Julian Barnes put it very well, when he said “what else are you at that age [adolescence] but a creature part willing, part consenting, part being chosen?” The next five years in law school are going to define you in many ways, for this is when your hold on the creature you will be, increases greatly. There are no longer items in your room because someone else decided to keep them there. Your clothes will not be washed just because someone was kind enough to do that. You are now responsible for making decisions such as what to eat, how to keep a room, how to study, how to relax, and also where to move ahead in life. Indecision is not going to bode well for you either in law school or in the future.
Oddly enough, I can reduce every facet of law school to how each individual responds to this change in their basic functioning. Some of us respond to the withdrawal of parental control by simply following the same practices, or by forming completely new routines be they healthy or not. Keeping rooms filthy and living out of suitcases, going days without a bath, wearing dirty clothes: all of this is not a cause of law school taking too much time, but rather simply being unable to take charge of life. These seem very inconsequential, so nobody really cares about such daily hassles, but if you look at the other end of the spectrum you’ll find the same things are repeated while making big decisions.
Everyone finds it convenient to imitate and follow the established norm rather than try to explore their options for themselves. We get drawn into a herd without thinking about how the decisions may affect us; everyone debates or moots or publishes or gets on journals, so we assume that we must as well, for
What kind of law student are you?
otherwise the race will be lost. But, where is the end of that race? Similarly, the amount people jabber might make you think that life after law school only consists of the firm-litigation-academia triumvirate. Ask them what they wish to pursue in any of these fields, and few will give you a convincing answer (this may help explain attrition rates in lawfirms, apart from other factors). The concern with the form of what life may follow has so completely overtaken the substance that we rarely stop to think about what really motivates us. It’s not the place but what you do there which makes it worthwhile. Try spending the time here figuring that out, but don’t beat yourself over it if you find no concrete answer five years down the line.
One of the truly wonderful things about law school integrating B.A. and LL.B. courses is exposing individuals to a wide array of subjects that allow them to find out what really makes them tick. Add to this a liberal environment as law school, and you honestly find yourselves in a unique place where nearly any option is open for you to consider. If law is really not your thing, you can seek inspiration from the many alumni who have branched off into unrelated fields. At NLS, one needn’t look further than Bhukkad and its founder Mr. Aruj Garg (batch of 2013). It may be hard, but don’t be afraid to take that risk.
(Abhinav Sekhri is a fifth year student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. All articles in this series are here.)
Let’s be honest. By now, you don’t really need any more of my advice. You probably know your surroundings already, having found things out in person or by talking to your seniors. I’ll just try to be useful as I write about moot court competitions (“moots”).
I assume that by now, you must have been exposed to this law school activity, either through a demonstration, a formal discussion, or just by interacting with your seniors. You hear many things about moots: that moots are a great way to see new places and meet new people (yes, some people do think mooting is the best way to socialise!), that they’re great for ‘C.V. value’, that they are possibly the closest thing to a real court experience (more on that later), and that they teach you a lot about law. Almost every law student gets drawn into taking part in a moot for one reason or another, honestly thinking that it will help them to get whatever they have set out to achieve. A moot may get you all of these and much more including money, newfound respect, and status but your moment in the sun will come only after a pretty long process.
In a moot, you have to present oral and written arguments for both sides of a hypothetical legal dispute. In a competition, different teams argue the same problem across several rounds, possibly for different sides. It is a splendid idea, for what better way to become a lawyer than by practicing to argue? The hypothetical problems are usually challenging and some effort is required to grasp the legal issues involved. Then comes the hard part: framing arguments in written submissions. It is a good idea to pick a moot topic on an area of law that you like, or want to explore, because not only do you gain a vast amount of knowledge, but you also sharpen your legal writing abilities. Then the glamorous bit: presenting your arguments to a panel of judges within a limited time. Speaking in moots provide an amazing opportunity to learn what it takes to convince someone that you make sense. It also does wonders for building your own self-confidence.
‘Happy faces holding a trophy’ however, is not always the fall-out of a moot competition. Success or failure doesn’t remain confined to your team but tends to go under the college microscope, and some of the judgments made can become indelible. Here, I must say a word or two about what I think is wrong with the system.
A law school’s worth in salt seems to be weighed heavily in terms of its moot wins. This puts immense pressure on the students. The focus shifts from the learning aspect to just winning or losing. A Mooting Premier League (“MPL”) exists and the winner receives a trophy at the end of the ‘moot season’. Though it seems nice, I remember being utterly shocked to see how seriously students treated these MPL rankings! Over time, it became a constant source of amusement. Pride in mooting at the college-level is quite funny, especially since moots are rarely a college-level effort. Barring the provision of research material, moots only reflect the efforts of a group of close-knit individuals who are reliant on their own individual efforts. I strongly believe that the best way for an institution to treat a moot court competition is to treat it as just another activity for students, and stop placing it on a hallowed pedestal.
Let me share my story to end this note. In my final year, I finally decided to compete in a moot. As luck would have it, I ended up getting to be the speaker for what most consider as ‘the Big Cup’. Nervous doesn’t even begin to describe my condition before the very first round. At that moment, I received a call from someone who had taken part in the same competition several years ago, to wish me luck. He told me that looking back, he felt he gave undue importance to success or failure in this one event of his college life.
Now that’s what a moot really is – one event, out of the many experiences you will have over your five years at law school. The moot alone is not going to remarkably enhance your C.V., it won’t magically turn you into a stunning lawyer, and trust me, there are much better ways to travel and see new places. At its core, a moot is just an activity designed to help you to learn more about an area of law and become a better lawyer. So, don’t get fooled into thinking that moots are the end of the college-world. For better or for worse, law school is not such a simple experience.
(Abhinav Sekhri is a fifth year student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. All articles in this series are here.)
This interview with Aditya Sudarshan, a multiple gold medallist from N.L.S.I.U., was first published in March 2009, a month after his first novel, A Nice Quiet Holiday, hit the stores.
In 2007, Aditya Sudarshan did something pretty unusual for a graduating multiple gold medallist from N.L.S.I.U. He decided to give up the fancy salaries that come with joining some of the top law firms in India and the U.K. and even the option of getting a Masters degree from some the finest Universities in the United Kingdom or the United States. Instead, Aditya took up criminal trial litigation in New Delhi – shuttling between the Tees Hazari and Patiala House courts. Nine months later, he was to make an even more unusual decision – to quit the practice of law to become an author. His first novel, A Nice Quiet Holiday, published by Westland Books, was released last month and is now available at leading bookstores.
A traditional murder mystery, the story follows Justice Harish Shinde who is on holiday in Bhairavgarh – a tranquil little Himalayan town, with his law clerk Anant, and living at the house of Shikhar Pant. Within a few days of their arrival, the tranquillity of the setting is disturbed by violent opposition to the alleged obscenity in a report on AIDS – authored by the Mittals, who are also guests at the same house. Things take a turn for the worse when Pant’s cousin – a noted writer and defender of the report, is found stabbed to death. Anant soon finds himself in the unusual position of being counsel to the Mittals in an obscenity trial, and assistant sleuth to Justice Shinde, as the novel moves towards its startling conclusion.
Aditya Sudarshan has participated in book-readings in New Delhi and Bengaluru. Between figuring out the publication of his second novel and working on his third work – a collection of short stories, he spoke with Rainmaker. On the shift from legal practice to writing, he says the only thing he did consciously was to keep his options open. “As a litigating lawyer, you’re always coming across two fundamental elements of fiction – characters, in the form of your clients, and plots, in the form of their troubles. So your raw material is the same – human drama.”
Rainmaker:Most of our readers belong to the Indian legal community. I am sure they would be interested in knowing how a multiple gold-medallist from India’s top institution for legal education decided to take up writing fiction. Aditya: Yes I guess it is quite a shift. But then there’s no set path to getting into fiction writing anyway. When I was in college, like many people I used to write fiction pieces on the side. At that stage I didn’t think about whether I’d ever be doing it full-time. It was somewhere at the back of my mind, but what I was really considering was a career in litigation. Later I finished this novel, got a contract for it and an idea for another novel, and by then I’d also had nine months experience of litigation. So I was in a position to know which profession suited me better, and that’s when I made the shift. But the whole process was gradual; no single moment of epiphany. The only thing I did do consciously was to keep my options open, and to give myself time to make a decision.
Rainmaker:Was that rare in law school – to keep one’s options open?
Aditya: I actually think it was rare. What usually happens is, for the first three, three-and-a-half years; everyone says they’re keeping their options open. And they are, but it’s easy then, because decision-time is still a while away. As you start to get to the business end of law school and there are recruitment opportunities and jobs and offers flying around, that’s when the pressure to make a quick decision mounts. I think at this stage many people who need more time don’t take it. Not to say that if they’re undecided about their career they should turn down all opportunities, but I think whatever they do take up, it should be very clearly in the spirit of ‘testing the waters’. That takes away some of the pressure of the decision and gives them more space to make a real commitment.
Aditya Sudarshan, author of A Nice Quite Holiday
Rainmaker: The narrator of your novel, Anant, is law clerk to another major character, Justice Harish Shinde – a New Delhi trial court judge. To me, the relationship between judge and clerk was a very interesting aspect of your novel. Can you tell us about your own experiences as a judicial clerk, and its influence on the relationship between Anant and Justice Shinde. Aditya: Well the clerkship I did was just a month-and-a-half with a Supreme Court judge, so it was obviously very different from the one described in the book. But the general relationship between the clerk and the judge did strike me as interesting. As a clerk you’re spending most of your day, often including Sundays, at the judge’s office – which is also in the judge’s house – you’re working on his speeches and opinions, brain-storming with him, sometimes you might have a meal with him. And yet in formal terms, the gulf between the two of you is massive – you’re a total novice and he’s a judge. With a hierarchy like that, you can hardly be ‘friends’ or even ‘colleagues’. And yet, given how much one-on-one time you’re spending together, he is likely to become something more personal than just a ‘boss.’ Maybe he starts to feel like a mentor – but maybe the clerk doesn’t want a mentor. So it’s an interesting relationship, because it isn’t clear-cut. It has potential for both conflicts and sympathies. (Which is good material for fiction.)
Rainmaker:The book is structured like the traditional detective novel, when in fact it deals with much more – small-town morality and politics, to begin with. Is there a reason why you chose this structure?
Aditya: Yes, because a detective story naturally involves thinking through a problem, analysing characters and their motivations, and the secrets they might be concealing. It allows a writer to do these things in an open and overt way, which is what I wanted to do. So the way I look at it, it isn’t as though I’m using the structure of a murder mystery as a facade, while really making points about serious issues. The murder mystery itself entails those issues, and hence in the natural course of tackling the mystery I have to tackle them.
Rainmaker:So does this mean that we will see more of the Anant-Justice Shinde team? Aditya: I hope so. Perhaps not in a novel, but I’d definitely like to write a collection of short mystery stories involving these two.
Rainmaker:Someone once told me that there is a frustrated writer inside every lawyer. Aditya: I definitely think there’s a connection somewhere. I don’t know if this is true, but my guess is that there’s a disproportionate number of lawyers who have taken up writing, whether full time or part time, as compared to other professionals. There’s Grisham, and there’s Scott Turow who studied at Harvard, and there was John Mortimer of England, who wrote the Rumpole stories. And let’s remember that the young Charles Dickens worked in a lawyer’s office too, wanted at one time to be a barrister, and also put a lot of law into many of his books.
So there’s got to be a connection. It’s not that hard to see it either. At least as a litigating lawyer, you’re always coming across two fundamental elements of fiction- characters, in the form of your clients, and plots, in the form of their troubles. So your raw material is the same – human drama. (Then, of course, the way you treat that material is very different.)
Rainmaker:Did legal education and your brief stint in litigation prepare you for your first novel? Aditya: In one very minor sense yes, because my novel involves some legal details that I wouldn’t have known otherwise. But more fundamentally, I think legal education probably did help prepare me. Legal education does train you to think in structured terms about human emotions, and you need to be able to do that to plan out a novel. And it’s not as though every course lets you do this. Science and mathematics might encourage incisive thought and the ability to theorise, but they don’t have a human element. The humanities subjects are full of the human element, but I think usually at a more abstract level. Only the law seems to really get down to the level of individual people and their relationships and emotions. Obviously it isn’t direct training for fiction writing- but then what is?
I don’t think my stint in litigation helped so much. I know I just said that litigation exposes you to characters and plots and that’s true, but as you get into the grind of it, it doesn’t give you the luxury to think of them that way. You can’t afford to think through the deeper motivations of your client, because that’s not why he hired you. You have to try and get him his relief.
The other thing about litigation is that its conventions demand that you write in a certain ‘formal’ way and I think that’s often just bad, painful writing. As a fiction writer, you have to take care of your talent. (Maybe that’s why the writer inside the lawyer slowly gets frustrated!)
Rainmaker:So do you see a lot of Indian writing in English to come out of Indian law schools? Aditya: I do. There is plenty of fiction writing that happens in the law schools. The stumbling block is that law is a professional course and if you follow the natural course of it strictly all the way through, it takes you away from fiction. But if you’re keen enough on writing, then the likelihood is that sooner or later you’re going to do it. I personally know of law school graduates who are writing fiction, or at least actively considering it. And the law schools themselves are still quite young. If I were a betting man I’d bet on this happening.
The Parliamentary style of debating is the most common internationally. A derivative of the formal procedures followed for policy-making and discussions in the British House of Commons, also known as Westminster Parliamentary Procedures, it is a formal style of debating, focusing on teams participating in the form of the “government” and the “opposition”.
A University-level parliamentary-style debate in progress.
The “government” is also sometimes referred to as the “proposition”, because in Parliament the policy that is to be discussed and debated is referred to as the “motion”. Therefore, parliamentarians initiate the debate, and hence, the quite literal term “proposition”. The crux of these procedures was “majority rule”; that is, getting the majority of delegates present to vote in a particular manner (either for or against the proposed policy, depending on the side one represents).
Considered to be a refined and formal style, the basic premise of these procedures was picked almost verbatim for the Parliamentary Style of Debating.
The premier debating event in this category is the World Universities Debating Championship, colloquially referred to “the Worlds”. Here, speakers from each side are usually given a fifteen-minute notice of the motion before the debate. In keeping with the concept of a “motion”, the subject of the debate is loosely defined at the start, and refined further by the “proposition”, when speakers start the debate. The opposition has to define their response upon proposition to further refine the motion. But in keeping with the spirit of equal representation, all teams get the opportunity of appearing as the “proposition” as well as the “opposition”. To maintain the spirit of Parliamentary Procedures, each side can consist of two teams, forming a “coalition”. To make the debating more intensive, each team within the coalition must outline the motion in a specific and exclusive manner.
The opposition can raise clarifications and questions in the form of “Points of Information” (“POIs”), which the speaker holding the floor may accept or reject. The speaker has the discretion to choose the POIs they wish to respond to but they cannot reject all. One must keep in mind at this time, that the speakers are presenting their submission before a notional audience of members of Parliament, the crux of the debate is to “convince” them of the validity of their team’s stand on the motion.
In order to prevent an unfair advantage to any team during the debate, there are clearly defined rules determining how the debate is to be conducted and judged. The speakers are judged both individually and as a team by “adjudicators” throughout the event. Adjudicators fulfil the dual role of judging the quality of the debate as well as serving as the “audience” to the speakers. In this capacity, therefore, they ensure that the speakers are following the rules, maintaining proper conduct, and also making substantive points through their submissions.
Some of the main rules adjudicators watch out for when the debate is in process include the motion being defined too “tightly”; that is, with no room for realistic, substantive opposition to the motion defined, or “tautologies”; that is, motions that are self-evidently true. For example, a tautology would be “This house maintains that the sun rises from the east”. This is a true fact and cannot be refuted by the opposition. A “tight” definition would be “This house maintains that it is unfair to run people over by automobiles”. The opposition would evidently have a tough time coming up with reasons to refute this.
Since the debates are partly spontaneous in nature, as well as a coming together of diverse individuals from different educational backgrounds, another definitional rule for motion that is followed strictly is the prevention of “specific knowledge” cases. As suggested by the term, a motion that is defined in a manner that requires the opposition to have specific, in-depth, or technical knowledge is not acceptable within the Parliamentary Debates. For example, “This house maintains that compound X is the most effective raw material for creation of material Y”.
It must be pointed out that in keeping with the formal style adopted whilst debating, the viability of the motion for debating has to be adjudged by the speakers, and the adjudicator would not reject a motion outright. If the opposition feels that the motion is unacceptable because of the reasons mentioned above, they must point that out at the start of their speech, along with clear reasons for the same, as well as an alternate definition to the motion. If accepted by the adjudicators, the opposition can continue to follow the motion they defined and debate on that. In such a situation, two parallel definitions of the motion are debated upon by the proposition and the opposition, and the adjudicators judge the teams on both. Each side get a chance to offer a “constructive”, that is, building of arguments, and a “rebuttal”, that is, responding to specific aspects of the opposing side’s arguments.
At the conclusion of the debate, the adjudicators make their decision on the basis of content as well as style.
Because of the widespread following of the Parliamentary Style Debates, there are no absolute rules of procedures. Each university customises the main theme of the debate to its own settings. These are always defined beforehand. However, the overall context remains the same.
The District Collector of Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu caught the attention of the English-language press when he acted quickly on a call for help from a 15-year-old schoolgirl. He sent a team to the venue and stopped her marriage moments before it was to take place. Alumni of N.L.S.I.U. posted the link to the Times of India story (September 6) on Facebook, and happy chatter ensued about the official in question: Arun Roy, a 2002 graduate from the Bangalore law school. The man himself was not overly excited. “It is an everyday occurrence here“, he laughed over the phone as he agreed to answer my questions.
Before taking office in Krishnagiri in June this year, Roy served as Deputy Secretary and as Under Secretary in the Finance Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu. During that time, he also served as a Director (Finance) at several P.S.U.s, including the Tamil Nadu Industrial Investment Corporation, the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation, Tamil Nadu Cements Limited, Pallavan Grama Bank, and the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation.
As Collector, he is the chief executive of the district and the nodal person responsible for governance in the district. He implements the development schemes of state and central governments in the district, including the N.R.E.G.S., the public distribution system, and the social security pensions and other welfare schemes.
“A good part of my work is also regulatory, which is nothing but the interpretation and application of various laws, which is much easier for a law student when compared to others,” he said. The Collector is the ‘District Magistrate’ under the Criminal Procedure Code, and is responsible for the law and order of the district. He is also responsible for the implementation of various regulations relating to essential commodities, mining, dowry prohibition, child marriage, pollution, public nuisance, public health, road transport, and the protection of senior citizens. He also has powers of preventive detention under various Acts, such as the National Security Act and the Goondas Act.
Arun said he imbibed two important values from law school life, and those were not from the classroom. “The first is tolerance and sensitivity, which has helped me handle difficult situations and difficult people. There is also the art of talking a lot without conveying and committing anything, which we all learn in law school! That has always helped me in tricky situations like law and order problems!”
He remembers Dr. V.S. Elizabeth, who taught him History at law school, very fondly. “It has nothing got to do with her classes. She has given me a lot of food in her house. And I always loved making fun of her and I still do.”
“The essence of good administration is to take the right decision at the right time, and this requires a lot of common sense more than anything else. Since law is nothing but common sense, my lack of common sense was to an extent made up for by a knowledge of law.” By this time, I can’t decide if he is joking or being humble. A little later, he tells me that he used the free time in his fifth year of law school to prepare for the Union Public Service Commission examinations. “I used some postal notes also but did not go to any coaching institute. The internet and the Law School library were sufficient for obtaining the necessary study material.”
The shining armour rests easy on this District Collector.
Julian Barnes put it very well, when he said “what else are you at that age [adolescence] but a creature part willing, part consenting, part being chosen?” The next five years in law school are going to define you in many ways, for this is when your hold on the creature you will be, increases greatly. There are no longer items in your room because someone else decided to keep them there. Your clothes will not be washed just because someone was kind enough to do that. You are now responsible for making decisions such as what to eat, how to keep a room, how to study, how to relax, and also where to move ahead in life. Indecision is not going to bode well for you either in law school or in the future.
