Retired Supreme Court judge Justice Abhay S Oka recently urged law students to consider taking up litigation as a career choice..While addressing students of National Law School of India University, Bengaluru (NLSIU) at an orientation session held on July 2, he said,"Practicing before our traditional courts is five-star social work. Why do I say five-star social work? Because if you are successful - and young bright minds like you are bound to be successful - you earn a lot. And while earning a lot, you can do a lot of pro bono work. You can appear in legal aid cases. You can defend poor people who are languishing in jail and see that their rights under Article 21 are made available to them. You can work for various charitable organisations which are doing great work in our country for the poor and downtrodden. So, it's a great opportunity for you to do social work to give back to the society while you earn handsomely."He noted that the addition of good lawyers to the legal system is crucial to improving the quality of justice from courts."Ultimately, if we have brilliant lawyers practicing before traditional courts, it will improve the quality of our justice delivery system. Quality of justice rendered by the courts…depends on the quality of the Bar…The success or failure of the legal system always depends on the lawyers...therefore if you become part of the traditional legal profession, you serve the cause of justice," he explained..The former Supreme Court judge recounted that a career in law used to be viewed as an afterthought earlier. However, this approach has changed over time, he said."Private law schools came up, and the entire face of legal education has undergone change. Therefore, I always tell when I visit any National Law School that you belong to a privileged generation of law students, where you have such beautiful facilities," he added.He, however, cautioned that litigation can be challenging work."If you become a trial lawyer, you have to be a very skillful cross-examiner. And cross-examination is a very fascinating thing. Cross-examination is not about raising your voice, as you see in most of the films. Cross-examination is something which requires you to make the witness comfortable and get the answers which you want from the witness. Appearing before the constitutional courts like High Court and Supreme Court is very challenging.".Commenting on his two-decade career as a judge, Justice Oka added,"I practiced for almost 20 years in the Bombay High Court. First two years in trial court and thereafter in the Bombay High Court. And I worked as a judge of three different courts - Bombay High Court, Karnataka High Court and Supreme Court, for 21 years, 8 months and 25 days. I can tell you from my own experience that the work satisfaction you get as a judge cannot be compared with the work satisfaction you get as a lawyer.".Justice Oka went on to flag concerns that a paucity of legal research has resulted in the ineffective implementation and misuse of laws."Teaching and research in law is a very important avenue available to you and open to you," he added while encouraging students to also consider academic or policy work as serious professional tracks..During a question-and-answer session that followed his address, the retired judge also acknowledged the public trust deficit in courts today. He added that young lawyers can play an important role in restoring faith in the judiciary. "I always said on public platforms during (the) last 15 years that yes, our system is facing a crisis of credibility. If our system is facing a crisis of credibility, brilliant minds like must take it as a challenge. Ultimately, if our legal system is not going to improve, if our legal system is not going to render justice to the common man, what is the use of having a legal system? That is where there is relevance of people like you. That's a challenge."
