Thread by @barandbench

Inaugural Session of the Global Virtual Conference on "Reimagining & Transforming the Future of Law Schools & Legal Education”, by Jindal Global Law School of OP Jindal Global University commences

Union Law Minister RS Prasad is the Chief Guest

@JindalGLS
@JindalGlobalUNI

Founding Vice-Chancellor, Prof. (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar commences welcome address.

He thanks RS Prasad and Cyril Shroff, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas for gracing the event.

The event can be watched live here:

Union Law Minister RS Prasad commences his address.

Prasad: I am very sorry I am not able to participate in this interaction... because of a cabinet meeting which is going to take place around the same time which I am obliged to attend.

@rsprasad

Prasad: But I must compliment the University on choosing a relevant and significant topic - the future of law schools and legal education

Prasad: Law schools in India have played a significant role in contributing to the growth of legal education, attracted young talented minds, and their products have done extremely well in the profession and in other legal avenues which they have chosen to pursue.

Prasad: As a practising senior advocate in the SC, before I became a minister, I have seen the assistance given by the young, fresh law graduates from these law schools. They show what a keen inquisitive mind they possess...

Prasad: And Jindal, I am told, is doing quite well in the pursuit of shaping legal minds

Prasad: Post-independence, the young mind tried to follow a career in medicine, engineering... what happened as a consequence, both legal education and the stress on a good career in law - both diminished substantially.

Prasad: This is not to deny the performance of law teachers, students and professors...But overall, the quality of law was not giving the importance it deserved.

Prasad: Thereafter, in India, this great movement of law schools started - beginning from Bangalore and spreading to different parts of the country and also opening avenues in non-government sectors, including OP Jindal University.

Prasad: A career in law opened new exciting avenues, creating new opportunities...

These law schools have played a stellar role in contributing substantially to creating a large pool of fairly well trained legal minds.

Prasad: But it also raised certain concerns which I would like to flag.

Prasad: First, that graduates from these law schools chose primarily to focus on a career in the lucrative law firms or as law officers. I have no problem with that. But I would be more keen to have this new mind of brilliant law graduates to contribute to practice.

Prasad adds: Because India is a democracy governed by law...

Prasad: Yes, law practice requires hard work, patience... but those periods of struggle also play a crucial role... once you have made a mark, extraordinary opportunities come

Prasad advises that students must be given practical training to become successful lawyers.

Prasad: This global pandemic, while creating havoc, has also given us a lot of opportunities, created further challenges, requiring legal solutions.

Prasad: You may have seen that... India is one of the few countries where the work did not stop at all. We liberalised the whole work from home movement. 85% of the work continued.

Prasad: It was the digital ecosystem that kept the world together. The internet, other IT platform, the mobile phones and the other requisite platforms required to make connectivity simpler...

Prasad speaks about Umang App

Prasad: Before COVID broke in March, we had about 650 services on that app. Yesterday in the review, I was amazed to notice that Indians have now more than 2000 government and state services on that app.

Prasad on Digital Courts

Prasad: High courts and district courts conducted 25 lakh digital hearings in these few months of the pandemic. The Supreme Court had 10,000 hearings... Electronic filing, digital court fee payment - all has become the norm today.

Prasad: The future of legal education must focus on technology...

Technology creates opportunity and poses challenges including of regulation and its limits. Law schools have more options for technology-related legal education to prepare students for a successful career.

Prasad: India is onto almost 1.26 billion Aadhaar, 1.21 mobiles and 370 million bank accounts... and we started sending all their welfare entitlement to the poor people - gas connections, ration subsidies, a whole range of other entitlements...

Prasad: In the last 5 years, we have sent close to 12 crore directly to the bank accounts of the poor which you call DBT (Direct Transfer Benefit).

Prasad: Even during COVID, 1000s and 1000s of crore were transferred under various heads to the poor to make lives easy by the Central and State Governments.

Prasad while speaking AI, muses on what should be the limits of AI.

Prasad: Should the human mind, basic human edicts have a role? What should be the legal architecture of AI?

Prasad: When I wear my hat as IT Minister, I am very excited about the expanding role of AI... but as law minister, I have concerns...

Any digital legal system must not be completely oblivious to the larger, basic time-tested attributes of human behaviour...

Prasad: India also plays its role in the International legal system. I am very keen that Indian students are second to none, they also need to get proper exposure in the global platform.

Prasad: I would not be very comfortable for India to become a sort of territory for foreign players to come and explore, and there is no reciprocity.

I am not one of those who believes we need to erect walls. But reciprocity is something I would like to commend.

Prasad: Students must be taught to think global, but remain connected with the local.

Prasad: You can become a successful law graduate only when you are not unnecessarily bookish... the local issues, local ideas, local expectations, people's aspirations are equally important.

Prasad: These ideas have all through shaped the devolution of our Constitutional ethos. We need to go to the constituent assembly debates for the finest minds who have given us an extraordinary document, our Constitution, which has laid down such a robust roadmap...

Prasad: For democracy to succeed, rule of law is important. And for rule of law to become a reality, good, trained minds who can really enforce rule of law is very significant.

Prof SG Sreejith, JGLS gives a brief introductory address.

Prof C Raj Kumar then introduces the next speaker, Cyril Shroff, Managing Partner of Cyril Amarchad Mangaldass.

Cyril Shroff, Managing Partner of Cyril Amarchad Mangaldas, commences his address.

Shroff: This conference is both a metaphor for the challenges and the opportunities arising from COVID-19

@cyrilamarchand

Shroff: It is true that the world has changed forever, and so has the legal profession.

Shroff: What has not changed, however, is the quest for justice.

Shroff: Humanity still needs justice and professionals to assist them in that human goal. This what the Minister just said as well.

Shroff: The rule of law is aligned with the basic human condition, particularly in free societies. Law will never go out of fashion, nor will lawyers. But law will evolve for the new world, and so will lawyers.

Shroff on the future of lawyers and law firms -

Shroff: My prediction is rather different from the current reality or the past. I draw upon a Thompson Reuters paper on adapting for 21st-century success called The Delta Lawyer Competency Model for inspiration.

Shroff: It talks about the journey from an "i" shaped lawyer to the "t" shaped lawyer and looking for the future, a delta-shaped lawyer.

"I" shaped lawyers involved mastering a single competency relating to traditional legal knowledge, deep knowledge and training in one thing, Shroff says.

He says that he himself was a product of this generation of lawyers.

On the T shaped lawyer: With time, there was a horizontal bar that got added of technology skills.

Shroff: It meant one deep skill and a lot of general skills... Technology skills became so important.

Shroff: Look at how young lawyers do reasearch, produce papers on the internet and seek knowledge as opposed to in my "I shaped lawyer" days when we sat in the library... that still has a place, but a lot has changed.

Shroff says with factors such as increasingly complex nature of client demands, relationship management, rise of AI when emotional intelligence is required of a lawyer etc. T shaped lawyers are not enough.

Shroff adds: That is the thesis of the future of a lawyer based on the Delta model, which builds on the "I" and the "T"

Delta lawyering involves three limbs: legal knowledge/skills, personal effectiveness (relationship management, communications skills, problems solving) and technological skills - Shroff describes.

Shroff goes on to say that delta lawyers is what law firms will require and what Universities will have to manufacture.

Shroff: Today's legal education is largely unfit for this purpose. Which is why firms like us have to do a major overhaul after the recruit comes...

Shroff: I believe universities are still fundamentally producing the "I" shaped lawyer. They have missed most the "T-shaped" generation and are not equipped for the Delta shaped at all. They need to fundamentally reimagine the curriculum and pedagogy...

Shroff: The Law firm model, and particularly the role of law firm partners, is also changing.

Shroff: Traditional notions are outdated and require a reset.

Shroff: Law firms are now massive enterprises and they need to run like businesses. The paradox of whether legal practice is a noble profession, a service or a business has come to an end. The answer is, it is all of the above.

Shroff: The expectation of these aspects is a source of continuous conflict and reinvention.

Shroff: The business model of a partnership, I would believe, is up for a review. Indeed, it is a business

If it is a business, why should regulation force you to choose only one form of business organisation?

Shroff: Does it choose to impose that for other forms of enterprises and business etc.?

Shroff: There are other ways in which professional ethics can be regulated.

Shroff speaks on legal education.

Shroff: With apologies, it is unfit. It is only producing I-shaped lawyers.

Shroff says after the dust settles on the pandemic, it is not as if everyone is going to come back to the old model of legal education.

Shroff: I don't think the old model is the default setting. A hybrid model is the most likely reality. Both faculty and students will become a borderless community

Shroff: For example, today's conference... At the time of humanity's greatest challenge, is also the greatest opportunity for legal education and education generally... but it requires boldness, imagination, willingness to take risks.

Among the suggestions made to improve legal education, Shroff says: We need to focus on creativity rather than rote learning. Teach for what the market needs. The Delta Model would be a good starting point.

Shroff also speaks on the need to inculcate emotional intelligence and ethics

Shroff: We are part of the profession and not of the markets. We have a different code of conduct. Our professional duties rank higher than the obligation to make products. We stand on a higher footing

Shroff speaks on Law, Justice and ethics

Shroff: It is the duty of lawyers and ethicists that we rise to the occasion and equip ourselves with the demand of future generations.

If we as a legal profession do not do this, who will?

Prof (Dr) S Mercy Deborah thanks Shroff for his address.

The inaugural session concludes after the vote of thanks by Prof. (Dr.) Upasana Mahanta, Senior Additional Registrar, JGU