What is the difference between an Advocate and a Lawyer?
This is a common question that that keeps coming up. Being a first year law student it was pretty upsetting on my part that even I couldn’t figure out a perfect definition of disparity between them.
My displeasure was short lived, as Mr. Saurabh Ajay Gupta cleared the air for us first year students at Symbiosis Law School
His perfect words being: An Advocate and a lawyer are both holding a law degree, but an Advocate is registered under the Advocates Act, 1961 with the Bar Council of India and is entitled to practice law in any court in India
Nobody can frame a perfect answer than an advocate himself.
Mr. Saurbh Ajay Gupta who is an advocate on record in the Supreme Court of India and additional advocate general (Punjab), currently working as junior advocate to Mr. Ram Jethmalani, one of most renowned advocate in India. Being a graduate of Symbiosis Law School
What does one require to become a good lawyer? This can only be explained by the major prerequisite of practical training. Lets take the case of a doctor: A doctor may have studied each and every book about the human body and may be well learned in the theoretical knowledge but that will still be termed as conjectural because until he performs practical training on a patient, be it as little as checking the pulse, he cannot be of much use to the society except for parting with his advice. Same thing goes for a lawyer that knowledge of law is not enough until he applies what he has learnt.
A lawyer only becomes a lawyer when he pleads law and the law students can get close to their profession by getting internships and participating in moot courts. These are the two paramount ways for practical training in our field. Mr. Gupta comprehended more on the internship aspect during our five year college term.
His personal opinion on internships being:
“No one teaches you, offers to help you, or keeps you under scrutiny during internships. You need to take the initiative to work, to learn, to perform yourself”
It is as simple as that. Internship is learning what is going on in the real world. Practical procedure requires action and implementation on your part, so more importantly as an intern we should leave our footprints i.e. basically a good impression on the people we’re working under, as Mr. Gupta before joining Mr. Jethmalani was working as an intern under him during his college years.
Further, talking about advocacy: There is a general notion of law students that once out of law school, they’ll only want to practice in the Supreme Court or the High Courts of India and anything below that will be demeaning to their stature. Well this is completely wrong. To be precise, there should be a proper level of accession i.e. one should begin from a district court because all the big cases which reach the higher courts originate at the lower courts. To make this more interesting, Mr. Gupta stated that most interesting murder cases trial proceedings start from the lower courts itself therefore all of us should be well versed in all fields of law, and hence should be acquainted with the procedure of filing cases in the courts and their respective jurisdictions.
The session ended with some classic quotes stated by Abraham Lincoln being
"A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade" which further extends to
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
By which Mr. Gupta made his opinion clear on ethical practice which basically meant always advocating a good cause.
Hope the first year interns are having a nice time at their respective internships and learning as well as gaining experience along with it.
Ajitesh Singh, SLS NOIDA
No comments:
Post a Comment