Advocate Jayant Bhatt is a lawyer based out of New Delhi, India who holds diverse experience in handling an array of matters for Governmental and Non-Governmental Bodies, Multinationals, Financial Institutions and individuals. He is also a Senior Panel Counsel for Union of India in Delhi High Court and Panel Counsel for State of Rajasthan in Supreme Court of India.
An impeccable reader and speaker, Mr. Bhatt has been a mentor to a lot of law students and is an active columnist/writer. Holding a dual Masters of Law (LL.M.)from New York University, USA & National University of Singapore, Mr. Bhatt is a member of the prestigious Supreme Court Bar Association and Delhi High Court Bar Association. Here are a few excerpts of his conversation with the Editor of Desi Kaanoon Priya Chaudhary-
Q1 How do you believe a dual Masters of Law (LL.M.)from New York University, USA & National University of Singapore has benefited you?
A1 I think there are two aspects to it. First is your academic inclination to do something after your LLB degree which is your first degree in law. During my time at law school, I’ve always wanted to pursue two Master’s degrees. Luckily I could pursue them in one year. That is the first leg of the argument. The benefits to the same are numerous, especially when it comes to young and budding lawyers. You get to learn about different legal systems and different jurisdictions. Considering universities that take a lot of international students, it becomes a melting pot of a kind. So you have people coming from different countries with their own set of experiences, their own set of backgrounds. I think that’s a great learning curve. Further, the varying age groups also provide you with the much-needed diversity in getting to know the profession better. I was quite young when I started my Masters, there were people who were at least 10-20 years older than me in my batch. So that is a type of learning curve that you received sitting in a class with different intellectual people. I had classmates from different verticals- from law firm partners to policymakers. So when everybody gets together and you indulge in healthy debates and interactions, you get a very electric atmosphere in the classroom. So I would say if you wish to pursue a degree abroad, by all means, do it and always try to receive a scholarship. That being said, if you get some work experience before applying for your international Masters degree, your chances of securing a scholarship increase.
Q2 What do you think are some intricacies of litigation no one tells graduates before they join the profession yet are important for them?
A2 It’s a great question, but I think there are too many intricacies. I don’t think anybody in the law school first tells you which side of the court to stand on when you are entering a courtroom. For example, if you are doing a criminal case and you enter a trial court the very first day, you should know where the prosecution stands. There’s a similar conundrum if you are appearing at a High Court and Supreme Court since the sides tend to get reversed in the Supreme Court. You can stand on either side and make your argument. But before that, you have to specify which side you’re representing on the Bench. Litigation is such a prodigious industry and an ever-going process-all in good time. Let’s say a young person, either in an internship or a job is given a file and it can be filed where the matter is having a fresh start, where a matter is in the middle of the trial, where an appeal is pending or where the final arguments have to be concluded. So you must know how to gauge a file according to their perspective and this perspective comes with experience.
I think law schools brace you with good academic and theoretical knowledge. But you cannot learn to swim by watching a YouTube video. You will have to take a dip in the pool, learn from the shallow end and then go to the deep end to become a skillful swimmer. Similarly, you cannot learn the law by just reading books. You have to be in court. You know you have to practice-sometimes be chided by the judges or hammered by the opposite counsels, etc. These are some day-to-day challenges that you face as a practicing lawyer irrespective of litigation or the corporate sector as your vocation. Similarly, in litigation, you start slow or you start taking up smaller matters which are mandated to you by your senior. During this process, your senior goes on to teach you the intricacies of the profession, one day at a time.
Q3 How do you think law school education has changed ever since you graduated?
A3 From the time I graduated, a lot of co-curricular activities have been introduced that were not there at my time. We just had a lot of moot courts and debates. Over the past two to four years, I have been privileged to judge client counseling, trial advocacy, MUNs, arbitration competitions, etc. However, the curriculum still remains the same as mandated by the Bar Council of India for three and five-year law courses. I am from one of those law schools in India which were very new to the concept of a five-year law course). In the early 2000s, India was still experimenting with this type of law school curriculum and law school setup. Today, again, I think we have the whole mandate of developing this quality course has been diluted both by the government and the private universities because in 2018 there was a stay order by the Bar Council of India targeting the mushrooming of these law schools, which I think is a welcome step. But we have to ensure that we get a quality education across the legal system in India. We have to guarantee that the three-year and five-year courses are quality courses and the intake of the students is not at random or they’re not admitted arbitrarily just to appease the people of the country. Law is a very serious profession. We are the last hope of a lot of citizens when it comes to getting justice from any court in the country and if you do not get good lawyers to help the people of this country, then where will they go? If the institutions themselves are not equipped or do not have proper infrastructure or good faculty to teach then the eventual sufferers will be the citizens of this country, who are going to a lawyer to get justice. So I think education institutions definitely create an important role, but I think the Bar Council of India, still in my limited opinion, has been hands-on with their approach to regulating the legal education system in the country.
Q4 Having practised under different advocates in the past, what are the different values concerning the profession that you learned from them?
A4 I think the permanent denominators across all the law places in the chambers that I’ve learned are hard work and dedication. Both of them are common threads amongst all the seniors that I’ve been privileged to be associated with. All the four law offices that have had the honor to work with have been very laborious, hardworking, industrious and meticulous- reading the case files, interacting with their clientele, researching and going to court and being fully prepared with their arguments. All of this comes at a cost of compromising at the same time because there is so much pressure regarding delivering quality arguments, supporting and aiding the court and the judges who are there to even hear the matter. Sometimes, you might just have to wait in court for your matter to come up and not to forget, endure random adjournments. So what I’ve learned is, besides the other virtues I mentioned, patience is extremely unwarranted. So you will develop patience in your day-to-day events of decoding intricate client cases, meeting them and reading their files to assist as to what the real problem is about, so I think it’s an ongoing process.
Every senior of mine told me that there is no shortcut to hard work and success. So you have to work really hard. Law is one industry where you have to be really sure about yourself and that will only come when you know we know how to manage time. Consequently, you will know how to go about things and also understand the provisions. Thus, you must practice regularly.
Q5 Through your LinkedIn handle and internship programmes, you have mentored a lot of law students. How has the experience been and how has interacting with young minds impacted you?
A5 I think my journey on LinkedIn has been phenomenal. I’ve been active there for almost four years and 7000 feet made. When the pandemic hit us, I realised that students were suffering both personally and professionally because of COVID. Having interacted with so many young minds, I knew young entrants at the bar were suffering as well. That’s when I became a regular poster. However, during this time, many people including college committees and think tanks were also reaching out to me for different conferences and webinars. It made me wonder that if young college students were keen enough to do so much for their fellow law students, how can I with around 14 years of experience at the Bar benefit my fraternity and do something for those students and freshers. I realised my restraints of not being able to help each and every student out there with an internship or personal mentorship. That’s when LinkedIn emerged as a source of guiding light. I tried posting everything that I found relevant for law students and professionals to know, focusing on those who were unable to intern at established law firms or law offices based in metro cities.
I always had a very active internship program which translated into virtual internships during the COVID era. I engage in open discussions with anyone and everyone I’m interacting with anybody-be it my colleague or someone younger than me because I believe that we have something to learn from everybody and in the profession of law. So I think learning is a never-ending process, and if you’re open to the idea of learning, you will enjoy this journey. The idea behind sharing posts is whether I can write something positive and worthwhile, something which can motivate the readers to do things for the betterment of society. That’s my mantra and once you are a practicing lawyer, once you have an active thought process, I don’t think you have to think long and hard to talk. As lawyers, we learn to work as unto the Lord. We are trained to be articulating our approach. We are trained to read things in a very short span of time. So writing a post becomes less daunting. Moreover, I think people on this platform are very professional and very intelligent.
Q6 With a majority of the curriculum having been shifted online during the pandemic, students have suffered a setback in their legal studies and missed out on significant practical exposure. How do you believe can students make up for this by themselves?
A6 I think one thing that we need to realize is one doesn’t have to make up for anything because the pandemic did not just attack one law student, it attacked everybody across the world. So everybody in any industry was equally affected by it. It was a catastrophe where people lost their near and dear ones. So the idea is to take every setback as a learning experience or you know, whatever comes in line. Be thankful to the almighty if you’re still healthy and recovered from COVID, that’s one thing that we must definitely ensure in our heads.
Secondly, help others. That is very important. Another thing I realized was that you can survive with the bare minimum in life. When we were hit by the pandemic, we saw people spending judiciously and cutting out on luxuries they thought were necessary for life but actually weren’t. We realised that the simplicity of life lies in having one another as our support system. We got to read about people helping others without knowing. I hope this sense of humanity shall be carried forward to the legal industry or any other industry in general. You know, there’s this helping mindset of one another item that is very important and.
When it comes to young students or those who graduated, I would just say that the profession of law is a long journey where you’re still considered young at the age of 40 so there’s a long way to go. Nothing to worry about there.
Q7 How do you think can one cope with repetitive rejection at law firms despite being qualified?
A7 Rejection from a law firm is not equivalent to breaking up with a partner. You are not in a romantic but in a corporate setup here. It’s a business house. So if our business house is saying we can’t take you, there must be some commercial reason for not accepting a candidate. Either the slots might not be open, or they may have a particular preference for certain law schools, or they may be looking for a little more experienced candidate. So I would say keep trying. You always get a break somewhere. You know, it’s not like your marriage is going through a rocky period or your boyfriend or girlfriend left you.
Everybody gets rejected sometime or the other. I remember when I was applying, many times I did not receive a response, while sometimes I was politely refused an internship stating unavailability of slots. So that’s the part and parcel of life. It has happened to the people before, it is going to happen to the people after us and it is going to happen to all of us while we are working.
Embrace this phase and prepare yourself for the better rather than being bitter. Spend time analysing if the interview went wrong or whether you need a stronger CV. Prepare a To-Do list of different organisations you can approach for an internship- this could be an international organization, a government office, an NGO or other law firms, there are many avenues. You might even come to a conclusion that you wish to go for higher studies. This is, I believe, the right time to pause and reflect and improve for your next endeavour.
Keep working silently and on yourself. Keep reading as much as possible-not just your coursebooks but any fiction or nonfiction book that may interest you. Stay dedicated to enhancing your knowledge. I think it always helps at some point in your life.
Q8 The harsh reality of many law schools mushrooming in the country is that young students have big dreams but get no guidance on how to go about it. As a result, the never-ending inclination towards students from top law schools prevails. How can this disturbing chain be broken?
A8 There’s a saying that the grass is always greener on the other side. I get interns from across the country from both national law universities and regular law schools. Firstly, a lot of students and their guardians are concerned about the increasing number of fees- irrespective of if you’re in a National Law University or a private university letter. Secondly, a lot of people are running for the same job. An average law school might have 200 or 300 students in one batch. Naturally, a firm can recruit, say, only ten candidates at the beginning or end of the financial year. Consequently, the pool still remains the same. You’re still hiring candidates who are fresh graduates on the last set of 5-10 firms that have a total of 100 openings. This is a disturbing fact.
I think the placement committees of the law school, Bar Council of India or the HRs rather have centralized data and take up the initiative of specifying bluntly that there is a limited scope in the market as compared to the influx of graduates. In this case, law students may admit fewer students and compromise on their fees, but that’s a far-fetched thing.
In today’s day and age, students are already aware at the time of purchasing a prospective before preparing for an entrance. At that point in time, they’re already aware of the distinction between good law schools and the “not so good” ones. If you already know that you’re going to suffer in the struggle, should you choose that law school that will make your struggle 10 times harder? Take a decision that is not life-altering. Take a decision with open lines. At the end of the day, it’s not just law, any good engineering or medical organisation would not want to hire people with poor grades or an average CV to their own detriment. There is a belief that students from good colleges have been prepared well for the professional world- theoretically and practically.
So the simple answer is to work on your strengths. God forbid if you get into a law school that does not have a high ranking, do not lose hope and keep interning and learning. There are many lawyers who will guide you and help you build your abilities. If you are good at your job, the partner of the firm or your seniors will rely on you and on your ability to get the job done whether it be good research skills or what you can bring to your client on the table. All those things go a very long way. I think this is something law schools should also teach you.