- Shared by Shreya Singh
What happens when you destroy everything you ever wished for with your very own hands? What do you do then? What happens precisely one day after your life is attacked? I, like most of the people over-ridden by guilt and despair go into mindless “pashtyataap” and in the world of law-students it means joining an internship a day after your exams get over . an internship where you are certainly not invited and got in because the advocate was returning a favour to your uncle who got you in. He takes me in and now my uncle has to admit the advocate’s nephew in his medical college. It’s a circle of favors…our whole society is entwined in this circle its more like the barbed wires used as a security boundary in old safer times when thieves weren’t so smart and cattle wasn’t so hungry. Pricky.
So, I entered another room of the MDS( male dominated society). It was a whole new room for me. Fresh after one year of Law School I could with pride and dignity declare openly that I had absolutely no clue what a profession of law was all about. Being from a family of Engineers and Businessmen and the first years being taught nothing except new ways and resources of CCP and Ten Ways to Waste your time while under the pretence of Preparing for Grand Intra, i was like a blank cheque eager to be filled and cashed.
Everybody there was middle-aged age, so needless to say, I had nothing in common with them except the fact that we all faced the same doom of being in the profession of law in a country with over-riding ideals and under-payed jobs, needless to say a very conflicting combination.
For the first few days they refused to acknowledge my presence. sometimes trying too hard in the process, I would drop a huge file and my pen would fly in air for quite a few dramatic moments before landing on someone or something and they wouldn’t even look up from their work. It was a bit too much. I added to my misery by offering to intern both in the court and the chamber and that’s when things started looking better.
The only way to be taken seriously at work is to be serious about work. So, I would never be late for work, read all the important files in chamber for the next day’s court session. Ask questions –most importantly, and listen carefully to whatever was being told to me even if it was for just 2 minutes in the whole day. I would go and ask—something, anything but commute regularly. Soon after 10-12 days the associates would themselves come to me and tell me about the various judgments being delivered in court while they were standing outside waiting for their case, at the chamber they would give me work, from trivial things like numbering the cases and annexures to taking notes and forming notes for the cases, it all happened slowly. Advocates would give me research work and till now I have never been able to actually help them in any solid way but yes I did learn many things all the times I failed to help.
Also, a very important thing in this profession is the ego. I have till date not met a single advocate, judge, teacher, law student, anyone who if good at what he/she does is also humble about it. Experience in the field of law is something so bragged about that sometimes it felt nauseous to be in the presence of such “eminent beings” . There were some rather “unique” people I encountered during this one month I had spent in the Raw-Law world. People like senior advocate gulabbo, the jumpy judge, the bench- judge who snored and stared, the same guy who came for three different cases in two days, the seventy six year old daughter whose siblings declared her an outsider after their ninety year old father died, just for property, the fifty-something man who cried in full public view when he lost everything he had earned in life just because the advocate did not turn up, the clerk of forty two years age who was finishing third year of LL.B because he still dared to dream, the associate-father to three college going kids- who even after so many years chose to remain an associate because he was scared he could not make it on his own. These and many more…which judge uses natural justice , which written law and most importantly I saw justice being delivered in one case and the better case winning , even when guilty, in another. I saw all that we read in those big fat books which take four pages to explain what coud have been explained in four lines. It was eye-opening and exciting on one side and some times it made me promise myself to never enter the world of litigation.
But whether you like it or not, litigation has this certain charisma attached to it for some people. The courtrooms are small in the U.P. HC and lawyers too many, you can actually smell 10 different kinds of sweat at the same time and you have to wear cloaks and blazers even in the blazing May heat. It is uncertain, risky, needs immense confidence and skill, and it is the perfect example of the survival instinct we associate with human beings. Standing and faking sincerity in front of a person who has already faked it for decades and knows it all requires skill. Convincing them and proving the right- wrong and most importantly the right-right is a twisted and immensely difficult task and your bread and butter depends on how good a liar you are and how good are your instincts. How quick can you think? How much of your literature do you remember? How can you fathom the loophole in a case and satisfy your client and most importantly make him believe that you can help him and save him. We get three weeks to prepare for a moot and solve and crack the case given to us. There in the chamber a prospective client would come sit in front of you tell you his case and ask then and there whether there is hope for you to help him out and you don’t get to open a book and refer to sections and get any help whatsoever -- you have to listen, think and catch the broken link and work on it and convince your client that they have a case . All in the moment-- one miss and 100% guarantee that the client will not come back to you and tell ten other people that you are no good. You lose ten clients when you fail once and when you succeed once that client will stay with you forever and also recommend you . You need courage and confidence and lots of hard work to make it on your own in this black and white world. Because the judge will incinerate your ego, the client will doubt your credibility and your colleagues will snatch away your clients right under your nose.
This, as we were told before we joined Law school, was the last option for students graduating from the elite National Law Universities went for. Initially I thought it was because the other jobs paid more but I think the real reason is because surviving and winning in this field needs a lot of gut and has immense risks and we Indians refrain from. You need to struggle and work hard every day but on the brighter side-it would get easier as you gain experience. If you survived the first few years and get recognized then you have sealed a fortune for yourself ,because, breaking laws is second nature to human beings and they all want justice and they are ready to pay for it. A vast number of the best and well known people in this world have been and will be Lawyers.
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