Message from the Chairman

Law is a large canvas. It is full of mystery, controversy and contradiction. It often bewilders us. But the paradox is the beauty of the law. Let's recall Walt Whitman:

"Do I contradict myself?

Very well then, I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes)" – replies the law.

Lawyers and law are actively rewriting our world. Our legal education defines the class of lawyers and tests the merit of our laws. OW Holmes, a great American Judge rightly said that the role of legal education is not merely to teach law or make lawyers, it is to teach law grandly and to produce great lawyers.

"Law and lawyering" is an all-embracing idea, where it includes the judges, lawyers, academics, lawmakers, talk-showers and the like as characters. From this vantage, even musicians are lawyers –people's advocates!

At Jagannath Law, we emphasize the need for lawyering for the people, in whatever capacity, to uphold the dignity of human beings. We do not want to produce merely litigious lawyers!

Being a lawyer is a joy. We have many joys in life, being an active law pupil is an immediate joy, and being a lawyer is an ultimate joy. It gives you a great deal of happiness. J BH Chowdhury in 1974 in the celebrated case of AT Mridha remarked that the end of law is human happiness. At Jagannath Law we remember this motto. We also follow the poetic line of WH Auden that law is the senses of the young. Therefore, once you are at Jagnnath Law we take care of you--the young mind--the would be blawyers, judges, legal academics, leaders and human rights activists!

What I mean is studying, leading, mooting, lawyering and judging – all entail a beauty of performing and a promise for sacrifice.

Firstly, the law is an enormous world of intellectual hunt. You get to apply your mind every day. It asks us how to speak and read. I wonder whether at all we learned to read properly at our law schools. To be a lawyer, we need to develop the discipline for reading the legal sources wisely. We will train you how to formulate and present arguments. We will make you a better reader, a better writer and a better thinker.

Secondly, if you are a legal figure, people will treat you with respect. For that, of course, you need to have passion, emotion and a "heart" that "bleeds for the people"–to use Justice BB Roy Chowdhury's poignant phrase in the famous Dr. Mohiuddin Farooque (1997).

Thirdly, we teach our law graduates to do a bit of pro bono lawyering. That's the most important way that law makes us happy. American Justice Ginsburgonce said: "I can say that in my life as a lawyer, I gained greater satisfaction from things I wasn't paid to do than what I got a paycheck for."

We have a legal system and many people cynically say that it is designed and destined to penalise the poor. Now, this is a crisis of our legal system.

What to do? It's easy to talk about the need for law reform and to put a blame on the politicians. But what about our individual responsibility to work for justice? We hardly can deny that lawyers, legal institutions, law schools run our justice system as public defenders, law technicians and law-graduate suppliers. To that end, Jagannath Law is making an effort to make pro-people law graduates.

With these few words, I welcome all of you to the Department of Law, Jagannath University! Let our law study be a lovely pretext for attaining common good.