This Thursday’s activity marked the Guest Lecture by Ms. Tanu Bedi, Advocate Punjab and Haryana High Court, on “What it means to be a lawyer”.
In this segment, she talked about the necessary skills required in a good lawyer. To begin with, she highlighted the importance of being unique in our approach to a problem. This also paves the way for us to think about the different perspectives that we might encounter in our professional life.
As a practicing lawyer, you are required to place an equal amount of importance in all your cases. She also mentioned that no case is a ‘free’ case, since they all bring in additional work prospects depending on our performance.
Among the basic qualities required, she talked about the need to have good observational, reading and listening skills, a light sense of humour, and most importantly, discipline.
Discipline marks the difference between a good lawyer and a great one. Whether it is waking up at 4 everyday or working till the last minute, a great lawyer will put his best foot forward in all his cases.
Another great observation by Ms. Bedi is the need to constantly question everything.
In law, prima facie suggests an obvious explanation on the face of it, which may be changed with further proof to the contrary. Similarly, in life, we must never accept something as is without checking every possible angle and explanation.
The session was quite an interactive one, as teachers, and students from different years were widely encouraged to ask questions.
Using her personal experiences and quirky anecdotes, Ms. Tanu Bedi taught us how to develop an all-round personality that will help us thrive in the world of litigation.
The Blue Pencil, on behalf of the students of Army Institute of Law would like to showcase its gratitude to Ms Bedi for the time she took out to deliver an evidently successful and helpful lecture. We would also like to congratulate her on the 17 years of practice and wish for many more eventful years to come.
This post was written by Manya Sinha, Ist year.
