[blindLaw] request for advice to be better prepared for litigation work

[James Fetter]

Rahul,
If you are arguing in hearings,you need to know the record, or at least the parts relevant to the hearing, extremely well. Ideally, you can direct the court to your best evidence very quickly.  This might and often does require many hours of preparation for a few minutes of action. I’m not sure how things work in India, but it is very rare for lawyers in the US to read aloud from anything during a hearing. If a lawyer were to do so, the judge would likely cut them off with a sharp admonition to stop wasting time. 
Also, if any important document in the record is inaccessible, priority No. 1 needs to be making it accessible. This burden should be on your firm, not you, but realistically, you will have to do some extra work to ensure that this happens. If your firm expects you to handle hearings but can’t or won’t make most if not all record documents accessible, then that is a serious problem and could sabotage your career

Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 22, 2023, at 7:44 AM, Rahul Bajaj via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> thanks, sanho. Here is what I read currently:
> 1. If it is a suit, I read the plaint where we are for the defendant.
> 2. If it is an appeal where we are for the appellee, I read the appeal from
> the appellant.
> 3. I read the orders to date, if it is a matter in which hearings have
> taken place before.
> 4. if we have filed a written statement or a response, I read that.
> 
> What I do not read:
> 1. annexures accompanying the pleadings. because of 2 reasons: I have
> difficulty figuring out which ones to zero in on and a large number of them
> are quite inaccessible and bulky. so I tend to shy away from reading them.
> during arguments, I find it hard to follow when the lawyer from the other
> side is reading a particular annexure and I have not read it before. this
> also ahppens in meetings with senior lawyers and case discussions. it is my
> biggest weakness.
> 2. If it is an appeal, I do not read pleadings in the courts below which I
> can do if they are accessible or make them accessible if not.
> 3. I don't bookmark properly and pinpoint key pieces of info in a quickly
> retrievable format.
> 
> Rahul
> 
>> On Fri, 22 Sept 2023 at 16:57, Sanho Steele-Louchart via BlindLaw <
>> blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Good morning,
>> 
>> It's hard to say what you could be doing more without knowing what you're
>> doing already. What's your current process?
>> 
>> Warmth,
>> Sanho
>> 
>>> On Sep 22, 2023, at 3:01 AM, Rahul Bajaj via BlindLaw <
>> blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> Good afternoon from New Delhi. I have joined the bar in New Delhi and
>> have
>>> been in active legal practice for around 14 months, in the areas of
>>> intellectual property law and disability rights law. The feedback that I
>>> got from the law firm where I work, albeit expressed subtly, is that I
>>> should prepare better for matters, to be able to provide valuable inputs
>> in
>>> an ongoing conference or hearing. they said that asking for time to look
>>> for the relevant information may just result in the hearing or meeting
>>> becoming ineffective, and therefore I do have the unfair onus of going
>> the
>>> extra mile.
>>> 
>>> If you have 5 minutes, could you outline  what I could be doing more? I
>>> have an intern who has been appointed specifically to address my needs. I
>>> need to develop a system to be more practically useful in hearings and
>>> conferences.
>>> 
>>> Rahul
>>> 
>>> --
>>> --
>>> Rahul Bajaj
>>> Attorney, Ira Law
>>> Senior Associate Fellow, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy
>>> Rhodes Scholar (India and Linacre 2018), University of Oxford
>>> Co-Founder, Mission Accessibility
>>> Special Correspondent on the rights of persons with disabilities, Oxford
>>> Human Rights Hub
>>> Coordinator of the working group on accessibility, e-Committee, Supreme
>>> Court of India
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> 
> 
> -- 
> --
> Rahul Bajaj
> Attorney, Ira Law
> Senior Associate Fellow, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy
> Rhodes Scholar (India and Linacre 2018), University of Oxford
> Co-Founder, Mission Accessibility
> Special Correspondent on the rights of persons with disabilities, Oxford
> Human Rights Hub
> Coordinator of the working group on accessibility, e-Committee, Supreme
> Court of India
> _______________________________________________
> BlindLaw mailing list
> BlindLaw at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindlaw_nfbnet.org
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