To encourage law practitioners to think out of the box, the Adyopant Legal Services inaugurated the 2013-14 workshop series on applied law on November 16. Held in collaboration with various top educational institutions, the inaugural workshop was organized at the Campus Law Centre, Delhi University.

All the workshops were practitioner led with an aim to acquaint the participants with the finer aspects of law and to encourage them to look beyond textbooks. It sought to introduce the participants to the real world of copyright practice and broaden their horizons on its technicalities.

The inaugural lecture of the workshop was delivered by Justice SN Jha, who was the chairperson of the Bihar State Human Rights Commission until recently. The lecture titled “Human Rights and Intellectual Property Rights in India” was presided over by Prof. Usha Tandon, professor-in charge, Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi. Justice Jha opined that traditionally the two areas of human rights and intellectual property rights have been seen as disjunctive. However, he said, an overlapping of the two areas might be witnessed in the future.

Delivering the welcome address, Prof. Tandon said: “These kinds of initiatives by alumni make us proud and we feel good as an alma mater. Such activities will make the vibrant intellectual atmosphere of the Campus Law Centre even more vibrant.”

Speaking exclusively to Lex Witness on the subject of IPR and Human Rights, Dr. Maurya Vijay Chandra, advocate and partner, Adyopant Legal Services, said there was a time when human rights and IPRs were seen as inimical to each other. “However, today, we have evolved to a stage where they need to be construed harmoniously and the two discourses must learn to live together. The Adyopant public lecture series is an attempt to explore the synergies and create a symphony out of the two discourses for the benefit of mankind. We will endeavour to bring legal luminaries, political top brass and industry leaders to participate in this project,” he added. Intervening in the debate, Ms. Sanjivini Raina, Assistant Professor, Campus Law Centre, said: “The interface between IP Laws and Human Rights is order of the day. There is no inherent acrimony between rights acquired by birth and rights acquired through intellect and creativity, all what is required to be done is to strike viable balance between the two areas of law. This is well demonstrated by compulsory License issued for cancer drug to Natco (Hyderabad based) pharmaceutical company in march 2012 thus making it affordable.”

“We at Adyopant Legal Services are deeply committed to train the younger generation of budding lawyers. With this end in mind, we have initiated a series of practice oriented one-day workshops,” said Dr. Maurya Vijay Chandra, the founding partner of Adyopant Legal Services. As part of the workshop, final-year law students were trained to apply their knowledge of law to accomplish the task of drafting and filing copyright application and were also coached to take the right decisions on behalf of their clients.

The workshop aimed at imparting skillbased training to enable students to benefit from the advice of an industry panel comprising Mr. Dalbir Singh Sahrawat, General Counsel India Legal & Compliance, Aon Hewitt India; Mr. Vipin Aggarwal, Senior Attorney & Director-IPR, Microsoft India; and Mr. Nagesh Shukla, Director, Business Development, Star Dental Clinics Private Limited.

Mr. Sahrawat shed light on the worries of a leadership team of every company in the BRICS countries, putting compliance at the top. Mr. Aggarwal, on the other hand, dwelt on what a company looks at while hiring a law firm or an in-house lawyer. He said: “It is important to show what else you have done apart from studying law.” Talking about his own life experiences, Mr. Aggarwal recalled that he was a “police officer” having worked on all sides of the patent industry, be it those who enforce patents or for those who tear patents apart and even those who fall on the thin line of infringement. He also dwelt on the strategic importance of the intellectual property rights for India and the US.

Giving a start-up perspective on client expectations from lawyers, Mr. Shukla emphasized that creating value for start-ups and convincing them to spend on the legal fees is a key challenge that any lawyer is likely to face. This, he said, is a continuing challenge and a lawyer must be on his toes on the issue. Mr. Shukla also stated that transparency, demystification of law and effective communication with client were key to client retention. The other industry panelists also shared their views on professional skills required to succeed in the legal profession.

In the last academic session, Adyopant Legal Services conducted five such workshops at Campus Law Centre, University School of Law and Legal Studies, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, University of Delhi, Amity Law School (affiliated to GGSIP University), Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies, and Faculty of Law, Jamia Milia Islamia. “We received an overwhelming response from the students as well as the faculty, who have been inviting us to conduct such workshops regularly,” concluded Ms. Neha Mathew, workshop series co-ordinator for Adyopant Legal Services, in a written communiqué.