Interview Series 04 – Reforms in Legal Education : In Conversation with Tanuj Kalia

(This is the fourth in the series of Interviews that JILS will publish as part of its Interview Series on Reforms in Legal Education)

Mr. Tanuj Kalia is a 2013 NUJS Graduate and the Founder of Lawctopus (2010), the first of its kind to-go website for law students and aspirants across the country. He is the author of the book ‘Law as a Career’, which has been published by LexisNexis. He is a prolific blogger and writer. He has previously written for Legally India and Bar and Bench and won the ‘Best Blogger in India’ award in a competition organised by Legally India. In the lockdown, using the forum of Lawctopus as an online law school, he has been offering multiple online courses and trying to train a lot of law students to learn practical skills to survive in the legal world and plans to start online learning in all forms for law students in the future.

We would like to thank Rohit Sharma and Yathansh Joshi in helping in preparing the questionnaire for Tanuj Sir.

The link to Special Issue Volume 10, themed on Reforms in Legal Education, can be found here.

 

Question 1 :

Sir, being one of the most path breaking professionals in the legal world today, could you describe to us your journey from being a law student at NUJS to one of the most well-reached legal-tech entrepreneurs in the country? Also, what role and help did brand NUJS had to play in your journey?

That’s very generous praise, thank you! My journey from being a law student to a legal entrepreneur is a meandering one. In the first year of law school, IPR was the subject I was interested in, and in 2nd year of law school, it became family law and mediation. I found litigation too adversarial for my nature, and corporate law, a bit too capitalist. I had always liked writing, which led me to be an active member of this Orkut community called ‘Legal Internships in India’. Around 3rd year of law school, I also happened to freelance for LegallyIndia, and won the ‘Best Blogger in India Award’ organized by LI. Kian Ganz’s (LI’s editor) feedback on my write-ups, the money I earned in the prize, meant that I had the skills and the moolah to experiment a bit. 

The idea of a ‘website for law students’ germinated as I was undergoing a long bed-rest thanks to the Chicken Pox disease I contract while at NUJS, so maybe that’s the role brand Kolkata played. Coming back to NUJS, I pitched this idea to a few of my close friends, some of whom came on board and some of whom, didn’t. We started it in a cool manner, hosting meetings in the nearby Cafe Coffee Day, and playing with tech, till the website crashed. 

NUJS is a liberal college. It gave me the freedom to do and explore things. The fact that I could pass the subjects easily and that the classes didn’t go on and on till evenings (as I know they do in some colleges), made it easier for experiments to happen. The fact that the library had an AC, and good internet, helped too. 

 

Question 2 :

Sir, we are aware that Lawctopus provides online courses on various fields and topics to law students and those interested, and it receives registrations for up to 600-800 people. Sir, in that regard, what do you believe is the scope of Online Courses in the future in the arena of legal education and learning in India, taking into account all practical realities and requirements of the profession?

It’s surprising that it took a pandemic to tell us what the future for education and work could mean. The flipped classroom model has been there since the Khan Academy made it popular and it’s surprising that it took so long for the world to follow. 

Online courses can mean that our students are taught only by the best of the professors. The best professors on say, Trademarks, can potentially reach every law student in India. It’s feasible. It would take a proactive Bar Council of India (talk about wishes!) to do that. In-house faculty in law schools can play the role of a mentor more while letting the delivery of lectures be done through the online mode by the best of the experts.

I’d also like to see the return of the practitioner into the class-room. Pre-COVID, a good practitioner might have thought of a seminar as a waste of time with all the travel and related activities involved. Now you can do it over Zoom, with some preparation of course. It saves time, is infinitely scalable, and in many ways replicates the lecture method. Simple tools like the screen-share option means that the students can engage closely with a document/draft and watch as the lawyer explains or works through it. A good faculty, and we’ve seen that in Lawctopus Courses, can even do a Socratic Method type class through Zoom. Want small-group conferences or personalized group interactions? Try Zoom’s break-out rooms. 

The potential of the online is no less than revolutionary. I have been a sceptic myself. I never thought one could replicate the magic of the ‘college’ (coming together of things) in an online space. After a student called courses of Lawctopus Law School a ‘warm’ learning experience, I had to change my opinion.

 

Question 3 :

Sir, while we see that numerous students participate and take interest in workshops, seminars and courses, be it online or offline, most of the times the approach and underlying objective is to gain the certificate or the CV value that partaking in the course would give them. However, since you have managed and conducted so many successful courses, what do you propose or suggest should be the method/approach of the instructors of the courses to increase actual engagement of those enrolled in courses in order to enhance learning and discussion rather than making it a certificate acquiring exercise only?

I think the first step is information; the student should know that a mere certificate won’t take her anywhere. The knowledge, skills, inspiration, and the community one gains from the ‘course’ are things that are exponentially more valuable. Students should be told that the CV is not a collection of achievements, but a professional expression of yourself. You might jazz up your achievements in your CV, but in your career, your self will show-up.

A certificate is like the cherry on the cake. Most students mistake it for the cake. 

The second step is to actually make the course ‘engaging’. My definition of ‘engagement’ is that the course should ‘involve’ the student. Just the recorded lecture or the reading module is just content and calling it an ‘online course’ is a travesty. What do you do after the content is consumed? 

What sort of assignments would best make the student learn the subject? How should it be evaluated? What happens in live classes? Do we assume that the students have gone through the recorded content? Assignments, live classes, feedback (both for the student and the faculty) keep the engagement going. 

But the most important fact still remains the ‘human’ element. If the faculty, the team are really motivated to see the student win, it will show in the effort, whether offline or online. This could mean sending Whatsapp voice notes in the middle of the night, to calling up students who have lagged behind for a bit of a pep talk! 

To be interesting, be interested. To be engaging, be engaged. 

 

Question 4 :

Sir, in the present scenario of legal education in India, what do you suggest are the ways in which the distinction that exists between NLU and non-NLU students can be done away with? Although it has come to be diluted to some extent, what are the ways that you suggest that non-NLU students can be provided with similar exposure that NLU students receive?

I think online tools can really show those who matter that the difference is non-existent. If you have a platform with the best educators, a robust ‘testing’ platform which ensures ‘meritorious’ ranking (though there’s a lot of privilege in what we understand of merit), and a related job-board, we’d have demolished any facade of a brand that the letters N, L, U, might have.

However, I’d like to see non-NLU students, organize, educate, and agitate more. A lot of these colleges are plagued by apathetic bureaucracy. Young people should demolish that (of course, with some intelligent planning). I think we undervalue the coming together of a cohort for a self-directed learning initiative. We do ‘group-studies’ for CLAT or exam preparations, but I’d like to see more student-lead (faculty mentored) groups around everything that’s around law, politics, society, and life: book clubs, contract drafting labs, gender and law groups, blogging ninjas, and more! There’s so much to be and do! I think students needn’t be ‘provided’ exposure; let them free and give them the right environment to create their own journeys. 

 

Question 5 :

Sir, a lot of law students across the country complain that the due to the mandatory attendance requirement, they are not able to devote adequate time for co-curricular activities, which form an important part of their time at law school, and a lot of times teachers also slack in their teaching since they know that students will by and large attend the classes due to the mandatory requirement. Do you think this requirement should be done away with to address these concerns and provide students more leeway to explore and learn in their time at law school?

I am conflicted here.

While students should be free to walk-in and walk-out of lectures and initiatives they find interesting and useful, one should also not underestimate the importance of discipline and even the ability to bear boredom really well.

I might sound old here, but just as teachers need to learn to respect different types of students who might have multiple forms of intelligence, some of which are less easily identifiable or recognized, students too need to learn to respect different forms of delivery of knowledge. 

Even in our behavior as students, sometimes, we tend to respect expressions of privilege more: a suave presentation, glib English, and the like. 

 

Question 6 :

Sir, could you suggest ways in which teachers and students from NLUs could assist and provide help to those in the State Universities and other institutions? Do you think initiatives like training sessions held by NLU faculties for faculties from these institutions would be helpful? What other mechanisms would you suggest?

I think NLUs themselves hardly have quality faculty to speak of. Also, the requirements, challenges, and resources of a State University might be completely different from an NLU. More than academic or technical expertise, our faculty development programs need to focus on the ‘facilitation’ skills of the faculty. 

Adult-learning, and it’s high time that we treat college-going students as adults, needs to be facilitative. These facilitative ways of being, thinking, and doing (strategies, tools, etc.) are more popular in the NGO circles and I’d like to see them become popular in academic spaces. 

One of my best learning experiences at NUJS was the workshop on Gender, Sexuality, and Human Rights organized by OpenSpace and facilitated by Oishik Sircar and Debolina Dutta. At AUD (Ambedkar University Delhi) where I did an MA in Law, Politics, and Society, I saw an expression of these ‘facilitation’ tools though they were limited to the orientation session and the completion session. I’d have liked to see them more in regular classes.

 

Question 7 :

Sir, for a student from a lower tier law college who is interested to enter the market of corporate law and work in firms, what should be the approach that the student must have with regards to internships in the course of their time at Law School?

IF (in caps), the focus is on a corporate law career, it’s crucial that one develops core skills and knowledge required for this. It starts with developing English language writing skills, the ability to present one’s thoughts cogently while speaking, and strong business acumen. The knowledge and skills related to the law, of course, are a given.

I’d like lower-tier law colleges to consider developing a Law Firm School (not my idea) akin to how Legal Aid works, but focusing on corporate and commercial matters as well. Some faculty members and the best local lawyers could function as the ‘partners’ of this law firm, while senior students (4th and 5th year) act as the associates. This would work well to enhance the skills and knowledge-base of the students and would act as a running internship for the students. 

Many colleges are experimenting with opening up the last semester fully for internships or creating internship time-slots in their calendars which are a bit unusual (say July-August, instead of May-June, etc.) and such colleges might consider these ideas as well. 

Generally too, very little of career counselling or support is provided in our institutions viz-a-viz our foreign counterparts. This is a long wish-list, but I hope we take in seriously sooner than later.

 

Question 8 :

Sir, what do you think is the responsibility of law schools towards its students in such times when students are not on campus and are at home? Especially for law schools which do not offer internship opportunities from the platform of the college itself, what role do you think such universities can perform?

Law schools have the same responsibility as the ‘home’ of the student has. The shift from a school to a college is an unsettling experience because the student is suddenly thrown into an impersonal world and the faculty needs to take up the role of senior mentors and guides. 

Law schools should be a safe and a brave space, where the student is able to fully be and fully express herself. Even in times when things are online, such spaces can be created. 

Talking of more practical issues, if internships are not happening, law schools should use their machinery and wherewithal to keep students gainfully occupied through webinars, competitions, etc.

 

Question 9 :

Sir, what is your opinion on the recent changes and mode of conducting the CLAT examination? Do you have any suggestions with respect to the same?

I think removing the focus from memorization and law to analysis and logic is a good step forward. It reduces the reliance on coaching institutes (though I am involved with one) and will give us the type of lawyers we need.

 

Question 10 :

Sir, your initiative at Lawctopus has truly been a pioneering one in the legal world and has helped thousands of aspirants and students in their career and beyond. What other advice or suggestions would you like to give to the readers so as to enable them to think on lines and work to contribute in the way you have?

1. Experiment. Run small experiments that your mammalian brain won’t have fear issues with. 
2. If you think you want to be an entrepreneur, always think in terms of ‘How can this be resolved’ instead of ‘This can’t happen because X’.
3. The road not taken is fun, and has less competition. The roads that are taken are safe, and reach the usual destination.