Ignore insults from opponents as it won’t help win case: Ex-CJI

Former Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has advised aspiring lawyers to ignore insults from opponents as it will not help them win a case, and said he has been following this principle after retirement also.

Speaking at the Vishnupant Advant lecture series on ‘The Present and Future of Legal Profession: Opportunities, Challenges and Drawbacks’on Saturday, he said despite producing some of the finest legal minds, our legal education system continues to grapple with fundamental gaps that hinder its ability to meet the demands of the 21st century.

“We are witnessing today a digital explosion, data protection disputes, climate change litigation, online dispute resolution and digital first regulatory frameworks are becoming the new norms,” he said.

“Pragmatically, this means reforming legal education and continuing professional development programmes to foster cross-sectoral expertise. By cross-sectoral expertise, I mean digital law, data privacy, environmental law, cultivating critical reasoning and social empathy, and encouraging collaboration with other professions such as technology experts and social scientists.

“To achieve this vision, law schools and continuing education programmes must anticipate the evolving landscape of legal careers and actively prepare both students and current professions to succeed within it,” he said.

Chandrachud said the curriculum must expand beyond traditional doctrines and procedures to include foundational training in data science, tools and experience designed for technologies and principles of algorithmic accountability.

“Students need to develop skills to assess AI model outputs, detect biases in training data and work collaboratively with software engineers to define tools that uphold constitutional values and human rights standards.

“Moot court exercises could incorporate artificial intelligence adversaries that challenge students to predict algorithmic decisions and formulate compelling arguments to hold automated systems accountable,” he said.

“During my tenure as Chief Justice, I had the great opportunity of unveiling several technological reforms. Reforms that I am happy to report have remedied to a great extent the issues that plague our judiciary. We introduced e-filing of cases available across nearly all states,” he said.

Today, the Supreme Court judges operate virtually in a paperless manner and they are provided with scanned, bookmarked and digitally signed case records which they access, read, annotate and preserve for their reference, Chandrachud said.

He said lawyers should reorientate their identity as “facilitators of justice before everything”, and stressed that ethics should be prioritised.

There is no shortcut to success, and the students of law should be lifelong learners and independent thinkers, he said.

Citing legal luminary Fali Nariman’s advice for lawyers, the former CJI said they should always be honest and responsible with their opinions and avoid sporting the “champ syndrome”. “Law is not a game,” he added.