Unless we start paying junior lawyers well, we cannot have a democratised bar: CJI DY Chandrachud

Lawyers should pay their junior a decent salary and only then can the Bar be democratised, Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud said on Saturday..At a felicitation event organised by the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa, the CJI emphasised on the importance on adequately compensation young lawyers and looking upon them as people who have valuable contributions. "We pay ₹65,000 to law clerks. I am asked always, why pay so much? One must recognize the value of the intern or lawyer. We must look upon a young person as someone who will have valuable contribution to insight," he said. .The CJI in his address also stressed on the importance of creating opportunities for junior lawyers and to make sure that those from marginalised communities get adequate opportunity. "We need not cover the crevices of what is wrong in the system. We must try and repair it," he said..The CJI added that the legal profession has feudal remnants in the form of monetary issues such as enrolment fee being high. .He further shared that his five juniors were all first-generation lawyers, but there remained an equal opportunity barrier since the mode of recruitment was not transparent."The law clerks and interns are recruited on the basis of informal network. How do we open to those not having the network?"In this regard, he also disclosed the process of recruitment his office follows. "I have a three stage process, recruitment from all places not just NLUs. We shortlist and we give then a day’s time to make a brief, to make a research note is second process. Then there is interview.".This is not the first time the CJI has called upon lawyers across the country to pay their juniors well. In November, he had insisted on the importance of lawyers not treating their juniors as slave workers merely because the senior themselves had to learn the law the hard way during their early days in the profession..In light of the CJI echoing this sentiment that has been expressed over the last couple of decades, Bar & Bench has spoken to lawyers in Delhi and Mumbai to find out how much (if at all) litigating lawyers pay their juniors. The above articles are two parts of a larger series examining the nation-wide trends of how junior lawyers are paid. .[Read our live-coverage of the event below]