Super lawyers are the need of the future. This view came out strongly at Lex Concurcus, the annual conference of Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) organized in New Delhi by its Office of Career Services.
Explaining the theme in his welcome speech, Professor (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, Founding Vice Chancellor, O. P. Jindal Global University & Dean, JGLS said, “In this time of innovative technology and artificial intelligence, the future of the Indian Judiciary system lies on the hands of super lawyers”.He also encouraged budding lawyers present to broaden their spectrum as legal system now consists not only of classical lawyers, but legal entrepreneurs too, having corporate legal firms of their own.
The forum reflected on how the future of the legal system is shaping up through the impact of technology and innovations and what the budding lawyers need to do about it. Pavan Duggal, Founder, Pavan Duggal Associates & Head, Artificial Intelligence Law Hub expressed hope about the quantum jump the judiciary system will be taking in the next ten years. “With Artificial Intelligence (AI), block chain and Internet of Things (IoT) changing the world around, the judiciary is bound to evolve dramatically by 2030. And so will be the demand of service from lawyers. With all the information and technological support at hand, the client will already have the data analysis and insights. They would require lawyers to guide them through it and provide necessary support. Hence the future lawyers need to be super lawyers who will be analyst, broadcaster and lawyer, all rolled into one.” He remarked.
Badrinath Durvasula, Vice President & General Counsel, HCC Ltd defined ‘super lawyers’ as the ones who deliver what they commit, with perfection. Talking about the nature of the executive, legislature, judiciary and regulatory segments of the system, he advised “The would-be lawyers will now have to be ‘Jack of all as well as masters of all’ who can win through the survival of the fittest in this era of invention, innovation and realization.”
In the era of big data the issue of privacy as a fundamental right was also a major focus of the deliberations. Bharat Chugh, Partner Designate, L&L Partners observed how the privacy of consumers are being compromised as the big data and algorithm are being used in every sphere to get insights, take business decisions, make recruitments and provide goods and services. While Dhruv Suri, Partner, PSA talked about how social media and voice assistants are picking up information from people and sharing them with third party companies. “The recent data protection bill needs to be made into a proper legislation to address this breach of privacy,” he remarked. Jaideep Reddy, Leader, Nishith Desai Associates on the other hand seemed optimistic about the new system that allows people to have a private cloud over their private information to access, which the third party companies need permission from them. He also suggested the usable privacy projects that can be helpful for data protection.
Prof. Anuranjan Sethi, Assistant Dean (Careers), JGLS said that Lex Concursus is an annual conference conceived to bring together new age legal practitioners and law students to contemplate over the future of legal practice in India.
The other sessions of the day discussed about artificial intelligence transforming legal profession, the much awaited sports law in India and alternative dispute resolution.
The daylong conference was well attended by members of the judiciary, legal firms, advocates and legal experts.