As technology is reshaping the legal industry, a number of distinct roles have emerged to transform the business and practice of law in the coming years. To deliberate on key drivers of change in the future landscape of legal services and new roles of legal professionals, senior legal experts from the law fraternity met at the second edition of UPES Law Roundtable in Delhi.
Delivering keynote address Mr. Utpal Ghosh, CEO and President of UPES emphasised on the need for developing specialized skills, intensive course curriculum for training legal aspirants to succeed in a landscape constantly getting reshaped by legal tech.
During the first panel discussion on ‘New Dimension of Law and Lawyering’, moderated by Mr. Utpal Ghosh, CEO & President, UPES; Mr. R Venkatramani, Sr. Advocate, Supreme Court of India, member Law Commission of India stressed upon how transformation in legal industry has opened doors for new career avenues such as Legal Knowledge Engineer, Legal Technologist, Legal Hybrid Professional, Legal Process Analyst, Legal Project Manager, Legal Risk Manager among others.
Dr. Surat Singh International Lawyer & Advocate, Supreme Court of India, who was a part of the panel, highlighted Confidence, Competence, Communication, Connecting, Contribution, Cash Flow and Celebrating success and failures as key attributes to succeed in the changing dynamics of the legal domain. Dr. Rupinder Suri, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, President Supreme Court Bar Association added, “ Besides being an expert in the practice area, if you want to progress in your legal career, it is your soft-skills such as effective communication, analytical thinking, team spirit, flexibility and time management capabilities that will set you up as a successful lawyer.”
The second session titled, ‘Technology Imperatives for the Legal Fraternity’ moderated by
Dr. Bushan Tilak Kaul Chairperson, Delhi Judicial Academy witnessed some thought provoking discussion around how the era of digitalisation, automation and artificial intelligence is stirring the legal fraternity. Adoption of advance technologies for intelligent data and information exchange related to legal cases have taken away tedious aspects of law practice, allowing lawyers to focus on higher level of analytical work. Thus to stay ahead in the market it is imperative for law professionals and firms to innovate themselves by embracing new technology tools and channels of legal practice. Participating in this panel discussion were Alok Mittal, Inspector General, National Investigation Agency, Minister of Home Affairs, Govt. of India, Pavan Duggal, President, Pavan Duggal Associates, Pravin Anand, Managing Partner, Anand & Anand and Mr. Amit Kapur, Senior Partner, J. Sagar Associates.
Since its inception in 2007, the College of Legal Studies at UPES has been offering specialized law courses in Corporate Law, Energy Specialization, Taxation Laws and Technical courses like Intellectual Property Rights and Cyber Law. The programs enable students to develop strong legal acumen that would help them handle the complexities in legal matters of the entities they associate with and guide them through. With integrated BA LLB, BBA LLB and B.Com LLB programs having emphasis on Energy Laws, Corporate Laws and Taxation Laws respectively, the programs are designed to address the current needs of the industry.
UPES is the first university in South Asia to offer the first of their kind 6-year integrated techno-legal (B. Tech LLB) programs specializing in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and Cyber Laws respectively.
