This article has been written by Lalit Ajmani, a practising advocate in Delhi.

It is not a twisted fact that the English is often considered as a parameter to judge an individual. Moreover, the need to become efficient on this subject can hardly be doubted. Our school system has many flaws, but this system has rightly emphasised on the importance of the foreign language. How successfully our school system has been doing is a matter of personal analysis. Nonetheless, the journey to learn and adopt this language has never been easy for most of us.

On these lines, when we talk about lawyers, they seem as the masters of this foreign subject. Lawyers astonish the society with their fluency, command and what not when it comes to the usage of this alien language. Lawyers have not only embraced the beauty of the language, but also become the experts in this arena.

It is an axiom that language is a tool of the lawyers which they exploit for professional needs. The experts often get bewildered after hearing the widely known facts from the costly tongue of a lawyer. It was the battery of lawyers who was able to prove and justify the cruel decision to impose emergency and again the lawyers assisted the Hon’ble Apex Court to come save the constitution. 

The profession of lawyers is being driven by language. Throughout their careers, lawyers keep reading, writing and drafting various kinds of documents and arguing cases in the fashion which suit the welfare of their clients. The arduous job is not easy and it requires a lot of effort and genuine application of the intellect. And due to this tumultuous job, lawyers are rightly portrayed as experts of the foreign language. But every tale has more than one aspect and the matter in hand is not an exception. The truth has hardly consisted of one facet and it’s the untold facet which makes the truth interesting.

Nowadays, the author is witnessing that few professionals have started relying heavily upon the old/ existing drafts. The passion of doing something out of the box is getting rare with the passage of time. Not only this, while drafting, the professionals often don’t appreciate the essential aspects of drafting and peculiar requirements of the case in hand. Resultantly, the professionals end up paraphrasing the old draft which often hampers the case. This practice is not unusual, and being followed consciously and unconsciously by more than just a few. However, the quality delivered by the many lawyers can hardly be challenged and always appreciated. The aforesaid issue signifies something which is slowly, but gradually starts affecting the creativity and the originality in the work of the experts.

Today, the professionals are supposed to prepare more than one final draft on a daily basis and Sundays often fail to make any exception. In such a scenario, it is utmost difficult for any professional to do the work without the help of existing drafts. Nonetheless, there are ample missed opportunities where the professionals have the opportunity to justify their expertise. 

The issue is not limited to drafting only, the problem has already curtailed the creativity in pleadings. Additionally, the scope of creativity is now limited to find new synonyms; and the words which are not very easy to pronounce. The urge to find unusual words often takes the lawyers to the pages of lexicons and tomes of other languages. But sadly, the originality and genuineness could hardly see the daylight. The same style of writing, pleading, drafting is being used by different lawyers who don’t even think in a similar fashion. 

However, the requirement to maintain the uniformity is not being challenged. The voluminous work can’t be done in the absence of uniformity. But, it doesn’t mean that the original ways and ideas can’t be honored. The aforementioned serpentine activity is limiting the creativity and killing the beauty of language. Thus, it is important to revisit the said practice. 

It’s always better to propose or scrounge a solution, rather than merely contemplating and discussing the problem. The issue in hand can be solved by slight adjustment. Additionally, inspiration can be drawn from the works of the judges.

Judges who handle many matters on a daily basis have never failed to impress the society by their rich judgments. Judges keep showing delivering justice in a beautiful manner. The judges’ daily achievement shows that the new thoughts and ideas can very well be appreciated by pen. Judges of various courts take a lot of pain to craft the law in the aesthetic manner. There are countless judgments which are known for the way in which they are beautifully woven by the language.

The time can’t be more appropriate to revisit the practice and take a much needed lesson. And yes, the decision to stand on one’s line of thinking and using the tool in a novel manner may attract critics, but the worthy attempts often attract the fear of being criticized.