In this article, Aakarsh Singh discusses the contributions of Law Students in Legal Profession.
Introduction
The legal profession is full of challenges and hardships but it also contains elements of excitement and opportunities as it deals with society at large so it needs a constant effort from legal professionals for its upliftment and quality.
Judges, lawyers, and other judicial officers continuously work for expanding, interpreting and making every law accessible to a common man who does not know the fundamentals of a legal procedure.
There is one more group which does not affect the legal profession directly though. Their indirect contribution in the legal arena should not be overlooked and that group is of Law Students.
Life of Law Student in Law School
The students pursuing their five-year law degree course or three-year degree course are said to be law students. For a law student, doing well in academics isn’t enough. Extra-curricular activities like Debating, Mooting, Model United Nations, writing blogs or research papers hold equal relevance.
After doing all this law student though not directly but indirectly makes huge contributions to the legal profession.
In my law school, there are many seniors which being law student had done exemplary work thus made a significant contribution directly to the legal profession. A 4th year student in my school with our Criminal law teacher had published a book on IPC thus making his contributions in imparting knowledge to other law students and this same student had collaborated with another teacher of CLAT (Common Law Admission Test), had published another book named Clat Essentials and helped various CLAT aspirants on achieving admission in their desired law school.
Law Students contributes to the legal profession in many ways and some are discussed below:-
Participating in Debates
Law Students through participating in various debate competitions contributes to the legal profession. By participating in debate students develop confidence and overcome their fear of public speaking thus making themselves ready for arguing in courts especially in the High Courts and the Supreme Court in front of highly qualified judges and against well-learned opposing counsels.
Debating also helps a student in developing his rhetorics and analytical reasoning. Debating does not only makes one a good speaker but also teaches one to be patient and a good listener two of the most desired qualities of being a successful lawyer as it requires to listen to your opponent for rebuttals.
By participating in debates a law student becomes aware of various subjects which can be linked with law thus increasing the ambit of law. For example, Environment protection which was earlier was merely a moral duty of state or any individual but now it is part of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
Participating in Moot Court Competitions
To know how participating in moot court competitions, a law student contributes to the legal profession, firstly, we have to know what is Moot Court
What is Moot Court
Any law student will be familiar and must know what a moot court is because it is one of the first things a law student learns in law school. Basically, moot court is a mock trial which tests a law student skills which are required to become a lawyer.
But before the oral round, there is a herculean task of memo making that is making written pleadings about what a law student is going to argue in their oral rounds.
Framing arguments is not a piece of cake but it required an extensive research of weeks that is from various books, statutes and case laws. The facts given in a problem should be at fingertips of a participant thus training his memory which is a most potent tool of a lawyer as it is well known that a lawyer heavily depends on his memory. Memo making test the character of a law student like it tests his perseverance, attitude, concentration etc.
Contribution by Moot Court Participation
As already mentioned in the preceding paragraph by participating in moot court competition the true character of a law student is tested it means that those qualities of a law student are checked that are required to be present in a law student if he wants to be successful in the legal profession.
Moot court not only tests these qualities but also instills them into the participant. Through participating in moot court not only students learn how to argue in the courtroom, how to differ from the judge while respecting his authority and how to rebut the arguments forwarded by the opposing counsels by maintaining the decorum of the court. Any derogation from this may lead to contempt of court. The moot court instills discipline and teaches the code of conduct of law student and when they start their practice in real courts, they will be disciplined and make legal profession more coordinated and productive.
The moot court also teaches a law student about court etiquettes, manners, dressing style, the body language of a law student when arguing and it teaches to always be polite and calm when judges ask any questions or raise any query. This makes them ready for their practice in law.
Research during the memo making not only helps in academics but developing requisite concentration and habit which will be very important as researching skills is a backbone of the legal profession.
Participating in other activities like Model United Nations(MUN), Writing blogs or research paper and doing Internships
Participating in MUNs
It is imperative from the name only that it deals with United Nations. In this, various students who took part will be representing a nation who put forward their nation’s view on a particular topic, and it also has one Secretary which manages the proceedings. It also requires research and speaking skills and it makes student to take interest in various social and political issues not only at national level but at international level thus making them more aware and vigilant about what’s happening around the world thus increasing their knowledge base, as a result, increasing the quality of these future lawyers and judges. It also helps in comparing laws applicable in various countries for example If a student from India is representing England he will do research with respect to the law applicable in England. So, MUN enables a law student to be well-aware of basis laws applicable in other countries, it increases the quality of legal profession as it will include the best part of foreign laws also.
Writing blogs and Research Papers
Writing blogs or research paper improves one’s writing skills, concentration level, and researching skills. It shows that if a law student is not good in speaking because he has some medical disability so it is not like as it is the end of world for him because apart from being a lawyer or judge there are various other career options which are open for him if he has certain requisite skills, for example, writing skills he can be a professional blogger thus making law more accessible for general public who cannot easily understand the technical nature of a particular statute.
For example, The Central government last year had implemented Goods and Services act now apart from the person who studies tax like Chartered Accountant or tax attorneys but the general public would not know anything about GST a blogger can help them through his blog.
So, writing blogs and research articles not only beautifies Curriculum Vitae but also can help a law student to start a legitimate career in it thus making more reading material available for other law students, lawyers, judges and other legal professionals and making common man aware about the law in simple and lucid language.
Internships
Through internships, a law student directly contributes to the legal profession. An internship involves fieldwork. Moreover, it exposes a person to the practical aspect of law and a law student deals with the real problem, not hypothetical problems, as an intern, a law student works under lawyers, judges or legal firms which gives a law student to a level of exposure of the real legal world and the work done by the law student in their internship will help him to have a gist of professionalism which makes it little easier for him when he became a legal professional.
Organising various committees and Discussion groups
In law school, various committees and discussion groups are organized. In these groups, various topics related to current affairs legal or non-legal issues and an individual is allowed to speak on these issues which helps in forming his opinion on it. A lawyer must have an opinion on any topic which is related to his or her work and these discussion groups helps to form it.
Conclusion
As it is being discussed in detail how a law student can contribute to the legal profession while he or she is in a law school. We have also seen how by participating in various extra-curricular activities a law student not only benefit himself/herself but also indirectly contribute his or her part in legal profession thus increasing both quality and competitiveness in the legal field thus improving the legal profession altogether. Activities which are mentioned above are not exhaustive. There are many other ways through which a law student can contribute in the legal field like through participating in free legal-aid camps, teaching underprivileged children in their free time as doing social work is very important in the legal profession.
