5 Inspiring Indian Lawyers and What Made them Famous

1. Ram Jethmalani: 

Ram Jethmalani is one of the most widely recognized lawyers that India has ever seen and apart from just being a lawyer, Jethmalani was also a politician. He has also served as the Union Minister of Law and Justice, President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, and Chairman of the Indian Bar Council. He was also elected to Lok Sabha twice on BJP tickets. He showed some sparks of his immense brilliance from a very young age onwards and he completed his matriculation at the age of 13 owing to the double promotion that he secured. This was a sign of things to come and at 17 Jethmalani completed his LLB degree. With 21 being the cutoff age to practice law, Jethmalani again surprised everyone by becoming a practicing lawyer at the age of 18 by securing a special exception. 

His first breakthrough case came in 1959 when he was assisting YV Chandrachud as a prosecution lawyer in the famous and widely talked about Naval Commander KM Nanavati case. From there on his journey towards being recognized as one of the best criminal lawyers that the country has ever witnessed began. Then on the professional life of Ram Jethmalani was filled with high profile cases one after the other. His string of defending smugglers in the late 60’s also gave him the unofficial title of being the ‘smuggler’s lawyer’. Another one of his widely talked about cases is the Hawala scam case where he defended L. K. Advani. He also appeared for Manu Sharma who is the prime accused in the famous Jessica Lall murder case. Even though he received a lot of criticism regarding the clients he represented, Jethmalani was of the opinion that he was just doing his job as a lawyer.

Despite the avid criticisms he received over the course of his professional career which spanned across seven decades, Ram Jethmalani still remains one of the best Indian lawyers. He had racked up a plethora of awards and recognitions including the International Jurist Award and the 1977 Human Rights Award by World Peace Through Law. He has also authored books such as Big Egos, Small Men, and Conscience of a Maverick to mention a few. The Rebel: A Biography of Ram Jethmalani by the famous author Susan Adelman is a true celebration of the greatness of him and shows how different Jethmalani was when compared to others. Jethmalani retired from his judicial profession in 2017 and late in 2019, he died at his private residence in New Delhi at the age of 95.