Law students must be taught to think global, but remain connected with the local: Union Law Minister RS Prasad

Law students must be trained to think globally, but without disconnecting from their local roots, opined RS Prasad, the Union Minister of Law and Justice and Communications, Electronics and Information Technology on Wednesday. .Prasad was speaking at the inaugural session of the Global Virtual Conference on "Reimagining and Transforming the Future of Law Schools & Legal Education” being conducted by the Jindal Global Law School of the OP Jindal Global University..Prasad observed, ."Students must be taught to think global, but remain connected with the local. You can become a successful law graduate only when you are not unnecessarily bookish. The local issues, local ideas, local expectations, people's aspirations are equally important. These ideas have all through shaped the devolution of our Constitutional ethos. We need to go to the constituent assembly debates for the finest minds who have given us an extraordinary document, our Constitution, which has laid down such a robust roadmap...".Notably, his address also saw the Union Minister emphasise on the importance of incorporating technology in the study of law. He said, ."The future of legal education must focus on technology and legal evolution. Technology is going to play a very crucial role. It creates opportunities, it poses challenges, including of regulation, of its limits.. I think, law schools have more and more an option of technology-related education to prepare the students for their good, professionally successful careers - whether they do practice or go for law firms or other avenues.".Prasad noted that a career in law has now opened new and exciting avenues and opportunities, with contemporary law schools having played a stellar role in contributing substantially to creating a large pool of fairly well trained legal minds..All the same, he opined that there were certain concerns he would like to flag, the first being the tendency to choose more lucrative avenues over legal practice.."... graduates from these law schools chose primarily to focus on a career in the lucrative law firms or as law officers. I have no problem with that. But I would be more keen to have this new mind of brilliant law graduates to contribute to practice", Prasad said..He added that while a law practice would require patience and hard work, the initial periods of struggle play a crucial role and that once a lawyer has made a mark, extraordinary opportunities follow. He went on to advice the gathering that students must be given practical training to ensure that they become successful lawyers. .He went on to comment that lawyers are crucial to India, since it is a democracy governed by the rule of law.."For democracy to succeed, rule of law is important. And for rule of law to become a reality, good, trained minds who can really enforce rule of law is very significant", Prasad observed..Data is going to drive the Indian Economy .Given India's potential for the same, Prasad commented that data is going to drive its economy and the Government is going to make a robust data protection law to regulate it. He said, ."Data is going to drive the economy. In India, we produce billions and billions of data. Our population of ordinary Indians, the quest for digital platforms… these are creating data. We are going to make a very robust data protection law where there is a fine blend between the privacy of an individual (and) as regards the control over his data is concerned - nothing can be transferred without his consent, which is voluntary. ".Prasad's speech also touched upon the rising significance of a digital ecosystem, particularly following the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. He remarked,"You may have seen that... India is one of the few countries where the work did not stop at all. We liberalised the whole work from home movement. 85% of the work continued.".He added that it was the digital ecosystem that kept the world together i.e. the internet, mobile phones and other platforms that facilitated efficient connectivity. He went on to point out that virtual courts became a reality and digital court processes have become the norm. He informed, "High courts and district courts conducted 25 lakh digital hearings in these few months of the pandemic. The Supreme Court had 10,000 hearings... Electronic filing, digital court fee payment - all have become the norm today.".Prasad added, "India is onto almost 1.26 billion Aadhaar, 1.21 mobiles and 370 million bank accounts... and we started sending all their welfare entitlement to the poor people - gas connections, ration subsidies, a whole range of other entitlements... In the last 5 years, we have sent close to 12 crore directly to the bank accounts of the poor which you call DTB (Direct Transfer Benefit). Even during COVID, thousands of crores were transferred under various heads to the poor to make lives easy by the Central and State Governments.".He also briefly mused on the potential of Artificial Intellgence (AI) as well as the need to monitor the limits of its use. Prasad observed, "Should the human mind, basic human edicts have a role? What should be the legal architecture of AI? When I wear my hat as IT Minister, I am very excited about the expanding role of AI... but as law minister, I have concerns...Any digital legal system must not be completely oblivious to the larger, basic time-tested attributes of human behaviour based on ethics.".Founding Vice-Chancellor, Prof (Dr) C Raj Kumar rendered the welcome address for the session. The inaugural session also featured an address by Cyril Shroff, Managing Partner of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas..Prof SG Sreejith and Prof (Dr) S Mercy Deborah of JGLS also spoke during the inaugural session. Prof. (Dr.) Upasana Mahanta, Senior Additional Registrar, JGU rendered the vote of thanks.