purpose of doing LL.M. should purely be academic and self-growth.

    Since today we have major multi-nationals coming in our country, they are very demanding and require you to work as per international standards. Until we have that experience it will be difficult for us to meet their expectations.

    Also, if I may suggest please choose few subjects which you have never studied before, it will be worth it. I should also warn that if you are thinking that LL.M. will be cake walk please be aware that you are absolutely wrong, rather it is very demanding and have high expectations.

    Plan well in advance. To start with, prepare your documents and references at least during April/May and make sure to choose your colleges wisely. Seek advice only from people who have gone for higher studies as I don’t believe it will be proper for someone to be a critic of something without experiencing it first.  If possible, work for couple of years and then go for higher studies, you will be on a better footing.

     

    aditya-parolia2What kind of effort should a young associate put into work to get it appreciated? What are the major differences between a young associate with a partner?

    A young associate is required to be sincere and hard working, nothing much. It will be wrong to say that he should have deep knowledge of laws and procedure, this is not possible; you get to learn them eventually, books and practice rarely co-relate in fact. But, yes you need to be aware of things and development in laws, ignorance cannot be an excuse.

    Being a partner you will have to be more responsible and a team leader at all times. Your juniors’ mistake is your mistake you cannot at any time use your juniors as a shield. As a partner you have additional responsibilities which might affect the speed of your delivery but these are essential for the job, like socialising, management, delivering lectures et.al.

    I believe responsibilities make you grow as a person, the earlier you have them the better.

     

    When you hire lawyers, what kind of skills and profile do you look for? Are the attributes different for working lawyers and fresh graduates?

    We just require few things in a candidate, sincerity, willingness to learn and ability to think out of the box. Candidate’s marks or which college he graduated form does not matter to us.

    Of course experienced professionals have to be scaled separately; you cannot have a set formula. If one is adding value to the firm he/she is always welcome.

     

    Do you offer internships at PSP Legal? What is the application process and what do you look for in a cover letter and CV?

    No currently we are not offering internships. Recently our work has grown well and our lawyers are keeping busy meeting the deadlines.  It’s not that we do not offer internships, it’s just that we have closed it for this summer.

    We believe if we have interns it is our responsibility to provide them enough exposure and give adequate time to their queries and explain them the work process. We make it a point to deliver a lecture for them, at-least once a week, explain to them about the profession.

    However, we might soon put up notification on our website for internship opportunities.

     

    Given a chance to turn back the clock would you have done anything differently from what you’ve done?

    You learn from your mistakes and then they become experiences in life. Experiences are said to be the most valuable things, why would you take a chance to lose it.

    And as for me, I do not really know what and how things have worked for me till now, the pieces just seemed to have fallen in right places.

    So, I am not sure that I would like to change something from past.

     

    Lastly, what would be your message to a student pursuing a law degree?

    Whether you are are from a NLU or not doesn’t have any bearing in your long term legal career. All that matters is your hard-work and sincerity. You have to build your own path, just keep your eyes and ears open and keep learning. Every time you put yourself out of that comfort zone you gain/learn more and emerge as a winner.

    Lastly, try to be as active as possible in extra-curricular activities it’s not about winning a moot or debate, you learn a lot in the process. This displays your ability to try things.

  • Anuroop Omkar on truth of law school life, career in mediation & work as a junior partner

    Anuroop Omkar on truth of law school life, career in mediation & work as a junior partner

    Anuroop Omkar is a graduate of 2012 batch from GNLU, Gandhinagar. He has earned a lot of repute in the domain of Mediation and Dispute Resolution in a very short period of time. Presently, he is a Partner at K. R. Chawla & Co, the Managing Director of Bridge Mediation India which is partner of the Media Logos Italia and conducts Mediation for Delhi Dispute Resolution Society. This interview is for all those law students who had sleepless nights, nervous breakdown, anxiety, and lack of appetite, worried about their legal career after reading the earlier interviews.

    Anuroop would tell us about:

    • His unconventional (or rather the most commonplace) law school experience
    • The change from an ordinary student into a mediation enthusiast
    • A career in mediation
    • Being a Junior Partner at K R Chawla & Co.

     

    Why law and not engineering or medical studies? Was it fate or a deliberate choice?

    I was never good at Chemistry merely as a subject so that did not allow me to pursue a career in either medicine or engineering. I was hell bent on entering a premier institute- IITs, AIIMS, other CBSE medical colleges as an option was ruled out. The only few options along with a premier institute tag was limited to NLUs and NIFTs. There are a couple of premier institutes relating to various other domains of education but I was not well informed those days.

    Moreover, I am a true example of being a deviant, adamant and argumentative Indian. My parents spotted it early on; I fervently desire the world to recognize it in the near future. So even my parents agreed to allow me to pursue my career in law because they felt I will be able to excel in the field. I am really not able to answer whether it was a matter of fate or deliberate choice (choice- rule out other options, fate- not good at chemistry so landed up here).

     

    How was your law school experience? What do you have to say about moots and academic legal writing?

    My career in law school was extremely dramatic. While writing this interview I was having a chat with my girlfriend. She laughed aloud, agreed and said, “Omkar, you didn’t even give me a moment to breath. It was too dramatic…” I began my series in law school with five ducks and four runs in one match (5 attendance backs and one paper with 4 CGPA on a scale of 7). My point of telling you this is that those days GNLU had a rule that students with back papers could not participate in moots. By the end of third semester when I managed to clear all papers, I had really lost interest in mooting and I decided to continue without any moots on my CV, I was sure that I would anyway crack a job which I managed to do being the first one to get a PPO in my batch in third year.

    However, on the request of my beloved girlfriend, to have something on my CV, I participated in one Corporate law moot where I definitely did not come up with flying colours (all thanks to KK and Surabhi Gupta presently 5th year GNLU for drafting the memo and preparing the compendium as well). Off the record – as I was not well prepared apart from my desire to visit Bhopal, I made a fool of myself during the rebuttal. It is only when you make a fool of yourself in public that you truly realize the importance of preparing before a client meeting. However, I must clarify that I turned a little hardworking in my later series (semesters) and ended my law school with a CGPA of above 6 on a scale of 7 in the last four semesters out of ten.

    I am a strong believer in ‘Non CCPs (Cut Copy Paste)’. I believe many of the articles written by various law school students is merely a subject of cut-copy-paste and a CV building exercise. Write when you feel the urge to write and you believe your write-up can be the best piece with a completely different analysis about a particular issue of law. I am still in the quest of creativity to dawn on me which allows me to write a master piece.

    However, I must honestly admit mooting and legal writing enhances three essential acumen in lawyers – drafting, legal analysis and court craft. May be that is the reason why my friends are doing much better and are way ahead of me in the legal profession. So guys, it’s up to you to decide.

     

    You have had a wide variety of internships during your time as a college student. Do tell us about the places you have interned at and whether these were all planned or happened on the go?

    As I did nothing during the semesters I decided to learn law during the holidays. Hence, I interned. My internships taught me everything ranging from professionalism, interpreting law from a practical point of view and being a more convincing and deadline-driven individual. I wanted to pursue a career in corporate law. Hence, my internships were somehow planned. I kept my internships limited to corporate law firms as I wanted to grab a PPO (Pre Placement Offer).

     

    Did your internships help you discover and further develop your interests in the field of mediation law or was this something that happened independent of them?

    My internships had nothing to do with mediation per se. My interest in mediation was fostered through GNLU’s strong focus on international collaborations. Mr. Stefano Cardinale was those days an international visiting faculty to GNLU and also founder of Bridge Mediation Italia. He selected me through an interview process to be sent to USA for a two month extensive mediation training and internship on a full scholarship basis.

    Post my return from USA, I realized that mediation is an amazing route or mechanism to resolve disputes but has not been implemented properly in India. Hence, I decided to work on bringing awareness among the people about international mediation best practices in India.

     

    You have acquired an Advanced Degree in Mediation from the Central European University & Certificate Degree on Mediation from Bridge Mediation. Was it professional requirements or personal desires which prompted you to do so?

    I think it was a combination of both- personal and professional desire. My personality as a person is such that even when I am trying to resolve personal disputes I like creating a win-win situation for both disputing parties. All relationships, business and personal should never get stuck in the vicious competition of ‘winning an argument’ or ‘having the upper hand’.

    Moreover, I have always found the perception of right and wrong to be very misguiding and confusing. What is wrong here may not be wrong somewhere else. What is right today may not be right tomorrow. Disputes and conflicts are merely outcomes of conflicting views and miscommunication. I realized the importance of this mindset and wanted to introduce it as a professionally managed dispute resolution procedure.

     

    Further, professionally what are your outlooks on the future of this particular line of work?

    Barring Criminal law practice, mediation can be implemented in all other spheres of law in India as it is more about understanding a human’s psychology and the roots of the dispute rather than just focusing on the delivery of justice. The future of mediation in India is very bright. With the legal awareness coming up in India, people prefer to avoid or delay using the mechanism of litigation. Even the mechanism of arbitration is slowly failing due to factors such as cost, time and corruption. Recent instances of corruption in the judiciary and one sided arbitration awards constantly appealed in the courts is slowly putting off disputing parties from litigation and arbitration.

    The factors which make mediation somehow better than litigation and arbitration in India are comparatively low costs and lesser time required for resolution of any dispute. Litigation and arbitration are not focused on finding a solution. They are a public process where both disputants lose face and more commercial information about the parties becomes public. Mudslinging is common. However, mediation is a completely confidential process where no party is tainted and goodwill is preserved.

    It allows the parties to go beyond the issues that appear on the surface and many times make their relationship stronger than it was before the dispute ever surfaced. Mediation works as a catalyst to promote healthy, positive, sustainable and feasible solution to both parties.

    The new Companies Act, 2013 recognizes mediation and provides for mediation of corporate disputes. Various government setup mediation centres have been very effective in peacefully resolving family disputes and debt recovery disputes for banks.

    More and more people now wish to take control of the outcome of disputes rather than allowing a third person to decide for them. I think mediation is slated to play a very important role in the dispute resolution system of India. Mediation of civil and commercial disputes before approaching courts is already mandatory in Europe. I think India should also come up with such a law. It will go a long way in reducing the backlog at courts and making India a business friendly nation.

     

    Tell us about your work at the Delhi Dispute Resolution Society?

    DDRS practices pre-litigation mediation in India. Mediation before resorting to litigation is the most effective way of practicing mediation. At that stage, the parties are more open to the idea of finding a solution. They talk more openly about the ‘real reasons’ of the existence of the dispute. They more readily admit to mistakes because no documents or affidavits have been filed before a judicial forum which generally is strongly worded to reveal how a disputant is ‘right’ and the opposite party is ‘wrong’. So, you really get the satisfaction of implementing all skills as mediator. Mediations at DDRS conducted by mediators including me have a high success rate because prevention is better than cure.

     

    Do you feel the extent of preparation provided at law schools for alternative modes of dispute resolution are adequate to meet real world needs? Where do you feel they need improvement?

    I think mediation to be really effective requires a mediator who has had practical, skill based training by other practicing mediators. Presently, mediation is taught as a part of courses titled ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution’. The curriculum lays a lot of focus on arbitration since it has been legislated upon in India (Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996). Of course the Act also has a portion on ‘conciliation’.

    But internationally, conciliation and mediation are two different things and this difference needs to be really stressed on to ensure effective use of the methods. Very few hours are devoted to mediation and the training is not skill based. Hence, skill based training with practical exposure is the need of the hour for law students interested in ADR.

     

    anuroop-omkar1
    Le Meridien, Delhi – Mediation hot spot.

     

    In your experience working at Bridge Mediation & Consulting where you’ve conducted many training sessions at law schools what are the qualities and skills you have Indian law students lacking in?

    Students perform differently when they find out that the training requires them to really focus on modifying their personality, developing and adopting skills rather than reading some course material and merely writing an examination.

    I find many law school students lack practical insight into application of law. They require more exposure in the commercial aspects of business transactions as well as emotional aspects of messed up personal relationships. They are very goal oriented and lack empathy. They are focused on creating innovative opposing arguments and hence, it takes them time to switch to instead creating innovative solutions. I find them very theoretical both in the application of law and the problems of life and society in general.

    We as law students should humbly accept that we are an ancillary part of the society and not paramount. We are not all pervasive nor are we big enough to make important decisions for others. Most importantly, we need to keep changing with the demands of times and situations.

    Students need to focus more on being creative and out of the box rather than just interpreting legal provisions and precedents.

     

    You are a junior partner at KR Chawla & Co. Tell us how your journey has been in this regard and the nature of work you deal with it at this stage in your professional career?

    I have just been lucky to get few good seniors right from my law school days who taught me, guided me and are my well-wishers too. To name a few- Manoj Menon, Partner Dua Associates Bangalore, Ekta Behl, Partner Tatva Legal Hyderabad, Gerald Manoharan, Partner JSA Bangalore, Bikash Mohanty, Managing Partner Lis Partners and my present boss and a very renowned name in the field of corporate law – Dr. Harvansh P. Chawla.

    Presently, at KR Chawla, I deal with a wide variety of legal works including private equity, M&A, joint venture, intellectual property rights, direct taxes, arbitration and competition laws.

     

    You have seen many interns in your line of work. What advice would you give them so as to make themselves stand out?

    Believe in yourself.

     

    You are the founder of Bauribandhu Mohapatra & GNLU Award for Community Service. How did you conceive the idea?

    Getting into law school pushes you into a mad rat race. Though the grinding process brings out a very successful, efficient and dynamic lawyer, the process of churning sucks out a great deal of basic human empathy and fellow feeling. Being a successful lawyer definitely entails being a good human and having a sense of giving back to the society. Law schools over the years have recognized talents in the field of moots, high scorers, and good legal writers, everything that adds up to make a good CV. But somehow, the law schools had left out the core of legal system that is all about serving the society.

    From my first year, I saw one of my friends Mr. Konark Rai work tirelessly in the field of social engineering through his NGO Calyphso. However, I never felt he got the due recognition for what he did. This inspired me to come up with this concept of which does not absolutely focus on those certain sections of selfish people who score for themselves, grab a high paying job and only make money for themselves but focus on those people who though try to make their life standard better but alongside do something for the betterment of the society and care for the world.

     

    Any message you would like to be passed on to the law students reading this?

    Guys, don’t worry for building a strong CV but please try and improve your intellect. If you want to be a successful lawyer, not just merely a retainer with any legal concern, read the legal subjects with utmost passion and a desire to learn. Law is definitely not a set of rule books.

    Practice of law requires an absolutely practical mind which can understand a particular situation and find the specific solution for it compliant with the law. Law requires a reasonable, human approach to a particular situation rather than a black and white legal analysis. Get into the shoes of the person raising the query. Empathy works better than sympathy.

  • Sukrit Kapoor on Summer Schools, LL.M. from Essex University & a career in International Human Rights Law

    Sukrit Kapoor on Summer Schools, LL.M. from Essex University & a career in International Human Rights Law

    Sukrit Kapoor had graduated from GNLU, Gandhinagar in 2011. Thereafter he pursued an LL.M. in human rights law from Essex University. Being an international law enthusiast he worked at Gaza Strip for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and submitted reports to the UN. He also worked as a Refugee Status Determination Assistant at the UNHCR for quite some time and had joined Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative yesterday.

    In this interview Sukrit tells us about:

    • Attending Summer Schools
    • LL.M. in International Human Rights from Essex University
    • Competing in Concours Jean Pictet
    • Pursuit of a career in International Human Rights
    • Work experience at Gaza Strip

     

    Hi Sukrit! How would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?

    I completed my undergrad studies from GNLU in 2011 and immediately followed it up with a postgrad degree in international human rights and humanitarian law from the University of Essex in 2012. Despite being a law graduate I can’t exactly classify myself in the conventional binary of corporate lawyers and litigators, as I like to think of myself as an international law enthusiast with an interest and focus on humanitarian issues. I have recently joined an international NGO, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, as a Research Officer and I have previously worked with UNHCR in India and with another NGO in the Gaza Strip.

     

    Please tell us about what life was like in GNLU? What all activities did you pursue while on the course and how did they shape your career?

    For me GNLU, and law for that matter, happened by pure accident. I took up commercial studies during high school and easily envisioned myself becoming a typical number-crunching chartered accountant someday. However, a family friend suggested that having a base in law would boost my accountant pursuits. I ended up in GNLU with absolutely no clue, except for some very clichéd ideas, about lawyers and what they do. Needless to say, I was very lost from day one which lead to my becoming further disinterested in corporate or commercial studies. Luckily for me, I had become friends with two senior students, Kumar Ankit and Hardik Dave, who were seriously involved in establishing the Legal Services Committee and the legal aid clinic at GNLU, and with some encouragement from them I volunteered for the committee in its initial year and got accepted as a member the next year.

    Working with the clinic got me really interested in civil and social issues, but back then I didn’t think I could do similar work for a good part of my life. Interestingly enough, I ended up doing a non-legal marketing internship during my second year and followed it up with an LPO internship with the hope of combining my legal and business skills in the legal outsourcing setting. While interning at the LPO, I got the opportunity to prepare a research brief on international refugee law for an American lawyer who was helping a Haitian asylum-seeker seek refuge in the US and the court ruled in our favour. That satisfaction clicked so well for me that I decided to specialize in international law with a focus on human rights, migration issues, and armed conflicts. Thankfully, the course at GNLU was long enough to allow me to shoot some arrows in the dark while identifying my true interests, and also help me work towards them.

     

    You have attended a couple of summer schools. What are the aspects you considered while opting for these courses? Would you recommend law students to opt for these courses over an internship?

    I attended three summer courses during my undergrad studies. The first one was an Introduction to International Law at the Indian Society of International Law in Delhi. I attended that course immediately after my first year in law school, purely out of curiosity. The next summer school I attended was on International Affairs and Multilateral Governance: Global Migration, Cooperation and Development at The Graduate Institute of International and Developmental Studies, in Geneva and after that I participated in a programme on Protecting Human Rights Through United Nations Mechanisms, at the Human Rights Law Centre of the University of Nottingham.

    Once I got clarity on the kind of work I enjoyed and the area I wanted to specialize in, the next obvious thing on my list was to garner skills, aptitude, and acumen essential for further pursuing my interests. I reckoned these summer schools were ideal for this purpose. They seemed to be a better and wiser investment over an internship because for they offered me a broader, better and more practical understanding on issues beyond the ordinary textbook perspective, which seemed quite impossible through an internship. Also, professionals from various international organizations taught the course and I even got to visit these organizations’ headquarters and get an idea of their functions.

    So my general advice to one and all will be to opt for opportunities which will for sure help you learn and attain proficiency, and it can be through an internship, a summer school, a moot court or essay writing competition, or for that matter anything else. Remember to do the time-investment-benefit analysis and choose the best way you think you will learn.

     

    Following up on that, how have these summer courses helped you?

    They have helped me immensely. This might sound a little like Steve Jobs’ Stanford speech where he explains about connecting the dots and how you can only do it looking backwards, but the best example I can give is that my current job with Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative requires me to be proficient and thorough with international human rights mechanisms, so much so that among other essentials this was mentioned as a must-have in the job description. Also, attending these summer courses helped me understand the teaching methods employed by foreign educational institutions, which in turn prepared me to pursue my masters more efficiently.

     

    sukrit-k2Why did you decide to pursue an LL.M.? What made you choose the University of Essex? Were you considering other universities too?

    I wanted to learn more about working in the realm of human rights, migration, and armed conflicts and the LL.M. at Essex helped me do that and more. I was definitely considering other universities with great repute for masters in international law like Oxford, Columbia, Nottingham, ADH Geneva, but what attracted me towards Essex was that the academics there are professionals with years of experience, including former UN Special Rapporteurs, members of UN treaty bodies, advisers to a range of international organizations (like the OHCHR, UNHCR and WHO), as well as to NGOs around the world, and litigators before national courts, regional human rights commissions and courts, international courts and tribunals, and the UN treaty bodies.They contribute to academia by bringing a remarkable element of practicality in their teachings. Moreover, Essex happens to be the first university in the world to establish a dedicated LL.M. in the area of human rights and this ensured a very strong and omnipresent alumni. The human rights alumni are often called the Essex Mafia, because they are quite literally working in every region of the world with numerous organizations.

     

    You also participated in the Concours Jean Pictet while studying at Essex. Can you tell us what it is and about your experience competing in it?

    Concours Jean Pictet was one of the highlights of my Essex experience. It is a fascinating, a first-of-its-kind international humanitarian law competition which is held in a different country every year, having been held in South Africa when I participated. Each year, an impressive group of people working with organizations like ICRC, UN, international tribunals, and some academics organize this competition. It is a week-long competition where these experts cook up a hypothetical armed conflict situation which develops as each day passes and the teams participate in a range of simulations where they exhibit their knowledge of IHL and other related subjects while playing different roles of military officers, representatives of the Red Cross, armed rebels, human rights organizations and government lawyers.  Apart from reaching the semi-finals of the competition I made some really amazing friends from differentparts of the world. I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to specialize in IHL.

     

    You have been closely associated with human rights ever since GNLU. Why did you choose to work in this field over a lucrative job at a law firm?

    Given the way my career interests shaped up during and post-GNLU, like I have explained earlier, I think it is this field which chose me rather than the other way around and although I am not averse to working with law firms, it isn’t something that I really wanted to do. Simply put, I realized what I enjoyed doing and kept pursuing it.

     

    How did you start working for the UNHCR? What was your job profile there?

    I stumbled upon the opportunity to work with UNHCR while I was in the Gaza Strip, and got selected for the job after taking a written test and appearing for an interview. I worked with UNHCR as a Refugee Status Determination Assistant, which basically means that I primarily assisted the Office in determining whether an asylum-seeker is a refugee under UNHCR’s mandate or not. I did so by meeting with the concerned asylum-seekers and interviewing them to collect their statements and other relevant information that can be used as evidence. I would then legally analyze and assess their application after thoroughly researching upon their background and the human rights situation in their respective countries of origin. Along the way, I also delivered a lecture at the Indian Society of International Law on behalf of UNHCR and assisted the Chief of Mission in preparing a speech.

     

    You quit your job at UNHCR recently and are now working with the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Why this change?

    I now work as a Research Officer with CHRI’s Strategic Initiatives Programme, which means I monitor, research, and report on human rights issues in various Commonwealth countries; assist the organization with its advocacy initiatives at the UN, Commonwealth, and other appropriate international human rights forums and mechanisms; and network with human rights organizations in various countries. I did something similar to this in the Gaza Strip while working with an NGO there and realized that my skills are better utilized in such a role. Perhaps you can say that I sort of graduated to this job and hence, the change.

     

    Tell us about some of your experiences in the Gaza Strip. How has it changed your perspective?

    I landed up in Gaza straight out of university and worked there with the International Unit of Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). I was tasked with preparing two reports on the challenges faced by Palestinian civilians in accessing appropriate judicial mechanisms and the difficulties they face in seeking reparations for damages and losses suffered by them owing to armed violence. Thanks to my brilliant colleagues, I further got the opportunity to assist PCHR with submitting various reports to the UN, representing PCHR at international conferences and facilitating partnerships with other NGOs. One of the most interesting assignments I got to work on was preparing reports on the impact of armed drones on civilians in the Gaza Strip which were submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.

    Many-a-times, I would get frustrated with the general lack of clarity on the application of some fundamental principles of international law to the situation in Gaza, but overtime I realized that such difficult situations can’t be addressed solely from a legal perspective but principled diplomatic and political measures needed to facilitate the effective implementation of law.

    I can easily call it one of the most enriching experiences in both personal and professional terms as Gaza has a charm to itself which is reflected in its people despite all the difficulties surrounding the region. Thankfully, with a lot of support from my family, lovely colleagues, and friends I managed to successfully complete my assignments there. Something that I will always cherish is how some of my Israeli friends checked on me during escalations in armed violence, while I was in Gaza.

     

    Lastly, what would be your advice to law students in a sentence or two?

    In a sentence or two, it is very easy to lose one’s individuality when one competes in a herd, so don’t settle for something you don’t enjoy, since to succeed naturally, one needs to genuinely love what they do. Just stop being a “rat” and you’ll definitely win the “race”. 😉

  • Deya Bhattacharya on academic publications, Femin Ijtihad & LL.M. from Central European University

    Deya Bhattacharya on academic publications, Femin Ijtihad & LL.M. from Central European University

    Deya Bhattacharya is a graduate of 2013 batch from KIIT, Bhubaneshwar. She has mainly interned at Human Rights Foundations and is currently pursuing an LL.M.  in Human Rights from the Central European University. She is a Senior Legal Researcher at the global women’s rights intiative Femin Ijtihad

    In this interview she talks about:

    • Publications and top 3 things while writing a research work
    • Internships at Human Rights Organisations
    • Work at Femin Ijtihad as a Senior Legal Researcher
    • Intricate details of an LL.M. in Human Rights from Central European University

     

    Most of our readers are law students and young lawyers. How will you introduce yourself to them?

    If there’s a percentage of your readers who didn’t want to take up law, but did so for whatever reason, then I will safely introduce myself as a lawyer who became one by chance. Legal studies grew on me slowly – I am, at present, a postgraduate student in Human Rights and International Justice, particularly fond of women’s rights issues and democratic transitions.

     

    Why did you decide to study law? Tell us about your college life.

    There is a funny story behind this. Towards the end of class eleven, a school friend and I decided to chart out our career options. I never really decided to study law. I was never interested in the pure sciences. I had always wanted to study English, and she wanted to be a lawyer. We both began preparing for law school entrances. However, as fate would have it – she studied English and is now an educational consultant and I ended up in law school.

    I loved International History and English, and my parents gave me the option of doing what I wanted to, and law somehow happened (I saw this with equanimity now; it wasn’t the case always – in the beginning I was not happy that I had chosen law).

    The first couple of years in college, though formative in many ways, were quite forgettable. I drifted from class to class, internship to internship, pretty unsure of whether what I had chosen was, in fact, good enough. Thankfully, there were a few very supportive professors who managed to help me channel my interests in a certain direction. In the latter half of college life, I became more assertive because at that point I was almost confident about what I wanted to do.

     

    You graduated from KIIT. Tell us what your law school experience was like. Also, what do you have to say about the supposed ‘elite’ tag attached to certain law schools? Do you believe branding is something that’s very relevant/important at any stage in a law student’s career?

    The first two batches of KIIT almost always tell you that law school, in the first couple of years, is splendid. We had brilliant professors. The quality of debates in class was remarkable. In the first three years of law school, the professors made sure that there were discussions and dialogue amongst the students; we could approach them whenever we liked, even after class hours. In fact, one of the professors (he has long left KIIT) sat me down and helped me chart out my resume and taught me how to footnote one afternoon over cups of tea.

    I was not interested in law firms (where, I have heard, the elite-tag is of consequence). So during internships it didn’t matter to me whether I was from a national law school or not. It bothered me in my fifth year during two international scholarship interviews – in one, the panelists had not bothered to read my personal statement before they called me in and asked me loose questions about everything except what I wanted to pursue; and in the second one, I was intimidated about my research work (women’s rights/transitional justice – I was told Indian lawyers aren’t really concerned about it!).

    But no, I do not think branding is the most important thing in a law student’s career. It certainly makes life comfortable – you don’t have to build walls around yourself everytime you go to a conference or a moot court. However, let’s not forget – if you’re from an elite law school, you’re expected to be better than most others.

     

    You have had a variety of publications mainly in Women’s rights. How did you settle for this issue?

    I am not sure why one would settle for something? I don’t like settling for things I am not interested in. KIIT offered specializations and while I saw most people in my law school taking the oft-travelled path – Corporate law, I took to International Law (something that is hardly viewed as concrete in the Indian law sphere). Anyhow, this was in my third year, and I was aching to do something along with my regular coursework.

    So, I applied to Femin Ijtihad (now, Strategic Advocacy for Human Rights or SAHR) for an unpaid online internship during that time for a Women’s Rights Case Law Project in India, and this deepened my intrigue in Women’s rights issues. The project was a minor one at that time but starting work at FI/SAHR has been both the inception and the center of my career choices. Later, I wandered from Women’s Rights proper to Women’s rights in transitions but that is a different and a much longer story.

     

    deya-b4What are the top 3 things you keep in mind while compiling a research work?

    I am sure different people have various ways of accumulating research.  The top three things I do while I am compiling research:

    1. I move myself away from everything and everyone else when I am working. I turn on some instrumental music and I do not liking talking when I am researching/writing.
    2. Secondly, I like my documents organized. I can spend hours and hours on this, worrying I might lose my sources. I keep them on Dropbox and segregate folders on the laptop, colour-coordinate, highlight and stick post-it notes on the hard copies that I arrange by topic. Thankfully, there is a software called Zotero that helps you keep track of your bibliography by saving your sources into a personal-library of sorts (I highly recommend this while writing papers, really helps). I also think OneNote/EverNote are excellent pieces of software to keep your article/thesis notes arranged.
    3. Lastly, the writing bit. For me, it can get excruciating to find a perfect starting point when I am beginning an article (sometimes even an assignment). I have seen when I put myself through stress, extreme unimaginable stress (please don’t try this at home!) I write better and more effectively. Another thing that I do (but may not recommend) is that I do my footnotes/endnotes in the end, after my writing is done. It can get difficult to alternate between forming cohesive arguments and doing something so clerical like footnoting, at the same time.

     

    Your have interned at the PUCL, PILSARC & ORF starting with reputed advocates. Please tell us if these internships were pre-planned? What did you gather from your experiences at these places?

    None of my internships were really pre-planned. I was going to do the usual NGO-court-law firm internship drill, when I realized I couldn’t follow the oft-beaten path. PUCL happened after a string of e-mails and calls. It was my first internship, and possibly, my first tryst with human rights work. They had a tiny office-space and much of our work was field work in the harsh Delhi heat. The internship introduced me to the delight of working with the grassroots, how legal ethos is an interaction of legal theory and practical work. I fell seriously ill after my first ever internship (I think I should have taken the hint and left law school for good!) Laughs…

    PILSARC, under the aegis of Dr. Rajeev Dhavan, happened at a time when I was sure that I wanted to pursue Human Rights. One of the senior researchers at PILSARC actually augmented my intrigue towards transitions and democratization, and I think I will always be grateful to her for her lecture on Pinochet’s trial, Charles Taylor and all the hybrid and international tribunals. Back home, I still have the sheet the paper somewhere, where I had scribbled about them while she spoke.

    ORF was my last internship in law school. I did a lot of conflict-related research there, but I wish it had come at a better time. I was grappling with my university applications then and I don’t think I did it much justice.

     

    From your experience at internships, do you think the various law schools across India prepare a student for the world outside their campus?

    To tell you the truth, I don’t. Internship breaks are between the semesters and continue for thirty to fifty days? I don’t think that this is enough time for a law student to properly understand the work culture, ethics and the like. Most law students would probably do the routine internships– first year, NGO/think tank; second year, district/high courts; third year, Supreme Court and fourth and fifth year, law firms.

    And these internships go on for a month, maximum six weeks, and by the time, you’re comfortable and have understood the nature of the work (and, decide whether or not you like it), your internship is done, you’re given the certificate and they bid you farewell.

    I think our internship programmes should be like the ones in medical schools. An entire year or two of doing what you are actually interested in, instead of numerous internships just to decorate the resume.

    Besides internships, I think knowing and understanding the vagaries of legal writing also helps. It is a much underrated skill in our community.

     

    You have interned largely only with human rights institutions. What inspired you to pursue human rights?

    Call it being irrational or simply only just a character flaw, I don’t like doing what everyone else is running after. Maybe I’d be great at a law firm, but I did not want to intern in any law firms because everyone from my class was doing that. This made me build a permanent mental block against law firms, and commercial law. I also avoided studying the mandatory corporate law course back in KIIT, but I had a very resolute professor who made me study it.

    Anyhow, I think this mental block coupled with the fact that I wanted to do something with people (I took up humanities in high school purely because beakers, cutting open cockroaches and atoms don’t do much for me) inspired me to pursue Human Rights. In 2011, during the Arab Spring, while scanning for news from the Middle East and the revolutions, I was almost certain that this was where my passion lay.

     

    You worked for two years at Femin Ijtihad as a Senior Legal Researcher. Share with us the work environment over there and the work you handled? How did you apply to them for a researcher’s post?

    As I have mentioned before, I began working with FI/SAHR as an intern. What began as an internship slowly moved towards more concrete work. I began drafting arguments for cases in the Afghan legal system, drawing up strategy papers and training manuals for strategic litigation for women’s rights in Afghanistan. In 2011, Natasha Latiff, the founder-director of SAHR offered me a position in the Executive Board of FI/SAHR as a Senior Legal Researcher, and I happily accepted.

    We have been working pro bono for a long time, and FI/SAHR believes in bridging the gap between academic and activism in women’s empowerment issues. I don’t think I’d ever refuse the position! In the last few years, we have received the FRIDA (The Young Feminist Fund) grant and the SOAS Best-Student Volunteering Projects.

    We are a team of several women from four different continents, whom I have never met! But the amount of camaraderie between us is phenomenal. I always write to Natasha whenever I am in trouble and she always makes sure she sends a positive audio-note and almost always with a solution to my problem! I am grateful to Natasha, Anna, Sara and Sarah for always being there to brainstorm on my (sometimes ridiculous) ideas.

    The work I have done here is mostly linking women’s rights to post-conflict/conflict areas. I have also assisted in strategic litigation, drafted arguments, concept notes and training modules for child custody, rape, and domestic violence issues. A project that brought us accolades is a research we (Sarah Jones, Sara Bergamaschi and I) conducted in Libya, interviewing Libyan activists on the right of political participation of women after Gaddafi’s fall. The research was published and presented in plenty of international conferences.

     

    deya-b3You are now pursuing an LL.M. in Human Rights from the Central European University. Tell us about the entire application process and any available scholarships to study at this university?

    The application process at Central European University, Budapest is three-fold. By the applicable deadline, you send them your application documents (résumé, statement of purpose, research essay, certificate of English proficiency, transcripts, and recommendations). Then, there is an online examination within a stipulated time limit (I think it was problem-based!). The last stage is a Skype/telephonic interview.

    CEU has a plethora of scholarships and fellowships – ranging from only tuition waivers to fellowships that take care of your tuition, lodgings, insurance and provide you with a stipend for your living costs (remember those days when we dreamed of being paid to study? This sounds almost ideal, right?). If you perform exceptionally well in your first term there, they sometimes double your stipend, as an incentive.

    Since most of my classmates here have had prior work experience or exceptional internships/volunteer work, I am almost certain that the admissions committee prefers that the students are in touch with human rights work.

     

    How did you decide to go for CEU over others? What other universities were you considering?

    Besides the two scholarships (Rhodes and Commonwealth), I had applied to the University of Toronto (the LL.M. program offered specific fellowships in women’s rights, human rights and transitional justice), New York University Law School (the LL.M. program offered what I really wanted to pursue: perspectives of human rights in the Middle East, and had a clinical programme in constitutional transitions), School of Oriental & African Studies (research-based programme with a concentration on women’s rights and Middle East), Cambridge University, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and CEU.

    After disappointing interviews for Rhodes and Commonwealth, Cambridge and Graduate Institute both sent me overly polite rejections (Graduate Institute sent me one in French!). The scholarships that Toronto and NYU had given me were not really enough. I received the Master’s Scholarship at SOAS, but I would have to have to pay for my own living costs. CEU gave me a full scholarship, which was my primary reason to come here. There are not a lot of financial concerns when almost everything is covered and therefore, it’s easier to concentrate on what I am really here for.

    Another reason why I chose CEU was the program – the International Justice specialization under the Human Rights LL.M. has had all the courses I have wanted to pursue (international criminal law and transitional justice related). I also did a unique internship in an archival institution – dealing with using archival evidence for human rights violations – something that I don’t think I’d do anywhere else!

    deya-b2

    How is the faculty, students and overall experience there? Please share any memorable moment which has struck you.

    The experience at CEU has been very different from my experience in KIIT. The schedule has been rigorous and back-breaking. The course is divided into six modules: each module lasts about six weeks, at the end of which there are term papers, examinations, take-home examinations. The number of credits you have to take for grade is pretty strict; you may also audit courses you are particularly interested in. In between, there is a research/internship break when you can intern or apply for a grant to go to a library/research institute for thesis research. I did everything in an attempt to get a hang of things and the turned schedule more chaotic for myself.

    The students are from diverse backgrounds and countries so during classes (and even outside) it is great to hear different experiences. The faculty is brilliant and immensely supportive! Unlike back in India, the faculty here will treat you like one of them, like an equal, which is something I’ve begun to appreciate. One of the things I like about the course (and the faculty) here is the utilization of the Socratic method in classes. It facilitates a whole range of opinions about a particular subject, instead of a group of students just blindly copying notes while a professor lectures on.

    About memorable experiences? In the beginning during the welcome week, I scared a professor (of Indian ethnicity) when I asked her quite vehemently if she could cook Indian food! After this incident, I have tried to mellow down.

    Very recently, I had long-winding discussions about my thesis with Judge Richard Goldstone, the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Tribunal for Yugoslavia. He told me he was very impressed with my interest and dedication for the subject (he is taking a course based on international criminal law) and most importantly, during our last discussion, told me I am “good stuff” and kept my thesis outline with him. What could be more exciting? I think I am going to take this experience to my grave.

     

    deya-b5
    Was it the course or the brand name which mattered for you? Do you hope to continue with research work or enter law practice after completing your LL.M?

    Of course. I wanted to specialize in aspects of transitional justice and international criminal law and this course provided for exactly that. (Also, CEU is just two minutes from the Danube, and Budapest is such a beautiful city to live in.)

    I complete my LL.M. in a month, but that is only the coursework. I still have my thesis to write. So, I am going to concentrate on that before deciding what I want to do hereafter. I’m very sure I will be primarily involved in research, though I wouldn’t mind exploring a combination of both research work and litigation.

     

    How difficult was studying abroad in terms of finding accommodation, finances and settling in? Tell us about a typical day you spent over there? Did it allow you to engage in extracurricular activities as well?

    I was certain that I wanted to do my LL.M. after law school since I was in my third year so, I was prepared to face all sorts of difficulties. I think, in my case, the difficulties occurred during the application phase – I wanted to draft perfect personal statements for each of the universities instead of writing one and using them for all the applications. That was pretty hectic. Then, deciding that I would be giving up brand-names like SOAS, Toronto and NYU for CEU (a lesser known university) because I wouldn’t have been able to afford them.

    At CEU, accommodation was a part of my scholarship along with a small stipend that is just about enough to survive. Settling in is not that complicated – the university staff helps as much as possible to help you find your way around the university as well as the city. Living alone can be slightly unnerving at first but it grows on you, and you begin to love it.

    Owing to the module structure, it is quite difficult to plan your day around it. But we get by. My day starts with waking up, taking the metro to the university, and going to class. There is always a stipulated number of readings for class, which one is expected to mandatorily complete. After classes (some ending as late as 7 pm), I come back, speak to my family and engage in either my thesis work/readings for next day or other research work.

    Sometimes, I decide to cook for the entire week to lessen my burden, and those evenings are a pandemonium. I am a night owl so I get most of my work done after dinner. I cannot sleep unless I read so there are nights when I grapple the idea whether I should go to bed or finish reading a book.

    Because this is a taught programme and the schedule is rigorous, co-curricular activities become a hassle – I have not written an abstract for a call for papers in ages! I am not a big fan of sports; the only extracurricular activity I am bothered about is to finish reading novels and that is possible! For sports enthusiasts, the bar in the dormitory airs important football matches, has a pool table and organizes regular sports events.

     

    What would be your message for law students wishing to pursue a future in the field of Human Rights?

    Since I am only just starting out, I have some borrowed but clichéd (though, very effective) advice: patience, and passion. Human rights, whether advocacy and research or litigation, is neither fast nor easy. It could take decades to stretch out, amend and modify the Human Rights discourse, and one will often feel intimidated by it, especially because the seniors in the field (there are exceptions, of course) will often disregard taking on younger people or ignore their ideas altogether. You will feel like abandoning everything because things do not work on a finely charted timeline, but don’t!

    As Natasha from FI/SAHR recently told me – “… keep doing your work with passion but be detached from its results.”

  • Rohan Mukherjee, Founder, Grayscale Legal, on environment law, entrepreneurship, and his internship experience

    Rohan Mukherjee, Founder, Grayscale Legal, on environment law, entrepreneurship, and his internship experience

     

    rohan-mukherjee1Rohan Mukherjee is a student of NLU Odisha, Cuttack, batch of 2015. In 2013 he started his own entrepreneurial venture, Grayscale Legal, a non-profit company to bridge the gap in demand and supply of good legal research. Grayscale Legal  is a Legal Assistance & Research Service Company aimed at getting law students recognized and placed on the basis of their mettle, rather than their grades. Due to Grayscale’s success he was also inducted as a fellow into Kairos Society – a worldwide association for entrepreneurs and innovators. Apart from being an entrepreneur, he has also received a pre-placement offer from India’s first Environment Law firm – Enviro Legal Defence Firm.

    In this interview he talks to us about:

    • Starting up with GrayScale Legal
    • Getting inducted into Kairos Society
    • His internship experience

    How did you gravitate towards law?

    Well, that could be a long answer for one question. See, I had given up on my science subjects in school because my interest didn’t lie there, and I saw no sense in pursuing something that I, with all my heart, didn’t see myself in. As a child, when you see your relatives around you who happen to be lawyers, enjoying a great lifestyle, it does create an illusion that life gets to be easy with a robe on. Well, of course, we learn otherwise later on, but the money and influence does play an attractive role to a teenager. Changing the world and fighting for ideals comes later.

     

    What were the different things that you did these five years at NLUO?

    Well, I do play drums and percussion, so that kept me engaged in my initial years, although I failed to set up band for the University. I write a lot, sometimes short opinionated satires, or dabble with my own black humor genre of poetry. My apprehension towards public speaking was removed when I was introduced to parliamentary debates, and those seven minutes of speaking time, still makes my adrenaline pumping. Apart from all this, I have been a part of some other ventures and organizations as well in various capacities, like being the Associate Director of Model Governance Foundation at one point. I started Grayscale Legal in my third year, which is a Legal Assistance & Research Service Company aimed at getting law students recognized and placed on the basis of their mettle, rather than their grades. I was recently inducted into the Kairos Society as well.

     

    rohan-mukherjee2Please tell us about your project Grayscale Legal.

    We are a Section 25 private limited that provides legal professionals and laymen with Legal Research and Assistance. Our basic aim is to assign students to professionals on various assignments on a monthly basis or a task wise basis in order to get their work recognized by the concerned client which in turn materializes into further opportunities and job offers.

     

    Where did you get the inspiration for this venture?

    It started as a survival instinct for myself. I knew that just my grades won’t get me ‘placed’ anywhere, but at the same time I also knew that I wasn’t a complete idiot. The only way to make a potential employer know you for your work, for the sheer ability to perform and deliver and to an extent ignore the fact that exams are not your best friend, was to take up assignments from them directly and work in exchange for recognition. Also, law offices do not have legal interns in their office all the time, and being a cloud based company, we get to fill in that gap virtually. Also, with students’ access to campus libraries, online legal databases etc., the research material is vicariously accessible to the clients as well.

     

    What factors do you think makes your project innovative and successful?

    We are far from successful at this juncture. But I would like to think of Grayscale Legal as a way to bridge the gap between campus and offices. Sure, there is nothing innovative about that, but our aim is not to simply dole out research assignments, our aim is to enable law students to generate their own pool of contacts – established professionals who recognize and recommend them for their professionalism. I should also vouch for the selfish interest factor, where a student is assigned to a client, it is up to him/her to undertake full responsibility for these projects and apart from the commission, the prospect of a  job offer, that you have managed to earn yourself is a kick in itself.

     

    Initial investment is a big issue for any start- up, how did you manage that?

    Being a cloud based company, and a non-profit one, I was able to bootstrap the initial expenditure from my father and uncle. I am fortunate that they saw some merit in this idea and were on board. Of course, our expenditure is limited to the website maintenance and incorporation costs.

     

    What challenges arise when you handle law school and entrepreneurship at the same time?

    I don’t really get worked up about on-campus matters, apart from the gnawing fact that I need to graduate next year at all cost. But for me, Grayscale Legal takes complete precedence over everything else. I mean, to be honest, I wouldn’t be where ever I am, giving this interview, I wouldn’t be attending client meetings and speaking to them on a level basis if not for this company. Every week starts off with a full blast of insecurity and every day is a pounding of anxieties when it comes to the future of the company, or daily assignments for that matter. I do tend to micromanage a lot, which was my strategy to prevent anything from getting messed up, but I am gradually training myself to let things go – or to delegate them to other people.

     

    Tell us a bit about Kairos society. What do you have to do being a part of it? How did you become a member?

    The Kairos Fellowship is designed to support individuals working on high-impact ventures. The newly inducted members are immediately entered into a community of likeminded changemakers, and they’re presented with opportunities to connect with industry leaders and influencers through Kairos events and Kairos partners. When their venture is ready for distribution, they’re encouraged to apply for this Kairos 50 venture program. You can also read a bit about it on Kairos Society

    The Kairos Society started with a vision: What if the leaders of today were friends 30 years ago, working together to solve our world’s grandest challenges? Becoming a Kairos fellow is a commitment to impact, and we hope to take full advantage of the opportunities presented to us throughout the year. More importantly, we hope to continue to support each other on the path to creating meaningful ventures, and build relationships that will last a lifetime.

    To become a member you have to be recommended by an existing fellow or apply on your own. The modalities are on their website. This is open for students working on their ventures that might have a global impact.

     

    How supportive are your parents and peers towards this project?

    Well, there is plenty of support from my parents. Rest, I haven’t really thought about. Doesn’t matter anyway. As long as you know what you’re doing, and doing it well and with complete dedication, charging after it like a rhino – Support and good wishes from third parties are just a bonus.

     

    Why are so many aspiring lawyers taking the entrepreneurial plunge?

    No campus placements? Kidding. In my view entrepreneurship and litigation walk hand in hand – the thrill and risk of starting your practice from scratch, making your services worth the client’s money, client retention, growth and expansion of business are all common areas. Of course, we are lucky to be living in this era where the internet apart from making us aware various prospects, has given birth to many ventures as well. Also people have starting to realize that a law degree is a like a passport to a multitude of fields, and is never necessarily bound in a chain. It is brilliant that many are turning to set up their own ventures that have changed the way the legal fraternity interacts with the legal ecosystem. There still has to be a burst in technological innovation in this field – we are still satisfied with an Android app of the Supreme Court listing, where as there are software programs used in other countries, by lawyers, which reduce the time taken for legal research by leaps and bounds. That level of tech-savviness still needs to come in India. Hopefully, our generation will take care of that.

     

    What specific areas of law education helped you in your venture?

    I would have to say Company Law since it is after all an incorporated entity. But frankly, no legal education really prepares you for this. Today I can rattle out the importance and use of DIN (Director Identification Number), the process of preparing and filing the MoA and AoA, the documents used, the property documents to be produced as proof for office space – and no paper prepared me for this, or it could have, but I didn’t pay attention. I mean, the idea that we could possibly register ourselves as a Section 25 company came to me after going through online articles, and then perusing through Section 25 of the Companies Act itself. Which is also interesting because strictly speaking, the provision chalks out organizations whose purposes are ‘educational’, ‘charitable’ or ‘religious’ – but it is followed by ‘or any other useful purpose’. I reckoned that our work is definitely ‘useful’ so I cast my line based purely on calculated guts.

     

    Do you intend to work for this project primarily after your graduation?

    After graduation my priorities will naturally change. I need to build myself as a legal professional first and foremost, and I realize that I will not be able to juggle both with equal dedication and in essence, fail to do justice to both of these arenas. I do intend to shift the management of the Company to another student, and of course, in our line of work it makes perfect sense for the person to be personally motivated to see the company grow and evolve and use it as means to your professional life, and that can only appeal to a student, someone who generally will possess that sense of urgency and insecurity. I will still remain a Director, but will restrict my involvement to the bare minimum.

     

    Did you get any institutional support for internships from your college?

    In my course of four years, I have interned with Sr. Adv. Uday U. Lalit, West Bengal Human Rights Commission, Enviro Legal Defence Firm (ELDF), Sinha & Co., AZB Delhi, AZB Mumbai and  followed by a string of ELDF internships.

    I would say all of them helped shape up my career choice in a great way. Sometimes, only after gaining some experience in a particular office can you be completely assured of your distaste for that work culture or professional life. I remember during my second year, when  was interning with ELDF for the first time, there was a day when the office was almost empty  and our Managing Partner, Sanjay Upadhyay simply asked me to speak to a client who would be coming in a while since he had to leave as well. I mean, it might not seem a big deal, but as a second year student, to be able to interact with a client with no one overseeing your interaction at that point was itself a kick. My subsequent internships with ELDF have been amazing as well – I have also been to our North Eastern office in Guwahati a few months back, and to be involved to this extent at this level, is something very few mentors can successfully do. Of course, you are constantly humbled by the fact when it comes to any field of law, let’s say laws concerning the environment in this case, there is so much to know – and the in-depth knowledge that is required for a person to confidently say, that yeah, I know this subject, takes a lifetime. Or perhaps, more!

     

    How did you apply to Enviro Legal Defence Firm?

    For an internship, you are required to mail the Internship In-Charge Ms. Suparna Jain at suparna@eldfindia.com and that is usually followed by a submission of your CV and a short essay encircling your statement of purpose etc. A student can intern for four weeks or more and if I remember correctly, during my second year, they did say that they take in students from their third year onwards, but I managed to get an exception since we had covered, on paper, Environmental Law as a subject in our second year.

     

    Tell us a bit about the firm, your typical workday and the overall work/life balance.

    ELDF is an independent team of erudite legal professionals, which provides services to anyone who approaches us, including Governments, Non-Government Organizations, Educational Institutions, Individuals, Private and External Agencies engaged in areas of environment and development law. We have been a part of numerous international forums and have helped in policy building in many nations. Our firm is divided into two teams – Consultancy and Litigation. There are various regional offices present in cities like Pune, Guwahati, Ernakulam and Ranchi.

    My typical work day is like any other associate at the firm. Since, I work with the litigation team, if a matter I am involved in is listed in the NGT or Supreme Court, I have to be  there for the hearing. If not, the work on the cases/projects assigned which ranges from research, drafting, client meetings, further information gathering and strategy building takes up time. The question of work/life balance is a difficult one, of course.

    I am one of those who believe that if you are passionate about your work, it is difficult to switch your ‘professional life’ off after 9 PM or maintain some form of clock for the same. I won’t say that there is an extreme pressure, but it certainly depends on an individual’s priorities. Even as an intern you are credited at par with associates, and made answerable for any screw-ups as well. Office hours would be from 10 AM to 6 PM, but as in any law office, you are expected to put in extra hours if the work demands so.

     

    What do you think interns should accomplish in the course of their internship to get a callback?

    (Rohan has secured a PPO with ELDF.)

    You have to market your strengths in any work environment. And it’s not like you have to prowl around for any work offer that may come your way, if you are genuinely interested in a particular field and feel that a particular law office shall provide you with the perfect exposure in the same, go for it.

    After a few conversations with Sanjay Sir, I had made some form of positive impression on him. Hes has also been a guide when I was setting up Grayscale Legal and was instrumental in providing his feedback on the same. It is very difficult to pin-point exactly ‘how it happened’ because it happened very naturally which is how it should be. And naturally, my work with Grayscale Legal certainly played a role in backing this up as well.

     

    Was there any interview process?

    There wasn’t any formal interview as such for this. There might be one after graduation though.

     

    Where do you see yourself five years from now?

    The initial 5 years will be difficult, and frankly, I look forward to the nudging and pushing required now. Five years is also a make-it-or-break-it period for myself; the time required to be well versed with the laws and procedures; to have substantial visibility in courts and do my work well. For me, nothing takes priority over a client’s interest – one might get into long ethical debates on the same, but let’s save that for later. For a start, apart from my legal career, I’d love to open up a quaint, warm pub, I’d like to pursue my music as well – so five years down the line, I hope I am happy with where ever I am. Or perhaps not. Being dissatisfied has worked out well for me so far.

     

    What would be your message to law students who want to start-up?

    Go for it. Trust me, you will not get a better time to fall, fail and learn again.

     

  • Debadyuti Banerjee, Assistant Manager, Lexplosion, on studying abroad, and her editorial experience

    Debadyuti Banerjee, Assistant Manager, Lexplosion, on studying abroad, and her editorial experience

    debadyuti-banerjee1Debadyuti Banerjee graduated at the top of her class from WBNUJS, Kolkata, in 2011. Thereafter she went to King’s College, London for an LL.M. in International Commercial and Business Laws. She has been in the editorial board of both NUJS and KCL’s Law Review. Presently, she is working as an Assistant Manager at Lexplosion, Kolkata.

    In this interview we ask her about:

    • Studying in King’s College
    • Insight into the International Commercial and Business Laws Course
    • Experience as a member of Editorial Board of NUJS and KCL Law Review.
    • Work at Lexplosion and internship requirements

     

    How would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?

    I am a lawyer by profession, and I’d like to clarify at the very outset that I did not gravitate towards Law but, in fact, chose it after careful consideration. I decided right after ICSE that pursuing law was the way forward for me. Till then I had been toying with two very different subjects—engineering in Computer Science or English literature. And then, I landed on the perfect combination—law!

    Awareness of the presence of conflicts in every sphere, from personal to political and the tiff between theory and implementation—how sometimes something in theory looks good but may actually be different in reality—made me keen on pursuing law as a career. It might be pertinent to mention that I do come from a family which has a long history (and hopefully future) of lawyers and judges and it’s always been a part of who I am.

    I made the switch from Science to Humanities for ISC and started preparing for the National Admission Test for admission to NUJS. I cannot begin to emphasize how helpful subjects like Economics, Sociology and Political Science at the school level were to build a solid base for the first couple of years in a LL.B course.

     

    Did you have an opportunity to study the subjects you chose to specialize in your LL.M?

    My specialization was in International Commercial and Business Laws from Kings College London (KCL/Kings). Other than World Trade Law, which was taught on the bare minimum terms in NUJS, I did not really get an opportunity to study the subjects that I chose in my LL.M. Lectures in World Trade Law were delivered by Federico Ortino and Piet Eeckhout, who are subject matter experts in the EU and thorough in research in this area as well. I must make a special mention of the subjects lectured by Mihael Jeklic (who has also been associated with Harvard Law School in the past)—Legal Negotiation and Analytical and Quantitative Methods for Lawyers (AQM).

    Mihael is a very cordial teacher and his classes were an absolute pleasure to attend. He adopted an extremely casual attitude inside the class, going as far as to encourage us to eat our breakfast in our early morning class! Legal negotiation involved us to engage in real life negotiation situations, sometimes in class and at other times of our convenience. These exercises consisted of real life scenarios, requiring participants to come up with well thought out BATNAs, be aware of the Zone of Possible Agreement (ZOPA) and learning on the job to exert soft skills to achieve the closest best result each person had in his/her mind. Closely related to this was AQM, where things became more interesting. These lectures weren’t lectures at all, in that it was completely a discussion.

    We got to read and talk about interesting topics like decision analysis, game theory, behavior of markets especially its irrationality, bubbles and their growth trajectory and a fair bit of accounting. The skills learnt in these courses go quite far to teach one to evaluate real life scenarios from all angles on a rational basis and would find application in litigation as well as a corporate scenario. A thing to note here was that I was the only Indian national in my batch to take both these courses. Legal negotiation was a bit more popular among my Indian counterparts as it was a half module, while AQM was a heavier subject which involved deep diving.

    For example: We were expected to take part in an exercise on Marketwatch which provided valuable insights into the mechanics of trading and provided several discussions surrounding efficient markets theory and behavioral finance. For those interested to read up on this further, I would suggest “Freakonomics” to be a good starting place. I would also recommend reading of “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” for its stellar theory on the efficient market hypothesis and Warren Buffet’s rebuttal of it.

    These are very interesting eye-opening subjects. Apologies if I rambled there. I also took International Commercial Arbitration on which I chose to submit my primary research paper. This comprised a much larger group, both international and Indian, the lectures themselves were more of a formal structured style and there were periodic (about fortnightly) written assignments to complete. Lectures were delivered by Toby Landau, Salim Moollan, Ricky Diwan, Sam Wordsworth, Maria Duval, among others.

     

    How did you go about choosing which college to go to for your LL.M?

    Having pursued an integrated B.A.LL.B (Hons) programme at the UG level from a prestigious law school in India, pursuing a Master of Laws seemed to be the next step for me especially since I have always been academically predisposed. I was sure that I wanted to go to the United Kingdom for my postgraduate studies. I had applied to Kings College London, Queen Mary University of London, University of Durham, University of Kent and University of Nottingham based on my course preference. I was accepted to all these Universities and was offered scholarships at KCL and Kent. I accepted KCL because of several reasons—location (both in UK and in London), faculty, ratings (consistently ranked in the world top 20 for law), history and background, employability ratings and the most important, the Kings International Graduate Scholarship that I was offered. There were only two scholarships given out that year and I was thrilled to have been offered one. Finances were always the most important consideration in my mind. (I’ll talk about it in some detail later.) KCL is international in its composition and outlook, with a wide array of organisations and societies made available for students, and this offered me a superbly rich study environment. It is located in the heart of London, and by that I mean, I could see the London Eye every day, the law department is housed in the historic Somerset House—it doesn’t get much better than that!

     

    You have worked on the board of the NUJS & the Kings Student Law Review. How has that experience been for you?

    That’s a very good question. Both experiences were fantastic albeit in very different ways. I worked as a Senior Associate of the NUJS Law Review and it was a great learning experience to make the transition from merely writing and onto mentoring, reviewing and finishing articles within a given time period. There was some editorial work involved, but not much, it was more about writing articles. Kings Student Law Review (KSLR) was a different ball game altogether. As a member of the Editorial Board there was a good amount of reviewing and decision making in the selection process involved. Since I was also heading the copy editing team (which is somewhat rare for a LL.M student as the other guys heading teams were PhD students), I think my previous Law Review work experience held me in good stead there. The painful bit of citing articles as a writer was of great help when I was doing the editing especially as OSCOLA was the norm and it was new to me. It was amazing that I had the independence to choose my own subordinate team members. Having been a Law Review member certainly did add to my resume when I was tailoring it for the LL.M application.

     

    How did your interning experience boost your LL.M. application?

    (Debadyuti has interned at Khaitan, Amarchand & Fox & Mandal in addition to interning with advocates and Supreme Court judges.)

    A well rounded CV is always helpful and I think that a variety of internships at leading law firms or advocates or even Supreme Court clerkship showed willingness to learn different skills and thriving under pressure. I believe that this unique blend of experiences also gave me an unique point of view in life and that was super helpful while writing the Case for Support applications for scholarships. Each of these internships imparted new skills and a view into how these organisations work so I would say cumulatively they all helped in grooming my legal skill set.

     

    debadyuti-banerjee3

    How difficult was studying abroad in terms of finding accommodation, finances and settling in?

    Personally I faced a lot of trouble with finding accommodation in London, but mine was a one off thing. There was a certain amount of time during which I was staying with kind strangers and then flat-sharing with a friend. I was finally offered a place in Kings College Hall (There are separate applications for accommodations as well—the various application processes are mind boggling!). It was a beautiful old Victorian building with a park and a thriving international body of students which made my life incredibly interesting! I got the opportunity of interacting with a wide milieu of students (both UG and PG) cutting across continents and cultures. I would definitely recommend living in student halls for the experience it offers. One needs to be careful of finances and carefully plan the expenditure from beforehand, otherwise it’s easy to go overboard since London is an expensive city. However, there are several concessions available to students like the Oyster card and discounts at departmental stores. I was extremely thankful to have been offered a scholarship award as I was very clear that I would not be pursuing my masters without one. There are several attractive scholarships available at KCL especially full scholarships now that it has received extremely generous donations from its alumni.

     

    How was the faculty and academic schedule at KCL?

    I spoke in detail about the faculty and the subjects before so I won’t repeat myself. A typical day would be early morning classes, hanging out with my fellow LL.M mates in the canteen discussing any topic under the sun, afternoon classes (if any), going to the library to study/pick up books, going back for late evening classes (some were scheduled at 7 pm so that active members of the Bar could come down to lecture), travelling for an hour to go back to hostel (Travelling is a big part of living in London!), reading up for future lectures and/or assignments. Readings were given beforehand and one was expected to have read most (if not all) the articles or pieces of work on the list. If you are not reading and not updated, it is very difficult to keep up with the lectures and engage in a meaningful discussion with the class. It will be waste of time if you’re not engaged in the classroom discussions is what I think. There were regular assignments and written essays which needed to be handed in on specified dates, so it was an intense course and pretty busy.

     

    Was there time enough for non academic pursuits at KCL?

    You need to find time for non-academic pursuits. There’s no work without play! In London there’s always something or the other happening—be it wine tasting sessions, guided tours, and the like. I found the study-life balance to be easy to handle and anyone who is good at time management would enjoy their time in KCL and London. There is an education happening inside the classroom and there is an education that London as a city has to offer. It feels extremely rewarding to have gotten a taste of both.

     

    How in your opinion is the LL.M experience abroad different from that in India?

    Not having pursued a LL.M from India, comparing an undergraduate course in India to a postgraduate course in the UK might be a little unfair so I would not like to venture there. However, I would like to emphasize on the world view it imparted and the variety of specialized skills I picked up in my LL.M.

    Again, I cannot really comment on the decision of my batch-mates. Personally speaking, it was never about the job prospects. I was placed as a part of the CRC process with a law firm in Mumbai which I declined to go abroad for my higher studies. I have always been keenly interested in legal writing / research and that’s what led to the LL.M.

     

    There is a school of thought that labels LL.Ms as being little more than an expensive holiday unless the individual concerned wishes to enter the world of academia/research? Your thoughts?

    I am yet to come across a person who has gone on this “holiday” terming it as one! It is expensive and I would not dream of having gone on a fully self-funded LL.M without a scholarship. So the “expensive” bit is definitely true. I rate the LL.M to be an educative experience beyond par—both inside and outside of the classroom. Whether one practices, joins the corporate world or is into research is a purely personal preference, but I am sure reading for an LL.M helps in that journey. In my experience, employers also give a fair amount of weightage to an education abroad.

     

    Tell us a bit about Lexplosion. What is an ordinary work day like?

    Lexplosion is a new age company which is blending law with technology to solve clients’ pain points. Its tagline is to “Innovate Legally” and its main product offering is a cloud-based software which offers regulatory and legal compliance management. Other than that, it also provides a plethora of services which includes a fair bit of work that a typical law firm does, like legal research on specific client queries, contract drafting, due diligence and the like. Lexplosion was set up by a group of ex AMSS, GE, Seth Dua alumni. It’s a young place with the average age being around 30. There is no ordinary work day as such; each day brings with it a set of challenging activities my way.

     

    Can you tell us something about mentoring interns at Lexplosion.

    I am happy with the law students that I have had the chance to interact with during my stint as a mentor here. Most are bright, enthusiastic and make me optimistic about the new gen lawyers. I wish to emphasize writing skills which is frequently missed out on. It’s important as a lawyer to have impeccable research and writing skills. And by that I mean looking at primary sources, citing everything properly and deep diving into issues to address multifarious angles. You don’t need to write using a lot of meaningless words strung together. Writing in simple formal English which shows depth of thought is how one should start.

    Regarding internship applications…a well written cover letter and a proper CV with no grammatical/spelling mistakes are a MUST and automatically points towards a person being organized and diligent. Random applications with multiple addressees are not welcome. And that does not mean putting everybody in the bcc either. There is also a telephonic interview as part of the selection process here and that is very helpful to both parties involved for determining suitability.

     

    Given a chance to turn back the clock would you have done anything differently from what you’ve done?

    Not second guess a lot of things!

     

    What would be your suggestion to law students who plans to go for higher studies?

    Do your research on the courses, faculty, living costs et al., do not blindly follow rankings and go to a University which would suit you the best. Apply well in advance of the respective deadlines for application to the selected course, scholarships and accommodation, and put in a fair bit of thought to each application. Honesty shines. I had made a controversial quote in my SOP for the KCL scholarship and had a lengthy discussion about it with my mentors at the KCL scholarship ceremony. Important takeaway for me was that people will remember you for who you are and what you stand for.

     

  • Aarushi Mishra, Associate, Wadia Ghandy, on being a first generation lawyer, her mooting experience, and plans for the future

    Aarushi Mishra, Associate, Wadia Ghandy, on being a first generation lawyer, her mooting experience, and plans for the future

    Aarushi Mishra is a graduate from RMLNLU, Lucknow, batch of 2014. She is currently working as an Associate at Wadia Ghandy & Co.

    In this interview, we speak to her about:

    • Interning with Wadia Ghady and getting a call back
    • Being a first generation lawyer
    • Her mooting experience

    Why did you decide to study Law?

    Honestly speaking, the first time I decided of becoming a lawyer was when in my eighth standard I read The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare and got inspired by the character of Portia in it and wished to be a lawyer like her.

    I believe that a good lawyer can truly bring about a change in the society and this belief has always motivated me to learn the subject.

     

    Do you have any lawyers in your family?

    No, I am a first generation lawyer. However, I do believe that if one has a family member with a legal background, it is quite helpful in terms of making the right choices because guidance can make a huge difference.

    I think being a first generation lawyer, I had to struggle slightly more than a few of my peers with a legal background. But I was very fortunate to be guided by seniors in my law school and even from other law schools who helped me take decisions about my career.

     

    What are the extracurricular activities you took part at RMLNLU?

    Well, I made sure I was a part of every academic or non academic activity in my college because I feel that it is very important for a law student to expose himself to every challenge that comes his way.

     

    You have taken part in a lot of Moot Court Competitions in college, can you share a few mooting experiences?

    Moot Courts are extremely important in a law student’s life, not only because it adds those extra brownie points to your CV but more importantly because it gives you that experience of working on a case as an advocate and use your intellect to the best of your abilities. Moot Courts are a great way to learn the subject inside out.

    I have participated in the Nani Palkhiwala Moot Court Competition, which is based on the law of taxation and the Leiden Sarin International Air Law Moot Court Competition which as the name suggests, is based on international air law. I got the opportunity of being a speaker in both the competitions and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

     

    Do you think mooting is beneficial for Law students or is it just to make your CV look fancy?

    I don’t think mooting should be taken as an exercise to make your CV look fancy because then one can never enjoy the experience of mooting. It is not about winning a gold in the moot court competition but it is about what you learn from that moot and how that will help you understand the subject better. I did not always win my moot court competitions but every moot court that I have been a part of has enriched my knowledge about that subject to a great extent. Moreover, I believe mooting is one of the best ways to build your confidence and sharpen your articulation skills which is very important for a lawyer. Hence, every law student must participate in moot court competitions without the fear of losing!

     

    What are the law firms at which you interned?

    I have interned at Saikrishna & Associates, Noida; Oasis Advisory, Mumbai; Amarchand Mangaldas, Mumbai and Wadia Ghandy & Co., Mumbai.

    I think each of these internships has been very enriching in terms of experience. My internship at Wadia Ghandy & Co. was the most fulfilling. The Associates and even the Partners at Wadia Ghandy & Co. were very encouraging and approachable which helped me understand the work better and enjoy it.

     

    What was the procedure you followed to apply to these law firms?

    I mostly sent e-mails on my own. The Placement Committee of my college helped me secure a few internships.

     

    What was the kind of work was allotted to you during your internships?

    During the first three years of my law school I was usually given research work pertaining to matters. However, eventually in my fourth and fifth year internships, I also got an opportunity to draft letters of intent, opinions on issues, writ petitions etc.

     

    How many times did you intern with Wadia Ghandy to get a PPO?

    I have interned at Wadia Ghandy & Co. twice, in my fourth and fifth year respectively under two different teams.

    As I had mentioned before, my internship at Wadia Ghandy was very successful in terms of experience and work. It was quite different from my other internships because I found great mentors in the Associates and Partners of Wadia Ghandy with whom I worked. Since the work environment there was very encouraging it was easier for me to interact with the seniors and seek their guidance which improved the quality of work I did.

     

    What do you think an intern should accomplish during an internship in order to get a call back?

    I think it is very important for an intern to show his enthusiasm and inclination towards the subject because unless you really show your interest in the subject, nobody would take you or your work seriously. Obviously only showing interest is not sufficient but the work assigned should be done with utmost sincerity.

     

    Did you learn any skills while interning?

    I certainly acquired skills significant for my professional life during my internships, like multitasking, communicating with the clients, and most importantly use of all possible applications of MS Word which I was completely unaware of otherwise!

     

    How do you think one should go about writing a CV when one is applying for a job?

    I would suggest the clichéd old rule –keep it short and simple!

     

    How did you go about preparing for your interview?

    I focused on the work I had done during my previous internships which I had mentioned in my CV.  Apart from that revising the basics in all core law subjects helped.

     

    Do the law firms usually provide the candidates with an option to work with the teams of their choice while recruiting?

    Yes, most of them do.

     

    How important are grades in order to secure internships?

    Not really! It is more about the kind of work you show during your internships. However, of course a high GPA is a strong catalyst in securing that job once you’ve proved your mettle to your team while interning.

     

    Your advice to the law students, who aspire to secure a job at top law firms?

    My advice to all those aspiring to get a job at a top tier firm would be: make sure you know your subjects. I think it is very important for an intern who is a job aspirant to put across his intentions very clearly to his team because unless they know what you’re there for, they would never automatically make an offer or even notice your hard work. So, just work hard and never hesitate to approach your seniors for help and guidance!

  • Arjun Natarajan, Advocate, JSA, on independent practice, being a first generation lawyer, and commercial law

    Arjun Natarajan, Advocate, JSA, on independent practice, being a first generation lawyer, and commercial law

    Arjun Natarajan graduated from V. M. Salgaocar College of Law, Panaji, in 2009. During his time as an undergraduate, he has interned at the Chambers of Advocate S. Sheroan, Human Rights Law Network, New Delhi, O.P.Khaitan & C0., Christian Medical College, Vellore (C.M.C., Vellore) – Legal Department, Chambers of Sr. Advocate Mr. K.K. Venugopal, New Delhi, and Karanjawala & Co., New Delhi. 

    After graduation he moved into litigation practice at Singh & Singh. Later, he started his independent practice focusing on cable and broadcasting disputes at the Hon’ble TDSAT. He recently joined JSA in their Regulatory and Policy group with focus on Communications i.e., Telecom & Broadcasting.

    In this interview he talks to us about:

    • Taking up litigation early after graduation
    • Setting up independent practice with the Hon’ble TDSAT
    • Joining JSA’s Communications practice

     

    Tell us a bit about your childhood and life before college.

    I spent my childhood in Calcutta and in Pilani. After passing the tenth standard in 2002, I did what everyone used to do in Pilani back then i.e., go for physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology and a sixth subject called physical education (English being compulsory).

    Throughout school I was clueless as to what I should pursue. Yes, I wanted to become a traveler but back then I suffered from motion sickness and I gave up that career plan too! Many people say such things about themselves perhaps out of humility but I am being honest. That answers the first part of the question. Now coming to the second part of the question; I have an aunt who is the principal of a law college in Mumbai. I must add that I feel happy about the fact that I am from a family of teachers.

     

    What motivated you to choose law as a career?

    I do not think that there is a lot of resistance towards legal education here. Let me give you an example: when I joined Law College in 2004, my decision was looked down upon by many people from varying backgrounds.

    In 2012, when my sister joined law college, the same people were appreciative of her as well as her decision. Either fortunately the times seem to be changing or unfortunately legal education suffers a reputation attack when urchins like me go for it! I joined Law College. (I won’t say ‘I chose law as a career’ after finishing the twelfth standard because I failed in mathematics. Thankfully, I had a subject called physical education which was accounted in place of mathematics).

    Within less than a week of joining V.M. Salgaocar College of Law, it struck me that I have been mighty lucky despite the debacle in the twelfth standard. All my schoolmates who had suffered the same fate as that of mine in the twelfth standard were unhappily stuck in school struggling with subjects like mathematics.

    I made up my mind to be fair to my luck and try to not let it down. There was no motivation to choose law as a career. Even now I try to pay gratitude to that one stroke of luck and in that process many strokes of luck happened to me in the form of very good mentors, moot courts, internships, jobs, briefs and a lot more.

     

    What are your thoughts on activities like mooting and article writing for journals?

    Your question demonstrates an unfortunate trend i.e., mooting and writing articles are flourishing on the cadavers of skill building exercises like client counselling, negotiation, MUN, et cetera. My thoughts are that such activities are massive contributors in shaping a law student. Such activities (when approached with the right frame of mind) develop an appetite for work in law students. Once an appetite for work is developed, a law student can learn any subject and master any skill.

    One more thought that I would like share is that students who are into mooting are often seen as great orators. Oratory is just the icing on the cake and I believe that it comes naturally when a person is prepared (consciously or sub-consciously but nevertheless “really prepared” and not merely “notionally prepared”.)

    I firmly believe that such exercises enable a law student to think and do things which are far beyond what even the most revolutionary of all curricula would normally permit him to think and do.

    Let us take the example of mooting. The soul of a moot court problem is the ‘fact-sheet’. When this exercise is done repeatedly over a period of time; then it prepares a law student to meticulously work on files which are far more voluminous. A law student should approach moot courts keeping in mind that it is a rigorous exercise. Such an approach would give him a world of opportunities in terms of learning. It should not be seen as some talk show where he can speak.

     

    Tell us about your internships.

    I received immense institutional support for internships. Back then, going outside Goa for an internship was not a very common thing and interning in Delhi was seen as something as strange as touring Jaisalmer in June or touring Spiti in December!

    Slowly more students from my college (especially students without lawyers in their families) started coming to Delhi for internships. The college encouraged students to go beyond Goa and Mumbai for internships. I did some of my internships when the classes were proceeding in full swing. My college excused attendance lapses on my part by prescribing a host of assignments that I had to do with the semester exams and at times the practical papers and semester exams round the corner! Nevertheless, it helped me to hone my multitasking skills! (I tried to write with both my hands, but my mind gave up as much as my left hand showed signs of coping up!)

    After completing my first year as well as my second year, I interned with Advocate Shalini Sheoran at Jaipur. During both the internships I got to work on several civil and criminal matters on the original side in addition to perusing documents and preparing legal notices. During the internship it struck me that moot courts have enabled me to read documents (correspondences, legal notices, pleadings, affidavits, cross-examination of witnesses et cetera) in a particular fashion.

    I realized that I stumble upon some new detail each time I read a document and I took it upon myself to reduce the number of times that I would have to read a document in order to not come across any new details. That exercise continues to this day. The documents have become more voluminous and their content has become more complex but nevertheless I enjoy reading them.

    After completing my third year, I interned with HRLN in Delhi where I got to work on several bail matters for juveniles in conflict with law as well as on some service matters. During this internship I realized that litigation is physically demanding too because it requires a person to keep himself sharp between his ears even when he is physically drained out.

    One of the ways to cope up with such situations is to love what you do and to be at peace with yourself.  It continues to shape up my career and hence it was a remarkable internship experience.

    While I was in my fourth year, I interned with O.P. Khaitan & Co. During the course of the said internship I got to do a fair amount of commercial law related work. I was always given to understand that working with a law firm and litigating are two different things because “law firms do not do litigation.”

    During the course of this internship I realized that law firms definitely do litigation insofar as drafting pleadings and briefing counsels who are engaged to argue. I also realized that what law firms generally do not do is arguing cases at the stage of grant/resistance to grant/vacation/resistance to vacation of interim relief/s, final hearing and on such other occasions when it is likely that a significant order would be passed by the Bench.

    I also realized that law firms generally do not argue cases at stages illustrated above because of  many factors like the stakes involved in the dispute, the client’s choice that the Bench should be assisted by a Senior Advocate and the like. I realized that law firms might not be arguing cases but they inevitably play a stellar role in analyzing facts and law and in strategizing the cases keeping in mind the best interests of the client.

    This internship enabled me to realize that I can very well litigate being a part of a law firm.

    After my fourth year I worked with the legal department of Christian Medical College, Vellore which is a multispecialty hospital. This internship enabled me to observe as to how the legal department of a large organization functions.

    During my previous internship I had seen officials from legal departments of client entities coming to consult lawyers at the firm. During this internship, I was a part of the legal department of a client entity which would go and consult lawyers. The previous internship and this internship enabled me to closely observe numerous perspectives and approaches.

    During my fifth year, I interned with Mr. K.K. Venugopal, Senior Advocate. During the course of this internship, I witnessed his approach to fine aspects of law. I also witnessed briefing counsels from the best of firms briefing him. This internship gave me numerous opportunities to attend proceedings in Hon’ble Supreme Court and to observe Senior Advocates advance submissions on various aspects of law. I developed the skill to take notes on submissions being made and that skill comes handy to this day.

    My last internship was with Karanjawala & Co. This internship also convinced me that law firms do litigate and it is utterly wrong to say that “law firms do not do litigation”. During the course of this internship I worked on some commercial law matters.

     

    How well do you think your education at law college prepared you for real world practice of law?

    Immensely in terms of temperament and skills. In order to answer the second part, I would have to go through the curricula of each law college! But yes, a general observation that I would like to make is that interpretation of statutes needs to be taught before any statute is taught.

     

    Do you think being from a non-NLU impeded your career in any way?

    NLU students are considered to be better than the rest by some. As a former MLU student (Mofussil Law University student) I would like to add the word “only” after the word “some”.

    Some NLU students too have told me something very interesting i.e., NLU students “being considered better than the rest” is like a presumption that is in favour of constitutionality of a statute. Once, the presumption is rebutted; an NLU student is open to be struck down just like any MLU student.

    Being from a non-NLU did not impede my career in any way. I personally do not like fully residential institutions packed into a campus. I would have felt so suffocated that I would have never felt like making use of any of the best of facilities and infrastructure offered by NLUs.

     

    How important are grades for securing a job?

    I have been told by some law students that only if they have a particular CGPA, they can sit for interviews. If it is true, then maintaining a very high CGPA is very important to secure a job (if securing a job which requires a very high CGPA is a top priority).

    One can question everything and die a martyr’s death. But it is better to accept some things which won’t really harm you (maintaining a very high CGPA does not harm you, it would require you to study more but that does not harm you either) and in return you might end up fulfilling your top priority!

     

    What factors contributed to your decision to take up litigation as a career choice?

    When I joined Law College, I made up my mind to do an LL.M. after graduating and thereafter to become a teacher. Towards the end of the first semester; I realized that most litigating lawyers teach much better than some teachers.

    I asked myself as to whether “I want to become a teacher or do I want to teach?” Bang came into my head like a bullet the difference between “becoming” and “doing”. It is better to aspire to “do something” than to aspire to “become something”. For what is it worth if someone becomes something without doing? By doing, he may or may not become, but then after all he is doing!

    The initial motivation to take up litigation as a career choice was to be in a position to teach. Once I took up litigation as a career choice, I lost sight of the motivation to take it up i.e., to teach. However, after getting into private practice in 2012; I started teaching at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

     

    You began your career in litigation with TDSAT. What was the rationale behind this choice?

    I began my career in litigation with Hon’ble TDSAT. I began with original side civil litigation. As long as original side civil litigation is the starting point of a career in law (not just in litigation); I believe that it is good.

    By the time I entered the final year; it was very clear in my mind that I want to begin my professional practice with original side civil litigation. At Singh & Singh I got the opportunity to work on at least 5 original side cases daily. Normally there would be at least two matters in which issues would be framed, at least one matter at the stage of evidence, at least one fresh matter in which usually interim relief/s would have to be pressed for/resisted and at least one matter which would be for final hearing. Besides that there would be numerous pleadings to be drafted before and/or after court.

    I do not know the rationale behind the choice to start litigation with TDSAT but it worked very well for me. My basic aspiration to start with original side civil litigation was fulfilled beyond my expectations.

     

    Do you feel that young lawyers should begin their career with regulatory litigation rather than starting at a district court or the High Court?

    Usually district courts and High Courts (if they have original jurisdiction) are suggested in order to ensure that young lawyers begin their career with original side litigation. Regulatory litigation in some tribunals does offer good exposure to original side civil litigation.

    As long as a fresher focuses on original side civil litigation and gets to work for more than 12 hours a day; day after day and week after week (weekends included) – any professional decision that he would make after a year or a year and a half would be in his best interest.

     

    What do you have to say about the general perception that work at law firms is the first choice of most law students and litigation is not high on their list of career choices?

    Any and every law graduate is more than 18 years of age. Law permits him to vote and to decide the nation’s destiny! Of course they are old enough to have perceptions based on various factors. What can I say about perceptions of others which are a product of their likes, dislikes, awareness, ignorance, competencies and compulsions.

     

    What were the biggest challenges and opportunities you encountered during your time at Singh & Singh?

    I am fortunate to have commenced professional litigation at Singh & Singh under the guidance of Prathiba Ma’am. Within hours of my enrolment (back then there was no bar exam), I started entering appearances before the Hon’ble TDSAT.

    I had ample client contact opportunities, numerous opportunities to draft original side pleadings, conduct cross-examinations and advance arguments. I got to represent a broadcaster, a multi system operator, a DTH operator and a telecom service provider.

    I also worked on some appeals in the Hon’ble TDSAT. The challenges, opportunities and most importantly the guidance has tremendously helped me to strive hard and to do my best.

     

    How was your experience at Fox Mandal?

    (Arjun spearheaded Fox Mandal’s broadcasting litigation practice for a year or so.)

    I had a phenomenal experience at Fox Mandal. I joined Fox Mandal when I was a year and a half old into the profession. At that stage in my career, I had the opportunity to handle every aspect of broadcasting disputes on behalf of a leading content aggregator before the Hon’ble TDSAT. I had the good fortune of resisting interim reliefs being sought for against the said content aggregator on a daily basis as well as advancing arguments at the stage of final hearing in several matters. Additionally, I had numerous opportunities to brief counsels for the purpose of cross-examination of witnesses. Such exercises enabled me to observe and learn the skill of cross-examination. My stint at Fox Mandal enabled me to carve a niche for myself as a regular practitioner before Hon’ble TDSAT.

    Coming to the second part of your question, liberty is something that is earned after finishing your work on a given day. Liberty is not something that is to be taken. Finishing your work on a given day can either be in an independent practice or in an institutional practice. The difference would be to the extent that in an institutional practice if you do not finish your work on a given day, then you disappoint your colleagues/seniors and then your clients whereas in an independent practice you straight away disappoint your client.

     

    How does it feel to have a landmark judgment to your credit?

    (Recently the Hon’ble TDSAT had passed a landmark judgment granting TV signals to a DAS licensee for the first time, and Arjun was the counsel for the DAS licensee.)

    The judgment was passed in a batch of 6 petitions filed by the DAS licensee against 6 different broadcasters. All the petitions involved very interesting questions of law as regards interpretation of an MIB Notification and the DAS license. These cases were a lot more complex than some other cases that I had worked on as a private practitioner and therefore they were extremely interesting.

    During my private practice, I was advising the DAS licensee. My association with the DAS licensee goes back to November 2012 when it had to address correspondences to broadcasters as well as respond to their correspondences. When I started with the correspondences, I had to obviously interpret DAS Regulations. However, other than the Regulations, the Explanatory Memorandum, allied statutes and Notifications, there were neither any commentaries nor any judgments on DAS Regulations that I could consult. The process of reading all the aforesaid instruments in a way that nothing becomes otiose, nothing begets absurdity and at the same time the interests of the DAS licensee are safeguarded in the best possible manner was an extremely challenging exercise.

    The petitions were filed in February 2013. The matters were finally argued in February 2014 after cross-examination of 4 witnesses from 4 broadcasters and the judgments were pronounced in April 2014. For final arguments I had briefed Advocate Mr. Jayant Mehta. His insights as to the manner in which the cases were strategized and the trials were conducted were a major source of encouragement for me.

    It can change your clientele and your identification with such a clientele very drastically. Often it stereotypes a lawyer with that one category of cases due to a large number of clients of that one category.
    After the petitions were filed for this DAS licensee in February 2013; there were a large number of DAS licensees who started consulting me as regards addressing correspondences and as regards handling day to day legal and regulatory issues.

     

    You have recently joined the Communication Law & Regulatory Practice at JSA after years of independent practice. How does this change the nature of your work or a typical work day?

    My response to the first part of the question is that a drastic change in the nature of my work happened immediately upon joining JSA. Basically, at JSA I am working on issues which are far more complex than the issues which I usually worked on as a private practitioner.

    Firstly, from cable and broadcasting law (which was my prime area of focus as a private practitioner), I have moved on to telecommunication law – an area which interested me ever since I joined the profession in 2009.

    Secondly, I am getting opportunities to work on administrative law – an area which interested me ever since I joined Law College in 2004.

    Thirdly, my exposure to complex commercial litigation has increased by many times as compared to my exposure to the said area as a private practitioner.

    A typical work day is still the same. I work as much as I used to work before.

    As regards the second part of the question, I would like to say that just because a person executes a successful sprint; it does not mean that he cannot go back to prepare and participate in a cross-country race; especially when he gets an opportunity to be trained by the best of coaches.

     

    Many law firm associates say that climbing the corporate ladder from inside a law firm is far more difficult than having your own practice and excelling. What would be your take on this?

    In my limited experience, I have seen that some people excel wherever they are.

    Firstly, such people will never say anything of that sort. Secondly, such people have three common traits.

    • They stay true to their spirit,
    • they continuously and consistently keep working very hard and
    • they do not know that there is something called an “excuse”.

    If either “climbing the corporate ladder inside a law firm” or “having one’s own practice and excelling” is a matter of priority for a person; then difficulties (real or perceived) or their degrees are trivial. The difficulty level of a road cannot be a deterrent for a man who really wants to travel on it.

     

    What skills would you say is a sine qua non for an intern who wants to excel at work?

    1. Common sense and
    2. An appetite for work.
    3. An understanding that 1 and 2 are ways and means to learn various skills.

     

     

    Disclaimer: All views are personal and do not in any way reflect the opinions/beliefs/views of the organisation/s the interviewee is associated with.
  • Roli Sharma, Associate, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, on getting a PPO, her internship experience, and the importance of mooting

    Roli Sharma, Associate, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, on getting a PPO, her internship experience, and the importance of mooting

    Roli Sharma is a graduate from RMLNLU, Lucknow, batch of 2014. She is currently working as an associate at Amarchand, Mangaldas & Suresh Shroff & Co.

    In this interview she talks about:

    • The importance of mooting
    • Her internship experience
    • Getting a PPO from AMSS

     

    Why did you decide to study Law?

    To be completely honest I was a science student and did not know what to pursue after the 12th std. In my state of utter confusion I resorted to career counseling where law was presented to me as a viable option. However, when I started preparing for the various law school entrance exams, the sheer logical analysis that was an essential part of the study of law had me hooked. I realized that there was nothing else I’d much rather study.

     

    Do you have any lawyers in your family?

    No, I am a first generation lawyer. However, I do agree that being guided by people in your own family always gives one an upper hand in terms of taking the right decisions with respect to internships and other career decisions post law school. But having said that, this is not something that cannot be overcome with the right guidance from seniors and other mentors, it essentially just boils down to putting in a little more effort on your own to ask other people for help when required. For example, I will always be thankful to seniors from my own college and also other colleges who guided me and helped me throughout law school.

     

    What are the extracurricular activities you took part at RMLNLU?

    While I was at law school I participated in moots, debates and various other literary events and even though I wasn’t exactly a classic example of a perfect athlete, I was also a part of the college basketball team.

     

    Can you tell us something about your mooting experience?

    I think the most exciting thing about the moots that I have done was the opportunity to argue issues of pressing international importance before people who are experts in that field, whether it be Price Media Law, Man Lachs, Stetson or Jessup, the common thread linking them all is that the problem generally concerns a certain issue of pressing international importance and to have industry experts question you on those issues and then finally convincing them on your point of view and having them appreciate the effort you have put in is a feeling that cannot be explained in words.

     

    roli-sharma1Do you think mooting is beneficial for Law students or is it just to make your CV look impressive?

    I won’t disagree with the fact that mooting does make one’s CV look fancy and it is also beneficial for law students in more ways than one but doing a moot simply because one thinks it will help them secure a job is complete foolishness. Most recruiters don’t really care much about the moots you have done, in fact what matters more are one’s grades, so moots coupled with decent grades is reflective of how well one can handle extra-curricular activities along with academics. However, putting aside the ‘CV value’ of moots I want to add that mooting teaches one several skills that come in handy throughout one’s legal career.

    Through the course of the various moots that I participated in, I realized that mooting teaches you certain invaluable lessons in team work, research, streamlining the research by picking out the best arguments and then drafting a good argument, it teaches one how to think out of the box to come up with novel arguments, as also to present complex concepts in a simple manner and all of these are skills that any good lawyer needs in the longer run. Another great thing about mooting is that you get to travel and meet so many interesting people, whether it be students from other law schools or judges, there is always something new to learn from almost all of them.

     

    What are the law firms at which you interned?

    I mostly interned with the general corporate teams of various full practice law firms and out of all my internships I believe my most enriching experiences would be those at AMSS, DSK, and Luthra because of the work environment and the amount I learnt at these internships.

     

    What was the procedure you followed to apply to these law firms?

    Apart from applying through the college RCC, I mostly sent out e-mails on my own to apply for internships. These e-mails were usually followed up by some more emails and phone calls. Some firms like Phoenix Legal, ELP and Bharucha also have online forms that need to be filled to apply to them. However, I must admit that getting an internship at a law firm on your own till third year is almost practically impossible, it is only towards the end of third year or fourth year that most firms start taking your internship applications seriously.

     

    What was the kind of work allotted was to you during your internships?

    The kind of work that one gets allotted depends largely on the team that a person is working with and the kind of matters that the firm is dealing with at the time of your internship. Through the course of my various internships I was allotted all kinds of work involving drafting of legal opinions, notes and agreements, and also the standard research and due diligence work.

     

    Tell us about securing a PPO at AMSS.

    I got the PPO shortly after my first internship with AMSS. However, this internship after various extensions was almost two months long.

    My internship with AMSS is my best internship so far, mostly because of the people I worked with and the quality of work I got during the internship. What made this internship different from the others I guess was the fact that I was trusted with good assignments and encouraged to think out of the box. Further, where the matter concerned a subject area that I had scarce knowledge on, I was guided by my team on how to proceed with the research, this allowed me to learn immensely and made the experience an enriching one.

     

    What do you think an intern should accomplish during an internship in order to get a call back?

    I don’t think there exists a rule book with a set number of things that an intern should accomplish to get a call back because a lot also depends on being at the right place, at the right time. However, I believe that the single most important thing that one must always remember is to work smart, never shy away from asking questions about an assignment because that helps you find out what exactly you need to deliver and saves time by preventing unnecessary research.

     

    Did you learn any skills while interning?

    I think the most important thing I learnt while interning is to juggle between various assignments and complete all of them within a given time frame.

     

    How do you think one should go about writing a CV when one is applying for a job?

    I think the simplest way to look at a CV would be to compare it to a pitch presentation, so it should focus on the work areas of the firm that you’re applying to and it should highlight all the work that one has done in that area. Apart from this, I think the other more important thing to keep in mind is that no one likes clutter, so everything on one’s CV should be short, precise and to the point.

     

    How did you go about preparing for your interview?

    Apart from basics of subjects like corporate law, contracts, property, IPR etc., I don’t think even the best of firms expect us to know everything. What matters the most I think is, knowing what you claim to know, i.e., knowing everything on your CV inside out and staying updated with the latest developments in the legal world.

     

    Do the law firms usually provide the candidates with an option to work with the teams of their choice while recruiting?

    This is something that differs from firm to firm depending on the internal firm policy but yes, most firms do provide that option.

     

    Many law students strongly believes that getting a job at one of the top three law firms is mostly about securing a high GPA. Do you agree?

    A high GPA certainly makes getting shortlisted for recruitment easier, but it is not the sole determining factor, especially in cases of PPOs where the quality of work done by an individual coupled with a decent grade is usually what counts.

     

    How should a law student prepare in the last three years of law school?

    I believe there is no substitute to hard work, so maintain your grades, work hard at all your internships, give it your best shot and get noticed. And, of course, staying abreast with all the latest legal developments is always a plus.