It is evident from previous chapters that our justice system is premised on existence of right or liability. It means one can approach court if his right is violated or about to be violated. It is to be noted that approaching court doesn’t mean physical appearance. In adversarial method of adjudication, the role of judge is not active but to act upon version placed on either side. It shall be reminded that reporting grievance and getting remedy from the court is not a post man job or message transmitter affair. It is a multifarious activity and for this reason the activity of placing of version of the client before the court and getting remedy from the court is called as science and art of highest grade. This seemingly simplified activity involves variety of duties and following few are amongst them:
1) Conversion of human problem into a legal problem.
2) Knowledge and wisdom in application of laws to the real human problems to get the desired result.
3) Skill of ascertaining facts through the client so as to bring them within or outside the fold of right or offence and ability of processing in the court of law so as to prove or disprove it.
4) Proving or disproving the case with legally relevant and admissible evidence with utmost credibility with the aid of competent persons.
5) Coordinating and convincing various individuals including judge to reach our goal. It is quite often told that in our justice system 90% of the fate of our case depends upon judge and 9% upon facts and remaining 1% law.
6) In this entire long drawn process ensuring and sustaining the faith of the client about the possibility of securing justice is also a tough challenge.
It is crystal clear from the above that system demands great many things from the trial lawyer. Of which, understating human being stands first and the reason he is meant to resolve human problems with the aid of other imperfect and self-centered human beings. It must be mentioned that before we understand others, we shall understand ourselves. We must have clear idea about ourselves i.e, our strengths and limitations i.e, personality and landscape with which we have to operate. It helps us identify defects and develop necessary skills and knowledge. If we don’t understand our defects, it will be magnified by opposite party and he will take manifold advantage and ultimately we do more harm and injustice to cause of our party. In this connection it must be noted that in the modern age the war zone is converted into court room. As such in accessibility to justice is a serious threat to harmonious, peaceful co-existence and vibrant democracy. The reason is person whose right is not remedied would wish to his resolve problem by illegal means and if this remains unchecked chaos and confusion would become order of the day and finally it would turn into revolution. All the above suggests successful democracy mandates lawyer with astounding personality, skills, values and qualities. Now let us turn to those qualities:
Client interaction, Choosing Legal forum, Art of Drafting, Art of Adducing evidence and conducting Cross-examination, Art of submitting arguments, Attitude towards Judge, Art of dealing with colleague lawyers & Bar, Art of Handling Court staff and others, Art of handling Case, Reading and Organizing Case file and reading court docket.
CLIENT INTERACTION:
Well begin is half done. Lawyer’s job is a matter of trust. The first task of a lawyer shall be to ensure long lasting faith in the mind of client about his ability and integrity in discharging duties.
Make out a case: The first duty of a lawyer is to make out a case. The term making out a case means converting wounded human emotion into a legally remedied solution. To put it otherwise, court is meant to solve only legal problems. It means those emotions which resulted violation of legal rights declared by law of the land can only be resolved by courts. For this purpose lawyer shall have clarity about various legal rights and duties especially those which are more frequently violated in the area of his practice and place of practice. Further, it is the duty of the advocate to ascertain from the client various tools that would aid the proof of the violation of legal right or duty.
Knowledge of law and Law of evidence: In order to do make out a proper case and ensure success lawyer must have a grand idea about various rights under which problem of the client falls and various institutions that redress the legal grievances. More importantly robust understanding of law of evidence is very essential. The reason is facts can be proved before court with relevant and admissible facts.
Creating proper climate: It means client must come out with facts (logical or illogical) so that client can speak anything without any hesitation or fear in mind so much so that as if he is speaking to himself. A lawyer can ensure such mental climate if he possesses personality of accepting peaks and depths, summits and shallows, which are quite common in any one’s life. In other words lawyer shall not be an either a condemner of vices or virtues in a human being. Further, every lawyer in India must know that no person approach a client unless he has a genuine grievance. A comment made by well known scholar that in India docket exclusion is more than docket explosion fortifies this fact. It must also be mentioned that person approaches a Lawyer only when his beliefs, values and feelings are wounded and soul is disturbed though what actually he lost and seeking for is in terms of material terms (property or liberty or remedial action). Therefore, it is all the more important for a lawyer possess empathy, impeccable integrity, ability, courage and court craft so to give relief to his clients. This would help to properly present grievance or provide effective defense.
Good listener: To properly appreciate the violation of legal right or duty, lawyer has to be good listener. The term good listener means giving a patient hearing and properly understands the facts narrated by the client. In fact a patient hearing also gives a soothing touch to wounded soul and a mental relief. It is not advisable for a lawyer to hear facts with an ear of critique or commentator. Listening patiently and understanding rightly would not solve the problem advocate must express his doubts genuinely and clarify missing links honestly so as to remedy the grievance through the process of law. It must be noted that any question lawyer puts shall be such that they are only meant to elicit further details and drive the client to come out with true facts.
Note taking: Lawyer shall jot down the entire important points client spells out in the course of interaction. The lawyer for this purpose shall maintain diary. This sort of activity encourages client to come out with more facts and enhance faith in the lawyer.
Conclusion: All these qualities and skills would enable lawyer acquire a vision how take the case to its logical end. If client can perceive these things in his advocate a sort of confidence, if not love, develop so much so that client doesn’t mind, even if case is lost. After all, success or failure at court of justice depends on variety of factors not only on advocate skills and knowledge alone.