Career advice for law students.

Unlike other professions, ours is not a profession to only earns money. Rather ours is a “practice” which word is predominantly used to address the legal profession (a noble profession). May it be litigation or non-litigation; the practice provides us with several opportunities to serve the society. If we go back in the past, the majority of our freedom fighters and founders of the independent India were lawyers. They played a pivotal role in nation-building through their legal knowledge and acumen. Just like doctors we lawyers are also pillars of the society.

My message to the current generation aspiring to make a mark in the legal practice is that have an ethical practice with honest conviction of the work which we do. Even the top practitioners and law firms in India and abroad have highlighted the importance of ethical practice in legal profession. This is because ethics and values play a big role in what we advise and perform. I often come across my Solicitor’s complaint regarding law students abruptly changing law firms during their internship/ para-legal period. I feel this practice should be discouraged as while doing these students create an image of being not reliable and credible. Always remember our credibility is something that will get the best work and results in the profession for us without which we cannot consider ourselves to be in the noble profession.

Also, there is a hot issue in discussion these days whether interns/paralegals should be paid hefty stipends or not. I feel that generally during the internship days our priority should be learning. We should be thankful to those seniors who take up the responsibility to teach us initially at the cost of their time and resources. Few cases of exploiting interns cannot overshadow the process prevailing in our practice i.e. teaching and investing time in a junior/ student to make them efficient lawyers. If we observe the history of our profession in Mumbai, several of the stalwarts have undergone this process of training during their initial days without getting paid any salary/ or hefty stipend.

At times, non-issues are glamourised more than the significant issues and that results in setting a wrong narrative in society. What I see now and for the next 50 years in India, the legal profession will have a paradigm shift i.e. 360 degree change. The systems are becoming more transparent now. We have a live streaming of court proceedings. The introduction of digital filing and virtual hearings has made things easy and economical for everyone. Those lawyers who are afraid to adopt technology may find it difficult to sustain with time, therefore, an open mindset to adopt technology wherever feasible is the only solution.

My journey as a lawyer in the last 15 years have taught me several lessons good and bad, and I am going to share few of them which I feel every law student should be mindful of.

Lesson No.1:

Choose a good chamber/ law firm which believes in teaching you the actual work instead of making their interns run along with case papers/ briefs. The actual learning at chambers is in the form of cultivating interest in reading law, judgments, preparing preliminary drafts and your senior suggesting you his/ her views to correct the said draft, providing opportunity to attend conferences with client and senior counsel. Do not aspire to join a big law firm at the beginning of your internship days/ career as a fresher in law. The true learning happens at a place where your senior/s take your responsibility to train you in true sense.

Lesson No. 2:

Do not run behind money in the initial years. I have practised this principle myself. I never looked internships as a tool to earn pocket money. I rather gave importance to learning over money during those early days. Once you are trained and groomed well for the first 5 to 7 years (right from college internship days), good job opportunities will come searching for you, because big law firms and reputed chambers believe in engaging trained resources where they can appreciate the time of such human resources by compensating them with handsome pay scale.

Lesson No.3:

Always maintain professionalism while you are at work place with your seniors and colleagues around. In the recent past we have seen rise in the cases of harassment at work place, conflict between senior and junior and trust deficit. In the zest of quick success and to earn speedy money, people usually forget a decorum of respecting seniors and colleagues at workplace. There is a short-sighted approach of use and throw concept now-a-days where professional relations do not last long and people end up getting no gain in terms of knowledge/ long term relations. Only certificates/ service letter of internship does not matter if you cannot establish a good and long-lasting rapport with at workplace.

Lesson No.4:

Adaptability with technology is equally essential. Technology and law can go hand-in-hand. I am working from a paperless office post-COVID rollout. According to me, we lawyers will have to adopt technology wherever possible in our day-to-day practice as it has resulted in ease of doing practice. Imagine it was due to this advanced video conferencing technology that our Supreme Court and High Courts were able to function uninterruptedly even during the COVID lockdown. Today majority of my arbitration and mediation meetings are conducted virtually. Not limiting it to meetings, but data storage and utilisation are also done through cloud cloud-based system. Effectively, all my briefs are accessible to me 24×7. This has resulted in improved efficiency and quick delivery of solutions to the Attorneys/ clients. I am confident that in the next 5 years, we will have the majority of our Trial Courts providing us with virtual hearings and e-filing facilities. This will not only make the legal practice more inclusive and wide but will also cut down the pendency of cases.

Lesson No.5:

Balancing a legal career with personal interests can be challenging but we have to learn this to survive for long tenure. My first 10 years in the practice have been completely devoted to my work and training process under the guidance of my seniors and mentors. However, I have found my interest in reading the autobiographies of legal luminaries from India’s legal practice. I also read spiritual books regularly as it motivates me to take up higher challenges. Post-COVID health and fitness have been my priority and I ensure that I have physical exercise or morning walk sessions daily along with yoga. I have realised that those who do not take care of their mental and physical health during the early days of practice have to face tough times in the later phase. Our legal practice is such that with the rising age number of dockets keeps increasing, in such a scenario it is necessary to focus on health and mental well-being from the initial days. My thoughts for all my young colleagues is to stay away from addictions of smoking, drinking alcohol and drugs or any such harmful habits that shall severely affect our mental, physical and financial well-being. To be vocal about this, to some extent smoking a fancy cigar or cigarette might have been glamourised in our profession by some stalwarts but young lawyers should be mindful to understand that besides addictions we have many more other good qualities to adopt from them. I also, dedicate some time to pro bono matters which have been my activity to pay back to society. I am empanelled with the Bombay High Court Legal Services Committee where I am entrusted with cases to argue for the underprivileged and marginalised individuals. Appearing in these matters gives me a feeling of satisfaction.

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