| Advocacy in Practise

This course seeks to provide students with an understanding of the many roles that an advocate is required to assume during the course of their practice. It is designed with an aim to equip students- to a limited extent- with practical knowledge and skills that are indispensable for litigating lawyers. As a lawyer, one is required to act as counsellor, interrogator, investigator, conciliator, negotiator, and orator. Oftentimes such roles overlap. However, training and preparation for such work is seldom available outside of professional contexts. Even in such contexts, This course aims to fill that gap through extensive clinical exercises interspersed with discussion of relevant academic and practice-oriented literature. It will also be the aim of the course to enable students to identify the values on the basis of which the relationships between lawyers and other participants of the justice delivery system are built. This will be done through discussion of relevant statutory/ethical codes and accompanying academic research.

Upon completion of exercises conceived for this course and reading material prescribed, it is expected that students will become more prepared to deal with major facets of the work of a practising lawyer in India, which include:

(i) Listening to, counselling, and establishing respectful yet effective relationships with Clients;

(ii) Assessing a legal disputes for its essentials and dispensing timely advise;

(iii) Examination of Witnesses in Court;

(iv) Reading, as far as possible, the mood of a court and the basics of oral advocacy;

The course will include visits the High Court of Karnataka and the City Civil Courts on scheduled dates for observation of argument delivery by seasoned counsel, as well as examination of witnesses in a pending trials.

Given the nature of the course, it is recommended that only students with a serious inclination towards dispute resolution and oral advocacy opt for it. Since it is a course that relies heavily on clinical exercises, it may not be able to accommodate more than 15 students.