 taken off plate or as a good speaker on the YouTube. But the litigation practice is always at the back of the mind. I've seen a lot of people, those who have gone into corporate side or they started content writing, they always said that they wanted to build up on the litigation part. And what do you build that litigation practice? How do you create your niche within all the space? And what could be the process? Keeping into this aspect, we are requested Mr. Sikandandakumar who has created his niche, not only in the litigation practice, but also the way he takes things forward. We all know that he had taken on the session on the contract act on this platform. And it was, it is still doing very well. And if we can understand the nuances for building a litigation practice, I think that could be the best thing forward, especially during these COVID times. Like they were saying, networking is important. And networking also has these two facets, online and offline. We will also ask, or maybe if he covers, as to building a litigation practice, what would be the way forward for an online and offline process also. And without taking much time, I would request Mr. Nandakumar, over to you. Thank you because thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. I hope everybody is keeping well. I want to share with you a few thoughts that I've sort of put together in what I faced myself as a lawyer. I am a first-generation lawyer. So let me say that and get that out of the way. I know a lot of people have this bogey about how first-generation lawyers find it difficult and so on and so forth. Well, nobody told you it's going to be easy. But I will try and share with you a few pointers which might make it easier for you. That's really the endeavor. I am going to cover a few points. The first is some basic notions of what is meant by advocacy litigation and so on and so forth. Secondly, some of the skills that you might need to specifically look at in yourself and think about what you need to work on, if there are points that you can improve and so on and so forth, very quickly over what duties are and whatever. And then I have a bunch of FAQs, Frequently Asked Questions, which I think a lot of younger lawyers reach out or two senior lawyers to with and sometimes don't know what to do or who to ask. So I'll try and answer some of them. And finally, I'll try and put down some tips. I have a good number of them. I'll just try and see how much I can cover in about 45 minutes. I also want to leave some room for questions because I know that there will be especially those who are at a slightly or a relatively earlier stage of their career might have a lot of questions and I'd be happy to take them. Very quickly, obviously, the need for an advocate is the rule of law and the adversarial system that we have. The alternative is chaos. So therefore, start by telling yourself that the alternative to what you do is a chaotic society and I think you'll already feel better about yourself. Importantly, I think when you look at the legal profession, there are a bunch of rules and norms that need to be followed. Obviously, you have the Advocates Act, bar councils, regulations and rules. And now you have many courts coming out with video conference rules because of the hearings that have been going on. You have had instances of people not being appropriately attired and so on and so forth. Very importantly, I think especially with the legal profession, there is a lot of self-regulation that is involved and I intend touching upon several of those aspects. Interestingly, there are also some international standards. You have something called the International Bar Association, the IDA, which has standards for practice, standards for conduct and so on and so forth, both in arbitration and otherwise. So you have several notions of what you can do and what you can't do, how you should do it, how you shouldn't do it. My idea is not to go into those aspects today and say, okay, ethically, this is what you should do or should not do. I might cover some of those when I deal with some of these tips that I propose to share. But I think very importantly, you need to remember that I'm going to focus on the question of litigation practice and therefore, I am not really going to go so much into the ethical aspects and advocate's act and so on and so forth. Now, when one starts one's career, say one is in the final year of a law school or a law college and you ask yourself what you want to do or even when one is considering a career in law or a few years into the legal profession, you keep asking yourself what it is that you really want to do and I think over a period of time you get further clarity on what you want. But importantly, I think there are several branches or several kinds of practice that you could get into. One is obviously litigation. The second is taking up an in-house role, then you have corporate law firms and several other branches, but I'm going to really focus on litigation. With litigation, again, you have several options. One is to join a small chamber of advocates or a sole practitioner or to join a law firm which does litigation or you have these large law firms which have a litigation department. Again, perhaps their Delhi and Bombay offices have a larger litigation department than their, say, Hyderabad or Bangalore or some other office and those are questions that one has to ask oneself. Equally importantly, I think if you just peel away these layers of law firm versus individual practitioner, I think ultimately the question is also whether you want to be more of a council or more of a solicitor. This is again, especially in the smaller towns and in many other cities, even in Hyderabad, for example, or Bangalore or in Chandigarh, you don't really have that distinction very much where you say that I am only a council or I am only a solicitor till such time that somebody gets designated as a senior advocate. Therefore, you end up doing both roles. Whereas in cities like Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, perhaps there is a clear distinction. Even now, some choose to take the council path, some choose the solicitor path and there may be, therefore, some additional points that would emerge when it comes to dealing with how you shape your practice in such a field. But I am going to try and be more general in my remarks. I don't intend to confine myself to say how you should do it in Mumbai or in Bangalore or in Delhi or any other place. I wish to offer some general points, including for those who are from smaller towns or those who are from moffice courts and whatever else. It's extremely important that you don't see yourself as being alienated from the rest of the profession or from the mainstream. You must understand that you are as much a part of the mainstream as the top lawyers in Delhi are. And indeed, it's the work that you do that takes up the matters that eventually go to the Supreme Court or whatever else. So that's something that you must bear in mind. Now, very quickly, I'll turn to some of the attributes that I think are necessary to be a good litigation lawyer. One is certainly a passion. You absolutely and without any doubt need to have a passion for the law, for litigation, for wanting to do well for excellence, importantly. And that's to me an important prerequisite. I know that there are a lot of people who might want to get into litigation or who might just look at this as a career. Well, fair enough. I mean, obviously, there are people who are in it for a variety of reasons. It could be simply the need to make a living. It could be simply as a means of livelihood or whatever else and I completely respect that. I'm not for a minute saying otherwise. But equally importantly, even when it is a case that somebody is doing it only for the livelihood, I think it's important to develop a passion for it, even if you aren't born with it. I am a first generation lawyer and truth be told till my second year of law, I was still keen on doing veterinary sciences. I was thinking that I mean, for some reason, there was a problem with the exam that I wrote after my 12th standard. And if I remember, the Delhi High Court struck down the exam that I wrote and said some other authority should have held that exam or whatever for veterinary sciences. And I thought, perhaps at the end of my first year, I'll try again and get in. And here I was already sitting in National Law School and not really enjoying it very much. But there was a turning point there where I started liking some of the courses that were taught and I started paying a little more attention. And I then developed that passion for the law and there has been no looking back ever since. So it's important that you develop a passion, even if you did not have it when you started off. So it doesn't matter that you didn't choose law, but the law chose you. Having chosen one another, it's important to make peace and get on with it. That's a very important point. Secondly, you must have a quest for knowledge and for learning. It's extremely important. If you are irreverent about learning, if you don't really care about knowledge, if you don't really care about learning something new, then you might struggle in this profession for the reason that a lot of what you do, what you say, how you behave, how you conduct yourself, how importantly you grow as a litigation lawyer depends on your ability to harness information, assimilate knowledge, use it well and disseminate it at the right point. If you aren't able to do that, if you don't even care about doing it, you need to think long and hard about what you want to do. Again, I make this point as I did with the first point about whether or not law was your first career choice. Now that you are in it, you must find parts of law that you like. Some people enjoy the procedural rigor of it. Some people excel at fact-based analysis. Some people enjoy the concepts of law. Well, you can choose and that's the beauty of this profession. It is so wide and so vast that you can choose which parts of it you like and then develop those nuances better and I'll give you some examples as we go by. Third thing which is important is that you must have an absolute willingness to work hard and to learn. There is no shortcut to that and I'll make this point multiple times. The fourth thing is to my mind that you need to have clear thinking. You can't even if you don't feel that you have that clarity of thought naturally that comes to you, it's something again that you can develop and this is going to be a recurring theme of what I say. Not everybody is a born lawyer. I mean, when you look at some of the grades in the profession like say Justice Nariman when he was a lawyer and I've had an opportunity to interact with him, you could see that he's born for the law. Not all of us have that gift but that's fine. It's fine. You don't have the gift. I'll give you the example of Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. Now both of them were great batsmen. Tendulkar was obviously gifted and you could see it. Dravid obviously wasn't gifted but he had to work hard for it. Now the point is both of them are extremely successful batsmen in their own right. Primarily because Dravid never tried to be Tendulkar. He tried to be who he was and he tried to have that use his willingness to work hard very, very well and very sensibly and that's really what I'm trying to say. It doesn't matter that you aren't a born genius. You aren't born for the law. You aren't born in a family full of lawyers. It doesn't really matter. What matters is your willingness to want to make it and willingness to work hard. Clear thinking again is something that you can develop over time. Honesty and integrity. This to me is non-negotiable. It's not just important and vital. It's absolutely what should be your hallmark. What happens sometimes is unfortunately there may be some black sheep as there are in any profession or any line but they should not be the examples that you turn to. You must make it a habit to discuss with your friends, with your peers, with whoever you interact with, with your immediate seniors, examples of lawyers who have shown because of their integrity and their honesty and that is something that I can tell you for sure that judges would appreciate. That is something that will make you stand out far more than anything else. Your integrity and your honesty and your ability to withstand that no matter what is extremely important. You might have read and this is a fairly popular saying that integrity really is doing the right thing even when somebody is not watching. I think that sums it up. You must want to do the right thing no matter what happens. Social awareness and sensitivity especially given what we are going through. I don't think you can see yourself as being an isolated operator living in a land or in a world of one's own. It's not possible. You have to understand that you are an extremely vital part of society. You are a cog in the wheel that society depends on and therefore your role as a lawyer is extremely important. That skill of being able to integrate your social awareness with the sensitivity that is needed is extremely important. Language. Law depends a lot on the use of language, the ability to develop that language and the skill of communication. I make this quite responsibly. You might have studied in a medium of construction other than English and that's fine. So therefore you feel that somebody who's gone to say a convent school or to one of the better universities is able to speak better. But we'll look at it this way. If you aren't very fluent with English that means that you know more languages than perhaps the person who's fluent with English. So use that as an advantage. Here's the point I want to make and this is the underlying theme again of what I'm going to say when it comes to a lot of things. There are several inequalities in every society as there are with lawyers. Not all lawyers are born equal. But I think the law is a great leveler and you have a chance to make it big, to make it to be a great or a successful lawyer irrespective of what you were born with, what circumstances made you. I don't think any of that matters. I really think what matters are some of these attributes for a good litigation lawyer. These attributes are absolutely important. And even if you do not or if you think you do not have them, these are attributes that you can develop. For example, where if English speaking is not something that you're very comfortable with, it's something again that you can pick up over time. I have seen personally, persons who have started as court clerks, ending up being extraordinarily successful lawyers and judges. I was told a story by somebody in Bombay and I believe it to be true. Honourable Justice Sarosh Kapadia, former Chief Justice of India, apparently started his career as a clerk in Gagratan Company in Mumbai, then did his law and then went on to be a judge, a high court judge and whatever. Now imagine that story. Therefore, don't sell yourself short by saying that you're not good at something or whatever. I think these are all skills that can be developed. But importantly for a litigation lawyer, this is a very important trait. The next thing which is today very important and because made a very important point is the use of technology. This today is going and in the future in my view is going to be the game changer. It is going to be that one thing that distinguishes you from several others. Now remember, this is the way to look at it perhaps. There are always going to be a large number of lawyers and every year there are more lawyers who are joining into practice. What makes you stand out? What would make you as a litigation lawyer be better than the others? If you are adaptable, if you are quick on your feet, if you are able to move faster than the rest of the crowd and get the latest judgments or ability to file something, you are able to do a lot more work, a lot better work, appear in different fora. For example, today thanks to the pandemic and the virtual hearings across the country, you are able to appear in Delhi and Mumbai and Chennai and somewhere else on the same day. Earlier you had to choose between one of them. So you can use technology in a sensible way. Importantly, look at the amount of saving on cost. If you are able to move to a digitized office, you can save and all your files are scanned and stored. You can save on storage space. You can save on paper. You can save and it's also environmentally friendly to a large extent. It's a one-time resource in very many ways. So there are so many things that you can do with technology and importantly, and I make this point again, this is likely to become the way courts are going to operate. I don't think courts can afford the kind of or litigation, can afford the number of trees that are being cut on a daily basis in order to just meet the demands of the filing of various courts. If you take any court in any part of the country, the number of reams of paper that it uses up in a single day, it's a very large number. So technology is certainly going to be a game changer. Digitized offices or scanned files, access to video technology, these are going to really make a big difference. And this is the other thing that you can do with technology. You can become an operator who operates not just within the confines of a small town that you are currently at, but move to a much larger audience. You can, if you are, say, in a small town in Punjab, start appearing in Delhi and Lucknow and somewhere else. If you are in Chitradurga and Karnataka, for example, there is nothing that prevents you from appearing in the Bangalore courts or in the Karnataka High Court and even in the Supreme Court, why would you not want to do that? So there is so much that you can do with technology. For example, there are many practitioners who today are looking at international arbitration completely becoming digital. And that means that you can sit and appear in international arbitration matters in London and Paris or in Singapore, which earlier you had to go and, I mean, obviously you miss out on the travel and the fun bits, but hey, there's far more to be done. You can probably do that on a holiday. So technology is something that you can certainly use and use very, very well. The next important attribute that you must have as a lawyer is reading. Read, read, read, read, read. And if you still have time and your eyes haven't shut, read some more. And I don't just mean law books. I mean, absolutely everything. Books on technology, books on law, on history, biographies, read them all. One excellent tip that my senior gave me when I was a junior was to just say if you're sitting in court and waiting for your matter, don't end up missing your matter. But when you're sitting, just pick up the barrack that you've carried. It could be the civil procedure court, the contract act, it doesn't matter. Just start reading it from the cover, from the preamble, from the heading, whatever it is, down, objects and reasons onwards. Just start reading. Two things happen. One is you understand the structure of the law better. Second is, some time at some point, something will strike you for some other case, which you might not have otherwise picked up but for your reading. So also, a lawyer is somebody, and I made this point about societal awareness, is somebody who has to have a lot of understanding of all kinds of aspects. What if you get a patent matter? Will you say that I simply don't understand the science? I didn't do science in my undergrad, so therefore I'm not going to be able to do it. So that's a question that you've got to ask yourself. Now, I'm going to very quickly skim through some of the duties of an advocate. The reason I'm going to do that is to put this in context with some of the things that I'm going to point out a little later. I'm not going to spend too much time doing this, because like I said, this is really not the scope of what I propose to cover today. So you have two kinds of duties. One is the duties to the court, and the second is to the client. To the court, you're an officer of the court. You have to present your case as well as you possibly can. You've got to be courteous and respectful. You've got to answer honestly. You've got to be fair. It's an important strength of character that you need to show. Every member of the bar is a trustee of the entire profession. Let's never forget that. And don't antagonize the bench or get into a fight with the opponent. With clients, what are your duties? I'm just going to quickly run through some points, because I'm going to come back to the counterpoints to these a little later. You've got to read your papers thoroughly and hear the client, understand the client's point of view, understand what the client wants or needs, advise them correctly, present his or her case as well as you can. You've got to maintain scrupulous accounts, encourage settlement, but no illegal transactions. Interactions with the opponent should be only through the lawyer. And obviously in many cases, there's also a dealing with a mission. Now, again, advocacy in litigation, you need a lot of preparation. You need eloquence, discretion. These are some of the things that we often see, simplicity and so on and so forth. But yeah, I'm just going to now, we've just gone through some of the attributes for a good litigation lawyer. I'm not going to try and tell you some of the skills. One is that you need for a good litigation practice. And these are skills that you need to think about and develop. One is an analytical skill. You need to be somebody who can analyze facts, analyze the law and process and make sense of a large amount of information. Sometimes, and as you go in the profession, you will get complex cases where there are multiple litigations and multiple kinds of litigations, a criminal proceeding, a repetition, a civil suit. And you've got to figure out how to traverse through all of that and strategize. So therefore, you need to have that analytical ability. Second is creativity. A good lawyer is somebody who can come up with creative solutions and perhaps deal with some of these unique situations that might have arisen. The third important skill that a lawyer needs to develop a litigation lawyer is resort skill. It's vital that you understand thoroughly what the legal position is. If something has been done before, if it has not been done before, how you can do it differently and so on and so forth. Next, extremely important for a litigation lawyer is interpersonal skills. Not just with your client, with your opponents, with the judge, with other members of the bar, people who you meet. It's extremely important. It can't be undervalued even one bit. Logical thinking ability. You need to think logically and reasonably. But at the same time, not let logic be your master. What do I mean by that? There may be sometimes situations which seem illogical. Clients don't often make rational choices. You then need to ask yourself what you must do in that situation. So there is a part of logic and a part of reasoning that you need to bring to the table and what you need to do is to balance the two. Perseverance. This is extremely important. Public speaking skills and to pursue continuing education, reading and comprehension and writing skills. All right. Now, I'm now going to take you to some specific things that you can do for the practice itself. One clear thing that I would do is appearance. Clean appearance and a tidy manner is an easy fix. What do I mean by this? Let's say that you are a first-generation lawyer. You don't have much of a practice. The one thing that you can do is to make sure that you look every inch of professional. Nobody is asking you to buy Gucci shoes. I mean, I'm not saying don't buy them. Not discretizing Gucci. But I'm simply saying that you don't really need to buy fancy stuff and a lot of expensive stuff. All I'm saying is that you need to be clean, tidy in how you present yourself, wear clean bands, neatly ironed shirts or salwar comises or whatever it is. Be clean and presentable because that is the hallmark of somebody who takes himself or herself seriously. Secondly, somebody has posted a note asking if there will be a question and answer session. Yes, I propose to leave a fair bit of time for questions and answers. Courteous speech and behavior. It's extremely important that you are all the time. I mean, unless you are with your close friends in a small gathering where perhaps you can let your hair down, it's very important that during the course of your professional duty, you are polite and courteous. This is something that I find a lot of young lawyers have misunderstood the term aggression to mean to yell and scream and to sort of exercise their lungs. I don't think that is what is meant. I think what one needs to remember is that you are in this profession for probably 30, 40, 50 years, perhaps even more, wishing you a long career and what have you. So remember, there is no point in being branded as somebody who is a cantankerous lawyer, as somebody who's a troublemaker, a rabble rouser. It's far better to be remembered as somebody who's polite, dignified and decent no matter what the occasion is. So remember, being courteous and being in speech and behavior is extremely vital. Attentive in hearing. You have to first be patient and hear what is being said. Now, this is vital not just with your client, but remember with the judge. Now, the judge may have a question. Now, your thoughts are racing, you've got something planned in your head, you want to say a bunch of things, which is all very well. But if the client, judge is asking you a question and you aren't able to answer, there's a good chance you will end up losing a case that you should otherwise have won. So you must remember that being an attentive listener is extremely important. If that means having to park your thought and come back to that thought a little while later, you must be able to do that. So being an attentive listener is vital, not just from the client's point of view, because if you aren't listening to what the client wants, there's a good chance you won't understand what really you should be doing. I mean, if the client really wants something far simpler, you don't really need a complex solution to a problem. And this is the next thing I was going to say, you need to think of sometimes simple and clear solutions. One example I'll give you is that I had a situation where a client came in very hassled and said that there is a property that he owned. He had all the title papers, he brought the file along. And he said that it looked like somebody had constructed a part of a compound wall, a very small stretch, maybe about five to 10 feet on one part of his of his property. And it's very easy in a situation like that to say, oh, yes, you should file a suit, you should do this, you should do that and so on and so forth, court fees, litigation, it stuck for a while and so on. But actually, the solution was very, very simple. The neighbor had apparently just made a mistake. So at that point, what I did was to ask the client to go back and find out a little more about what had happened, because he did not even know who'd done it. Now, when he went back, he found, and because what puzzled me was why would anybody put up only a five meter compound wall? I mean, it's a 60 feet on that side property. So why would somebody build a very short compound? The answer was that the neighbor had made a mistake. He had started digging the foundation for the compound wall on one part, realized that he was on the wrong side, that he was actually on the neighboring side, stopped the work and moved on to his side. It was a simple mistake. And when he found that out, he went, became good friends with his neighbor, bashed down that wall and got on with his life. Now, he might well have been stuck in litigation if I'd asked him to file a suit at that point. So you need to be very clear in what the need is, you need to be very clear in what the requirement is. And here is the thing, you might have lost that one brief, you might have lost that one, you didn't get get a brief, you didn't get fees for that matter, but it doesn't matter. What has happened in turn is that you've developed a lot of goodwill. The person who referred this client has in turn sent five, six other clients to me. So you must look at this as the long-term investment that you make and offer the client always the right solution. This is where, again, your client interviewing skills, your empathy, your counseling, all of this is very important. This, again, this is another example of very often what happens is when clients end up filing a case which they should not have filed when this is perhaps legal adventurism. So as a litigation lawyer, one of the first things you must do and I'll take you through some of the tips that Mr. Nariman offers in his book, you must be very clear about what your facts are, what your client wants, and if you truly believe there is a case that needs to be made out and can be made out. So over prescription sometimes is again a common failing. The next important aspect that you must absolutely pay attention to is billing and collection of fees, especially as a younger lawyer, this is very difficult. You will be very diffident. You are afraid that the minute you bring up the question of fees, the client will turn around and run away because your profession ends even before it starts. It's a balance, you've got to do it and learning the ability to be able to collect fees, bill and collect fees is a very, very vital aspect. That's a discipline you must absolutely get and develop. There is no point in being shy or coy about it. I'm not asking you to tell a client the minute he or she walks in that you say, no, no, no, if you don't pay my fees, then don't waste my time or first put so much money in advance or whatever. This is where there is some diplomacy that comes in. It depends on what the case is. If somebody comes in and tells you that they lost their grandparent due to a medical negligence case, starting with the discussion on billing may not be that greater idea, but it's an important discussion to have at the right time. Deciding what that right time is your skill. That's something that you need to have. If it is a corporate litigation matter, very often the client will ask you up from what your fees are. At that point, there's no point in being shy. If it's a company, they need to get a court approved by whoever it could be the finance department or the board of directors or whoever. At that point, if you're shy and say, oh, we'll see about it later, there's a good chance you won't get that. So this skill of being able to decide when to talk about the fees and how much to charge is a decision that you have to make. And it's an important discussion to have. It's money is an important aspect of what you do and why you do it. And there's no point in trying to hide away from it. Time management. This is again something that you must learn as a litigation lawyer. In the initial stages of your career, you will typically have a lot more time. And because you will have lesser work, typically. If you start with an enormous amount of work, well, good luck, then you don't need to discuss this, what we're discussing on the webinar. But jokes aside, I think if you don't pay attention to time management, it's something that you will certainly that will haunt you for the rest of your career. You have to start making it a habit. You have to make time management a habit. You have to understand that time is valuable. Your time is valuable. And that's really the reason that you charge your fees the way you do. As you grow in the profession, you will realize that there will be a you might be billing per appearance or per hour or whatever else it is. Now, all that is a function of how important your time is. And therefore, if you aren't able to manage your time well, the whole thing is going to be go top seat early. And therefore, that's something that you must be very, very careful about. And there are several tips that there are with time management. I'll try and cover what I can now. Think. This is perhaps the single most important skill attribute that you must develop. You've got to keep thinking about the case and as many different ways as possible. Think about what you will do, what you would have done, what you could have done, what the other side will do, who the lawyer for the opponent is, what that lawyer has done in the past, what arguments might be raised, judgments for against, how do you overcome it, accordingly, what leading to draft. These are things that you can easily do and do in a very effective way to further your client's cause. I'll give you a very simple example. When a client comes to you and it's a slightly complicated case, it's important to take some time to do some research, be clear about what the legal position is. Based on the legal position, if you need to ask for say, for example, a declaration relief and a relief of cancellation of title, just offering an example, then you must tell the client that look, therefore, the court fee is likely to be higher. But I think this is the right approach and this is the legal position, what it says in a very simple way. If at that point, you just think that filing a bearing junction suit is sufficient and you do it and that backfires, you're not only jeopardizing your career, you're also jeopardizing your client's case. So what is important at that point is to really think long and hard, do the right kind of research and take your client into confidence and say, look, I think this is the right approach. If it is necessary, please speak to a senior lawyer or somebody who you can, who you trust or who you generally take advice from to figure out what you can or should do. But thinking and thinking about not just what you need today, but how the case will pan out. Now, you must think a little about when you're drafting to file your suit or whatever petition you're filing, think about what the opponent could say, what are the points against you, what evidence do you have, how it will stand up in cross examination, what questions can you ask the other side in cross examination, how is it likely to pan out? Just a rough mental map for the entire case is a great way to think about the starting of a case. The reason I say that is that if you don't envision the end game, if you don't envision what the end, well not end product, but the end of the process is likely to be, then there's a good chance that you lose your way somewhere along the way. So it's just useful to think about sometimes what the end game that you want is and if you are likely to get there. Sometimes you end up asking for four reliefs knowing that one relief perhaps may not be likely strategically or tactically you might want to do that. Those are specific to each case but again you must be clear about what you think you might get and what you think you should get and perhaps often that difference is where the parties can settle. So again coming to that aspect you must be clear in advising the client about what points in time they must look at a settlement, perhaps after you get an injunction so that tactically or on slightly higher ground, things like that. So these are aspects that you must bear in mind and that thinking and the ability to think is something that you must develop. It's not easy to pick it up at the beginning but over time when you see others do it, when you see seniors do it, especially when you see your opponents do it, it's something that you must pick up. I'm going to go through some frequently asked questions that I've made on this stuff. I'm happy to take other questions of course that sometimes very often younger lawyers have. One frequent question that I hear is should I do an LLM, especially one in say the UK or somewhere else. Now I think is there a direct benefit that we'll get from doing an LLM in your practice? Perhaps not but what an LLM does is to give you the advantage of exposure in a way that you might not get within the country or whatever. For example, even if you're from say a smaller town and you do that LLM at say one of the better universities in India, even that will give you a kind of an exposure that you did not otherwise have. There are points and counter points here. The pros are obviously that it gives you a fantastic amount of exposure. You will make some great friends and that friend circle can be the network from which you get clientele in the future. The cons obviously are cost, the loss of a year but the counterpoint to that one year or two year investment that you say that you put down in your LLM is that it's only a year in 40 or 50 years of your career. It's not going to make a very dramatic difference. I must add one more thing. For example, if you do an LLM from a reputed university, what it does is that in some ways it could further your career once you come back and it also gives you an opportunity. Let's say you do an LLM after two or three years of working. It gives you an opportunity to slightly change career track. If you feel like you're stuck in a place where you want to do a little more or a slightly different set of things, doing an LLM can be an opportune moment for you to make that shift. The next question that I keep getting asked is should I stay in the town that I am in or go to a larger city? For example, if you are in a smaller town around Bangalore, would you want to come to Bangalore? Or if you're in a smaller town around Punjab, in one of the smaller towns in Punjab, should you go to Chandigarh or should you go to Delhi? Or should you start your practice in the Supreme Court? This is a question that I very frequently get asked. The simple advice that I can give you is that there is a huge amount of learning that you will get in the trial courts that you are not likely to get in many other places. I'm not saying that you will not learn in the Supreme Court. Of course you will. It's a fantastic learning place. It's a very ruthless and tough sort of practice that you've got to get used to. But that ruthlessness is also there in other places. So it's not something that you need to worry about. My sense is that trial court practice has an advantage that very, very few other things can match up to. So if you get an opportunity to work with a very good senior no matter where you are, you must try and do that. You must also not let go of an opportunity after a few years of practice to try and come to if you are in a smaller town to go to the capital city for the High Court here. I mean, I say capital city in most places, the High Courts are in the capital to the High Courts or to the Supreme Court when you get an opportunity. Please use that opportunity because it's a great learning. But that doesn't mean that you must shift your practice, shift your family, shift everything back, back in baggage and head out. You must make that decision sensibly. But perhaps three or four years of trial court experience at the beginning is a fantastic foundation on which you can build and then think about moving is typically what I would advise you to do. When should I start on my own? This is a question that I keep getting asked. I think the answer is that you need to decide that there is no better judge of that than you. I would say that one of the pointers that you must bear in mind is if you want to really start on your own or you feel you are doing that because many of your other friends have started their own practice, your classmates are on their own and they're doing some great work and so on and so forth. I think very often you will find that in some offices or in some law firms, perhaps this is more relevant, you will find a situation where you are able to get in better work and a very decent pay with the same kind of, I would rather, without the same kind of risk that you would have in going alone. That being said, being on your own is an extremely satisfying sort of venture to get down and it's something that you can make your mark. I want to add one more point there which is that if you look at the trend of where we are going as a legal practice, perhaps the time or the future trend could be towards more consolidation into larger practices than individual practitioners. It's something to just bear in mind. It's not something that you should immediately panic and say, oh I've started on my own and I'm in a small town in some place in Telangana and therefore I should pack my bags and then go and join a firm. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that you must keep your eye out, your ears open, eyes open to see what is going on in the world around you and if that means that you need to make some kind of a shift, that's something that you must be open to. What area of law should I practice is another question that I keep getting asked. Well, you need to be comfortable in what you do. I wouldn't be terribly comfortable if somebody came to me with a triple murder case. It's not something that I do and truth be told, I haven't done one. So if you are comfortable in the area of law that you work, so there are two aspects to this. One is of course that you are comfortable and you enjoy what you do. Second is that it should also be remunerative to you or if that is a concern and that balance is something that you must do. I think the negative list is something that I found to be useful. If you are a general practitioner, especially in a smaller town, you will get all kinds of cases, some criminals, some civil, some motor vehicles case, all kinds of stuff. If you make for yourself a negative list and say, okay, I will not do, say for example, matrimonial work or criminal work and then you're ready to do everything else, that's one way to look at it. But this is a question that is best answered by you. Having said that, there is something else that I wanted to add here, which is there are always emerging areas of law. For example, insolvency and company law practice in NCLT is something that's really opened up. Earlier it used to be confined to only the company law board in Chennai, Calcutta, Delhi and Bombay. But now it's really opened up in many, many cities and that's an opportunity that you can look at. So electricity is another sector that you can look at. The new labour code as in when it comes in. There are so many new emerging laws that would open up practice opportunities. You must be aware of them. I'm not for a minute saying immediately jump into it. If it's an area that you enjoy, it's something that you think you'd be good at, please look at it quite seriously. Should I join a firm or a chamber or a sole practitioner? I think part of that I already answered. But I think again, there are advantages and disadvantages. Larger law firms don't really or don't necessarily operate very well in some of the smaller towns and that's something that you need to think about. But there are many small firms in small places that offer great opportunities for litigation. So also sole practitioners. There are some sole practitioners and council who have fantastic practices. But there are others who have an excellent practice but might not be the right person to work with for you, temperament wise or for whatever reason. It could be the money, it could be any other reason. So for you, when you're choosing the person who you want to work with or the set of persons you want to work with, it's a very important decision. Please do all the research that you need to do, ask around, find out, ask your seniors, ask people in the profession, people who know whoever you want to work with and then come to the decision of what you want to do. It's a very, very important question that you need to ask yourself. How do I get clients? This is the next question in terms of building a litigation practice. So there's also a question that's just popped up and I'm going to sort of answer those aspects right away. There is no easy answer. I think ultimately your work whenever you get an opportunity should speak for itself. Your work has to be your calling card. That is the best way to build your practice. There is no other way that is as sound as that. If your work is excellent, you will be known, people will find out about it, the word will spread about it. Remember that we can't advertise. Therefore, you must figure out how to go about doing this. So therefore, especially if you're a first-generation lawyer, I have been a first-generation lawyer and I know what it takes. I wanted to be a corporate litigator when I started my own practice and if I remember right, it took me almost one year and eight, nine months before I got my first corporate litigation matter and when I did, I really put my heart and soul into it and soon after I was doing an enormous amount of corporate litigation work because I had perhaps done a good job with that matter. That client told someone else, somebody else came and I was seen in the company court a lot more often and so on and so forth. So every day, every day, and I'm going to emphasize this and say it again, every single day that you are in court is an opportunity for you to make a name and make a difference. That does not mean that you exaggerate what you do. That does not mean you put on an unnecessary show. I am only saying that every single day you're in court, do the very best that you can. Do not go unprepared to court. Do not go without being clear about what you want to do. Do not also try and overdo something. The balance between all of this is what will keep you going but what is important is that every single day that you are in court, you must put in your absolute best. The next point about how you can get clients, remember you have your alumni networks, whichever college you are from, today you have WhatsApp groups. One of your, you are based in Pune, one of your classmates is in Hyderabad and says, hey, do you know somebody, somebody posts on the group saying, do you know somebody in Pune? You can sort of message that person and say that I'm happy to take it up. Your contacts, seniors who you might have worked with, they will probably send you work. This happens very often here that let's say you work with a seniors chamber and then you start on your own. There will be matters when the seniors is unable to take up directly. They'll tell the client perhaps go to somebody and who else will they think of than juniors who've been in that chamber. So that's a great way for you to get work but obviously that means that you need to have kept a good equation with your senior. You need to have done good work with that senior. The senior should be happy with the work that you do, should trust your integrity, should know that you will interact with the client well. So all the attributes and the skills that I mentioned about litigation practice, each one of those, you must keep working on them and then the seniors will say, hang on, this is a very good person to work with and it's not just your senior, it's your senior's friends, it's other people, somebody will call you and say, listen, I need to, there's some matter, I just want to give it to some junior lawyer and say, all right, give it to so-and-so. He or she is a pretty good young lawyer who'll do an excellent job. So these are ways in which that you can pick up. The next way in which you can develop or get work is something that Mr. Arvind Datar did and told me also about. In his earlier days in the bar, he didn't have too much work. So he used to write, write, write and write. He used to write articles and in various journals and newspapers. So it did two things. One is it was also augmenting his income and second, he became such a prolific writer that he became well-known and he started getting invited by the Chartered Accountants Institutes and the Company Secretary Institutes to talk about various aspects of law. You pick the areas that you like, start writing, develop these networks. Now that you have all the online platforms that you have, you need to use say a platform like LinkedIn very, very sensibly. I have serious reservations about posting an order that I would have got for a client in a matter. I have serious reservations in saying that I argued so-and-so point and this judge held in my favor and so on. It's a matter of personal comfort but ultimately you can use LinkedIn in a very sensible way and that's something that could help you. Virtual hearings are another way in which you can develop your work. For example, you're sitting in any town that you are and you're able to appear in another court. Lawyers in that other court could be able to see you and say, okay, this person is from wherever he or she is but did a very good job in this matter. Then the next frequently asked question is, should I accept all sorts of matters and clients? I think the quick answer to that would be that please generally ask for a reference if a client comes to you directly. Again, it should be in the area of work and comfort for you or a court that you normally go to. Otherwise, you should think long and hard about whether it's worth taking up a matter unless it's a new area of work that you don't mind getting into. Nearly because your practice is on the civil side and there's a nice matter which might bring you a good amount of fee doesn't mean you should take up a double murder case. You should be very careful about what you pick up. What happens when I lose? What do I tell the client? I think this is a very, very important point in order to build your practice. One of the things that are vital is that you take your client into confidence especially when you lose. Take the client into confidence and say, look, these are the things that I think you need to do. Perhaps these parts are things that we could think about an appeal or even if you can't go on appeal, are there sufficient grounds, aren't there? What the options then are should we then think about a settlement? It's very, very important that you at that point proverbially hold the client's hand and take the client through what needs to get done. Another important question that keeps getting asked, are there shortcuts to success? Where the short answer is no. No, there aren't any. There is no shortcut. You've got to work very, very hard and you've got to work for a long time in order to see what is success or to understand what is success and importantly, what is success? What do you define as success? And that's the beauty of it. Somebody might be earning crores but still not count themselves as successful. So therefore, there is no single benchmark to say that this is successful or not successful. You must remember that there is a wide plethora of options and therefore equally a wide plethora of what those parameters of success are. Don't get bogged down by somebody else's sense of success. You need to be in a race only with yourself, not with the rest of the world. Remember that and then I think you're fine. How do I again address the issue of fees that touched upon it earlier and I'm going to quickly try and wrap up my remarks. I still have a lot to go through. There's no straight answer. You should understand what the market has and how badly you need the matter and how badly the client wants you. That's a very difficult question. I understand and this is a very important point. It's a very sensitive point as well. In the initial stages of your career, it's very, very hard to say no. I have been taken for a ride many a times in my career. In the initial stages of my career, I've been promised a moon, stars, skies, something beyond that and ended up getting 2000 rupees for an entire case. Well, these things will happen. You will perhaps learn the hard way. I hope you don't. I hope you're more sensible than I was but it's an important question that you need to ask yourself. I'm going to quickly touch upon two, three more questions and I have a few tips to run through which I'll try and do completely run short of time because I want to reserve some time for questions as well. How do I prepare for a matter? Be thorough on the law and the facts. Understand your opponent. There's a very famous Chinese general, Sun Su, who wrote a book called The Art. I mean, he didn't write a book. A lot of his teachings are composed. There's a book called The Art of War. Do read it. He tells you how if you know your opponent, know yourself and know the battle, you need not worry the outcome of 100 battles. You must understand also the court, the system, the rules, etc. Make a checklist. There is this excellent book called The Checklist Manifesto by this author called Atul Gawande. He was an Indian origin doctor in the US. He tells you about how you can apply making checklists to anything, especially in a matter when you're preparing. If you don't have a complete grasp of it, make a checklist so that you can easily come back for something that you've forgotten about or you need to pay attention to. Let's say there are five points on which you want to do research. Make a note so you can cover them one by one in a systematic manner. Run through the pros and cons of your arguments in your head with a friend, with a chamber colleague, whatever it is. Discuss it with well wishers or seniors. You must also remember one thing. In the initial stages of your career, it's fine if you take a longer period of time to do a particular task or to get ready for a matter. What will happen is and what typically happens is that you have more time in the initial stages of your career. But as time goes by, because you've done it many times, you can do it much faster at a later point in time. So what takes somebody say 10 minutes when you're 20 years in practice will take you say two hours. It doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about how much time you take in the initial stages of your career. It's important to get it right more than how quickly you can do it. Does it matter if you're a first generation lawyer? Well, no. Obviously, if you are a second generation lawyer or a third generation lawyer, perhaps you do have some advantage in that you've already had some doors open for you. But there are enough and more examples of first generation lawyers done extraordinarily well. So don't sell yourself short because one of your parents is an engineer or something else. Do not worry about it. It just simply matters about what you want to do. Does it make a difference if you're from a national law school or a national law university, national law college, whatever it is? Well, again, the answer is no. Most judges today in the Supreme Court, most senior counsel are all from colleges. Obviously, there was no national law, whatever it was some 30, 40 years ago. But that being said, these are matters that really should not matter. I meant to take you through a bunch of tips, but it's already 5.30. So I'm going to take the shortcut, which I asked you not to take. Do pardon me for that. And I asked you to read from Mr. Fali Nariman's autobiography, which is turned as just titled as Before Memory Fades. He's written a bunch of, jotted on a bunch of points and I anecdotes on some dos and don'ts. Superlative. You must absolutely read it. A few things quickly to add to that. And I'm assuming that you read it. And at the end of it, a few more things that I want to supplement. Be very observant. It's a great way to learn from other lawyers. Remember that you will not have enough matters of your own. Remember you will not have enough briefs of your own in the initial stages. You must learn from other lawyers. You must learn from what is going on in another court. You must learn from how a judge reacts. If you are appearing before a judge for the first time, wait in that court patiently for a while, see how the judge's reaction is. Is he or she far, slow, understands quickly, takes his or her time, is detail oriented, is not detail oriented. These are things that you must pick up. These are nuances that you've got to learn to study. That comes with being observant. You've got to be aware of what goes on around you. I'm not asking you to gossip, but I'm asking you to be aware. And there's a world of a difference between the two. Be prompt in responding to clients. If a client writes an email to you, make sure you respond within a quick amount of time. It's something that clients will really appreciate. Be honest, but diplomatic. There's another important difference between being aggressive and what aggression is. Aggression doesn't mean you have to yell and scream. Aggression can mean in litigation. And I believe it means being prompt, being quick in responding in a civil suit. You offer the plaintiff or landlord and the defendant keeps on filing one application after the other. Your response time in preparing objections and filing is your aggression. You don't have to yell and scream. But how you convey to the judge is your aggression. You have to make that your calling card and that will be a great way to develop your practice. So there is, I would much rather that you are nice than you are yelling, screaming and rude. You can be nice and still be aggressive and that's really the key. I made the point about technology already and I'm just going to sort of repeat that. Mental health, there is, I'm just going to take a minute and touch up on this because there is a lot of talk today about mental health and I mean, especially after the pandemic about how it's important to balance things and whatever. I think when we were younger lawyers in the bar, there was no such discussion of course. But it's important to bear this in mind. A lot of what I say is sort of the old school of approach where you really work very, very hard and sort of you make sacrifices of your family, of everything else. But I think there is also possibility of a middle path where you balance your family life, your career and any other pursuits that you might have. Obviously, that might mean that there is a certain, there may not be an extremely exponential growth that you will face but that's fine. I think if you are comfortable in your skin, if you are comfortable with what you do and what you want and what you want to do, I think that's really what is important. And ultimately, whatever else in litigation, you absolutely have to enjoy what you do. If you don't, I think you'll generally be unhappy and miserable. So just try and enjoy what you do. That's really the most important facet of it. I'll just end with very sensible and very, very reassuring advice that Mr. Arvind Dattar gave me when I started my practice. He's been a great well-wisher. He told me that if you're reasonably diligent and reasonably competent, you can't fail in practice. And I think that's something that I code with me and that has stayed with me. And I just want to pass that on to you. And with that, I just wish you all the very best and I hope my sharing of some of my experiences and pointers have been of some help to you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Nandakwati. So far, two questions on the chat by Ego K. Doshi for a first-generation lawyer like me. How can we promote ourselves as a professional so that the clients, people know more about us? I'm in my fourth year of practice and it's immensely slow to get the clients down to it. Sorry. Well, if you are still in your fourth year of practice, it will take you time. This is a very, very important aspect. Look, promoting yourself is something that you have to be very careful in doing. You can't advertise it and I would suggest and advise you not to do anything that is in violation of the bar council norms. Perhaps, like I said, you can start writing. You can develop networks within your alumni, your college friends and so on and so forth. The other thing that you can look at doing is to join some professional associations. Let's say the area of your practice is, perhaps it's on company law or it's in insolvency law. There are some associations that you can join or an arbitration. There are several associations that you can join, which will promote that particular area of practice and there will be conferences or webinars to attend and so on and so forth. Importantly, you can contribute to it, write, eventually try and be speakers at it and people will find out more about you. It is a slow process, but to me, the single most important thing is not to lose heart and stay patient. I want to tell you this, Mr. Toshi. I have been in practice for over 20 years and there have been at least, this is quite personal but I want you to know this, that there have been at least 10 or 12 points in my career when I've said, okay, that's it. I'm going to give up, I'm going to call it a day and then do something else. But something in my mind told me, all right, let me just sleep over it another day and the next day you come back and you do your job once again. I think this profession is about that. To quote Sir Winston Churchill's immortal words, if you are going through hell, keep going. What I think he tried to say was that you will come out of it. It's fine, everybody goes through that tough phase, it's not easy, but these are some of the things that I can suggest. Certainly writing, certainly trying to join a professional organization or an association, certainly getting into networks of, on, you know, I mean, today you have on WhatsApp, on LinkedIn and so on and so forth, getting into some of those networks and meeting other lawyers, other professionals. If say a lot of your clients are in a particular sector, pharma or aviation or whatever else, you try and learn a little more about that and write articles that are relevant to them. You will start with smaller pieces. It doesn't matter. There is no ego about any of this. It doesn't matter that you start with a small matter or a large brief. I can tell you, without mentioning names, that some of the most successful lawyers or who we perceive as being the most successful lawyers in the country, some of the most widely sought after lawyers in the country today have had to be on bank panels, on railway panel and so on and so forth, where you think the money is very poor, where you think it's a lot of work for very little work. Well, that's a great way to make sure that you have a constant flow of work, you know, being on the panel of a few banks or some of these public sector undertakings or the government or something like that. It is a great way to make sure that you are more frequently in court and after that tenure, you know, that frequency of work will translate into other work. So it's entirely up to you and the area of work that you're in and unfortunately, I don't know you well enough to be able to comment on it, but please don't worry so much about the fact that you're still four years down and you've still not got enough clients on your own. It will take time, but you've got to also push yourself. It doesn't really happen if you say wait for clients to turn up at your doorstep that perhaps I'm not for a minute asking you to advertise. I'm simply saying that you've got to put yourself out there a little more in a sensible way by writing articles, by doing things that you can do. Yes, practicing in criminal law and civil law areas for equal number of years, a good method of approaching, meaning two plus two years in both areas, since there is always existing confusion initially, is it worth following the above? So I take it that by this you mean that this is something that I've seen that some people try to do two years of civil law, two years of criminal law, two years of say appellate court work and then they think they're all rounded or whatever. Now I'm going to take this as a slightly more general question and ask myself that should you be a generalist or should you be a specialist? I think there are equally worthy answers to both. If you want to be a specialist in say banking laws and do only DRT work or whatever else, that's fine. If you want to do only say for example corporate litigation and company law that's also fine but I think being a generalist has its distinct advantages. These advantages are that you are able to have a far better understanding of the overall system and how it will work but I think over time and this is the trend today that I can say with some confidence, you need to pick perhaps three, four areas, two, three, four areas and try and stick to them. Even the earlier notions of civil and criminal law are today sort of fading. I don't think they're relevant as relevant as they were say 15, 20 years ago. There are so many new practice areas that I mean there are lawyers who I know who do nothing but convincing but there are lawyers who I know who do nothing but consumer court litigation, there are those who do nothing but electricity sector or labor. So how do you classify these as civil or criminal so easily because they seem to be different tribulations of their own and whatever. So you must sort of move a bit away from these notions but at the same time pick two, three, four areas that you're very comfortable with and what you think you're good at and try and develop that a little more. That's the best suggestion that I can give you. There's another question I think from Nitya about how you handle the administrative aspects of your practice in the initial years is an excellent question and a very important one. This is perhaps an extremely bothersome part of any practice. You must remember that very often if you're a sole practitioner or you have this one or two juniors, somebody has to open the door, somebody has to sweep the office, somebody has to keep accounts, somebody has to put books and files back and there is a question of affordability. You can't really afford to have six, seven people on your payrolls and therefore all these people to do whatever you need to do. I think you need to basically at the initial stages show a great deal of husbandry. What I mean by that is that you must be careful in what kind of expenses that you want to incur. Certainly the areas of priority to me are billing and accounting. Secondly, a good clerk who can get your filing and listing done and at the same time keep your files in order. Third is, if you can find somebody who can be your admin and reception person who can take calls, couriers, whatever else and also take care of your accounts, nothing like it. Perhaps because of the pandemic there will be more people who will be willing to take up that kind of a role but this is now an important aspect. I wanted to touch upon something else which is slightly connected to this. You also have a lot of technology platforms which offer some of these answers. For example, there are some billing softwares. It may not work for everybody but there are some billing softwares which are quite good and if you have a standard sort of a rate for large say your appearances or whatever, it's easy to plug it in and then generate those invoices without having to really spend on another account person but one great way that I found worked for me in the initial stages was every day to devote a particular period of time, typically the most unproductive period of the day. It could be say between 3.30 and 4.30 in the afternoon when one is feeling a bit sluggish or wants that cup of tea or later in the evening. You spend about 40 minutes to one hour every day to make sure that you cover up on all of this. It could be sending out letters, it could be correspondence, it could be bills and sending out bills, it could be making sure that the files are in order, whatever it is but to me what is what and one other thing that I know works in other places. In the initial stage might really need a standalone or a full-time clerk. You might need or you might make do with somebody who's a part-time clerk who does say 3, 4 offices or a freelance clerk and over time think about depending on how the practice grows to take that person full-time depending on cost. So there are several things that you can do to try and minimize costs but at the same time increase efficiency. Technology is certainly one answer. There are only two questions on the YouTube. One is how to overcome if you don't find a very good senior. Okay that's I know there are a lot of people who started off without a senior but I certainly believe that it's very useful to have a good senior. If you don't have a good senior, there are a couple of other things that you can do to try and overcome it and let's say you're already on your own or whatever. Approach a couple of good seniors or people who you want to work with and offer them that you will work with them on matters that they'll get for a whatever a small fee or whatever it is because sometimes these seniors may also need a kind of a devoted assistance and what happens is in large offices, they will be quite busy with their own work and even their juniors are already overworked because of the volume of work that they have whereas you if you're starting on your own will typically have a lot more free time. So if there are one or two large cases and it's something that I've also had a chance to work with some younger lawyers and I've found it very very instructive for myself personally that we enter into an arrangement where they work on a lot of the matters and I sort of help with some part of the strategizing or whatever and both of us are happy that way because they're putting in a lot of work, it's a great amount of work and it's a great matter for them to be which perhaps without the by themselves they might not have been able to sufficiently service it or the client would want somebody slightly more senior to guide through and that sort of an arrangement you can reach but again it depends on where you are in some cities it might not be feasible but I certainly think you must still look for even if you don't have a senior at least some two or three people who are mentors who you can constantly sort of approach whenever you have a question or whatever. Are there any ways where a visually impaired person can make a name in the litigation system? I think the answer is yes, it certainly is today possible. In fact, I want to say that there has been a senior advocate Mr. Rungta who was visually impaired and he had an excellent practice in the Delhi High Court and in the Supreme Court. Obviously it will mean a different set of sort of infrastructure also for example you might need the Braille typewriter to transcribe the notes or the brief into your Braille compatible reading but it's certainly possible. I think today with virtual hearings it's certainly a great opportunity for those who have some disadvantage to be able to overcome those disadvantages and come on completely to the mainstream and I do hope that this opportunity is made use of. Yeah I will ask Arvind to take the last question of Dhyan meanwhile just to as you were saying I was just reminded of the famous thing of P.B. Shelley which says that if the winter is there spring cannot be far behind. Absolutely. And normally what we say paid rahenge to shakhe rahenge to pathe fir rahenge. Absolutely. So it's like you rightly said there are a lot of challenges as a young lawyer and but you have to continue to be. There's one other question that seems to have popped up. I will read that question I'm starting in a four-year student and a first-generation lawyer. We are the first batch of CLG and we have not got any exposure of seniors. How to get it from it? I'm not too sure what CLG is perhaps it's a new university but let's say any other college or any college. So I think the answer is that then you must look for a good senior to start off with and remember if there is nobody who's made the path ahead of you you should be the one to make the path you be the pathfinder you dig that road and make that road and people will remember you. I want to say this in the context of you know somebody else having asked about first-generation lawyer and not. There are now so many first-generation lawyers who have already paved the way for the likes of us. There can't be a reason for you to say that oh I don't have a I'm the first batch of my university and therefore it's going to be difficult. Sure it'll be a bit difficult but if you make a good name for yourself your university will get that good name and the future generations from that university will also get that good name and all of that sort of blessing will reach you and I therefore wish you very well and your university and your college very well. Because I think Mukun only has a question I saw him raising his hand I think if you could unmute him let him pose his question. Hi sir this is Mukun. I'm a lawyer practicing in Delhi. It was thoroughly informative. I've been following your work really absolutely brilliant. One question that I wanted to ask you is with respect to specialized practice because there is a small country of lawyers limited pool of lawyers who are engaged in specialized work and for a fairly young lawyer or a fairly young independent lawyer it may perhaps be really difficult to get into the sphere of this this group when it comes to specialized practice. So I was wondering what sort of advice would you be having for younger lawyers who would want to specialize you know for example to get good companies as clients because they would obviously be looking for for already established funds. Thank you sir. Right so Mukun I mean I think it's it's a very important and valid question. I did allude to it in passing obviously there was an enormous amount of covers so I couldn't dwell in much detail. Very quickly I think two things one is in the initial stages it's perhaps useful for you to be a bit of a generalist. I'll give you the example of a lot of tax lawyers. A lot of tax lawyers you know started off as being general say civil practitioners or whatever and after three or four years they moved to say indirect tax direct tax whatever else it is so also with DRT or banking or whatever else. Now let's say you want to be in the NCLT, NCLAT practice, PMLAT or perhaps electricity or whatever in Delhi you have the advantage of having so many type of news. Now obviously in the initial the minute you start on your own you're not going to get the the number of clients that you have in mind you know the top clients the Tartars and the MNCs. There are two things that you need to do one is be associated with a good senior who has a lot of work and therefore what will happen is that you will this is another important point irrespective of whether you are in a specialized area or not. You should be the person who's trying to do an enormous amount of work in any brief that comes to the office that you're working on. What will then happen is that the clients will remember you and will come to you for everything I am not exaggerating when I say this I first worked with a corporate law firm in any meeting I'd be the one who'd make detailed notes of what was going on so automatically in any follow-up meeting everybody would turn to me and say you know Nandukvar what had happened in this day so and so say this did we discuss this did we not and that is the way you start sort of making your own role more important and by doing that more and more you will become more important and more relevant and you will immediately get a small brief it's fine in the initial stages if you need to go and brief a senior for those matters over time you will be the person that people trust somebody who basically understands it but okay till you reach say five eight years of practice they'll say okay he will still need to take a senior but after that they'll say okay it's a small matter why don't we ask him only to argue you will get a chance when the senior tells you listen I can't make it you argue nothing will happen and once you make a name in a case like that or in a few cases like that you will slowly start getting matters in your own name and it is a slow process see nothing Rome was not built in a day remember you are building the colosseum of Rome so therefore don't be in a rush but at the same time it's something you got to go in a very systematic and planned man especially if you see I'm not saying that it is but if you see being a first generation lawyer as being a disadvantage please do what you need to do to overcome it which is to plan well and to execute that plan that's really the short answer so therefore don't worry too much about the specialization my only point is that perhaps you should have a general overall sense of what goes on and then pick don't just pick one pick two three sectors or two three areas that you say that okay these are the areas that I'm going to stick to and and try and do that that's perhaps the best way I would go about it I just want to say this one last thing because from to the junior members of the audience and certainly not to the senior ones who I hold in a lot of regard I hope that some of the things that I discussed today are helpful to you and I'm sure that in time to come the lot of you will be the senior council and the judges who will grace our bar and I wish you all the very best and good health thank you. Yeah, Prakram. Yeah, thanks Mr. Vikas. Thank you so much Nandukumar sir. Nandukumar has proved that he's not just a good litigating lawyer he's a good mentor as well. The number of tips that he has given is covered almost every every aspect of it and every doubt that a litigating lawyer or a fresher that that would you know creep in in his mind is answered and it is very important at this point of time because we are losing many advocates especially the employers they get graduated they come to the profession within one year one and a half years they want to switch into the corporate world or they would even change their profession so apparently at this point of time I think it is highly imperative. What we see is today in the rural front we see a lot of good trial court lawyers and apparently on the urban side especially in cities like Bangalore and other similar cities the lawyers are not somehow they are not choosing this trial court work they feel that it is something not so respectful or it's not take up of your I don't know what they might have hundred and one things but by and large what we see is they do not take up work with regard to the trial courts so these sessions I think I should thank both of you Nandukumar as well as Mr. Vikas for choosing such a wonderful topic and special thanks to Mr. Nandukumar for addressing all our grievances and giving the grooming us thank you so much and of course he's been very busy and in spite of his busy schedule he has accommodated us he's able to give us two three hours and I'm sure he would have spent a lot of time behind this for the preparation thank you so much sir. Thank you I just wish the session were longer because there's so much more to cover it's you can keep speaking about this for days and days but if it's made a difference even to one young lawyer I think it's it's worth everybody's time thank you all and have a great evening thank you. Thank you so much Mr. Vikas Chitrath for this opportunity. One is writing you can have part two and I'm reminded it says and in English they say well begun is half done so it's not half done but we are not we can say fully done because as Mr. Nandukumar has said that there's a lot and a lot of tips and I was just watching one of the youtube channels of Session of Mr. Kapil Sibal as well as of Amit Sibal the heart of Etukesi that I can recommend that people can watch it that also gives us a lot of insights as they say that the law is a profession it's more like an ocean the deeper you go the more pearls you can get the pearls of wisdom already Nandukumar has shared but we can always find more thank you everyone stay safe stay blessed