This article is written by Ramanuj Mukherjee, CEO, LawSikho.

I believe in rigour.

When the rest of the world looks for the short cut, I am ready to put in the hours, do the hard work and take the long road to victory. For me, the ultimate victory is most important, not how difficult it was to get there.

My experience says that the journey is to be relished. And once you get to that milestone, you enjoy it more if you had to fight a hard battle to get there.

Unfortunately, our worst battles are always within. The demons we must conquer and the dragons we must slay all reside inside our head. We are our worst enemies.

We feel lazy when we should go to the gym. We forget important steps when we should not. We do not give enough importance to things where we must and later repent. Our greed prevents us from taking rational decisions. Our pride and ego ruin our relationships and opportunities.

The list of demons is endless. They come one after another.

I have come to the conclusion that the only way to succeed in this battle is to have an army. People who back me up in my battles, do not allow me to sink back into laziness, give in to the lure of being comfortable, snap me out of my stupor if I am being too indisciplined, put some sense of joy into me when I am getting too serious or tattering on verge of depression.

So, rigour. I believe in rigour. The only way things work well for me is through setting up ambitious goals that require a lot of work over a period of time, and a rigorous environment and involvement of other people who are committed as well as incentivized to see me through.

That is how I believe one should work towards becoming a good lawyer or legal strategist as well. Law is vast. The number of skills to master are numerous and varied. You have to learn one thing at a time. And it will take a long time to become proficient.

Be prepared for the long haul.

Now keeping this background in mind, let me tell you why we have 3 months executive certification courses.

I know a lot of people simply do not want to commit to a 1 year course, and therefore wants to do a 3 months course. And those people enroll in 3 months courses no matter what else.

But I recommend these courses only to those whose basic lawyering skills or fundamental legal knowledge is already in place. After that, it is a question of quickly adding a specialized skill.

Say you have to learn contract drafting. I am against offering a 3 months course on contract drafting because it takes more time than that to become proficient at contract drafting, given that we expect you to invest no more than 7-8 hours per week.  

There is a lot of demand for such a 3 months course on contract drafting, and I am probably losing revenue for not offering it. However, we do not want to churn out half baked products and graduates of our courses who do not actually have the skills but got the certificate.

I am not convinced that we can take a newbie and train them to be proficient in contract drafting in 3 months. The time is simply not enough. However, give me 1 year and our curriculum will do wonders for the learner.

So those who are new and learning the basics in any given area of law, I strongly recommend the 1 year diploma courses to them.

However, let’s say you are already good at contract drafting but you want to specifically learn how to draft real estate agreements. I can strongly recommend doing the 3 month long real estate course for that. I am even considering launching a 3 months executive certificate course for technology contracts as well another on Engineering, Procurement and Construction contracts. We could go into further super specialisations such as Oil & Gas contracts too.

It’s no different when it comes to other specializations like criminal litigation or civil litigation. Or IBC, Companies Act etc.

If it is a quick and systematic introduction to a new skill and a body of you are looking for, and you already have some proficiency, 3 months courses are great.

But if you are looking to make a career and uplift your basic legal skills, go for a long course. It takes at least 1 year to begin to get good at these legal subjects.

And remember, you need rigour. And you need to be rigorous over a period of time. In LawSikho courses you will have a number of people working with you to make you successful in your objective. That’s the army you will need behind you.

There is another reason why you may want to take a 3 months course. Let’s say you are not sure about how good our courses are. So you want to take a short course first and then only decide to take a big one.

Not a good idea. You don’t need to do it. We have a refund policy. If you do the course properly and do not find value, we return your money according to this refund policy. Check it out.

Face the demons! Slay the dragons! Victory will be yours. Let us know what are your plans. I will be happy to have a chat with you and guide you. Comment and let me know if you want to talk.

Here are the courses starting in the month of January:-

Diploma courses

Diploma in Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment laws.
Diploma in Advanced Contract Drafting, Negotiation and Dispute Resolution.
Diploma in M&A, Institutional Finance and Investment Laws (PE and VC transactions).
Diploma in Cyber Law, Fintech Regulations and Technology contracts.
Diploma in Entrepreneurship, Administration and Business Laws.

Executive Certificate Courses

Certificate course in Advanced Criminal Litigation & Trial Advocacy.
Certificate course in Advanced Corporate Taxation.
Certificate course in Companies Act.
Certificate course in Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.