"A Lawyer Should Become a Problem Solver, A Conflict Manager. Litigation is Only A Subset of Lawyering Skills: Justice L Nageswara Rao

"A lawyer should become a problem solver, a conflict manager. Litigation is only a subset of lawyering skills," said Justice L Nageswara Rao on Saturday while pondering over the possible opportunities and challenges that lawyers may face in the post-modern era.  

Justice Rao was speaking at a lecture on the topic 'Post Modern Lawyering - Opportunities and Challenges' organized by Kerala Law Academy and CG3 to mark Dr N Narayanan Nair's first memorial.

The Supreme Court Judge began his speech by differentiating between a lawyer and an advocate. While a lawyer is a law graduate, an advocate is a person registered under the Advocates Act and has a license to appear in courts, he pointed out. But generally, lawyers are often associated with advocates and these words are interchangeably used. 

However, Justice Rao promoted the idea that lawyering might be of more significance in the post modern era.

The Judge proceeded to recall and determine the evolution of the legal profession over the last 40 years. He recalled how when he joined the profession, lawyers of his current age were mostly people who reached the field since they could not get into any other occupation. Justice Rao also clarified that this was the norm back then and that there may have been exceptions. 

"Lawyers of my age when I joined the profession were people who got into the profession because they couldn't get into any other profession. That was the norm. They may have been people who were serious about legal education but it was unusual back then."

The Judge also recalled how in that period, a lawyer was given utmost respect by the clients. The petition, the submissions and the strategy were decided by the lawyer and the client had no say in these processes whatsoever. 

"The client had no say; they blindly followed whatever the lawyer said. And my practical experience is that most of the lawyers often experimented on their clients due to their lack of learning."

However, with time, much has changed in the relationship between lawyers and clients. Clients have now become active participants in their disputes and they involve themselves in the decision-making process along with the lawyer, he observed. Justice Rao also commented that this has resulted in apparent changes in the strategies adopted by lawyers practising on the civil and criminal side over the years, which he remarked, is a positive development.

"It's like the client is involving himself in the resolution of his own dispute, thereby leaving him more satisfied with the outcome."

Justice Rao then moved on to highlight that a lawyer should always know his life is a life of learning. There is no place for a half-baked advocate in the legal profession if he is true to his conscience, he said. 

The lecture then correlated the legal profession by itself as the way to public service. The Judge remarked that the legal profession is not the livelihood of a lawyer and that his/her duty was to uphold the law, and that is why they are described as the foot soldiers of the Constitution. He added that to win the confidence of the litigant public in the institution, they have to be assured of a speedy and economic resolution of their disputes and impartial dispensation of justice.

In this context, Justice Rao moved on to the concept of alternate dispute resolution (ADR) to launch his proposition that in the era of post modern lawyering, aspirants of the legal profession may have to branch out and find other ways of lawyering apart from traditional litigation. 

"While talking about post-modern lawyering, I foresee a situation where a growing number of lawyers would have to find diverse methods of lawyering not only for public service but also for their survival."

One such method, he pointed out, which has been advocated is Dispute Resolution Scheme. Justice Rao reminded the legal community that a person who argues matters in courts is only discharging one of the lawyer's duties. A lawyer and advocate should not be restricted to find solutions by litigating in court, he asserted. 

Justice Rao gave examples of how matters get worse when they reach the court in litigation, particularly in service and matrimonial cases while urging lawyers to start analysing the dispute before deciding to take it to court straight away. He opined that litigation often unnecessarily drifts the parties away from each other by complicating the dispute and bringing in irrelevant issues between them. Lawyers and advocates have to undergo a change in the foreseeable future, he said. 

"Lawyers would survive only when they step away from litigation and courts and become problem solvers."

The Supreme Court Judge also recollected an article where they predicted that there might come a time when a courtroom may not exist anymore and where everything would be done online. Therefore, he encouraged the youngsters who are looking ahead to change with the times.

Technology is indispensable; digital literacy cannot be avoided, he emphasised. 

The Judge then talked about another aspect which plays a crucial role in post modern lawyering; legal education. Since future lawyers are moulded in law schools, he opined that change should begin here. Legal instruction has to take into account that local and national borders no longer significantly influence how a matter is to be litigated, he said. 

"Accordingly, law students should be trained to approach issues of law not only from a local lens. Law schools should provide education in a core curriculum but to produce people who can successfully deliver legal services, they should go beyond core legal training. Law schools should encourage experimentation and diversity. Law schools have to recognise learning about non-legal substantive issues is equally important. One will be able to best aid a client if they have a better idea of the subject matter."

While commenting on specializing, Justice Rao noted that lawyers coming out of Kerala to Delhi have branched out to specialised fields of law and that they are doing extremely well in their chosen fields. Therefore, he concluded that the only way a post-modern lawyer can survive is by being innovative and finding out what is the future of law. 

He motivated post modern lawyers to look ahead and not be stuck in what the lawyers in the 1960s were doing.Times have changed. People have to change their mindsets and follow new techniques of lawyering, he concluded.