India Law Forum is a community for lawyers and law students committed to empower people through legal aid, legal awareness, and legal education.
Applications invited for the positions of National Convenor and State Convenors of India Law Forum.
Please email your CV to hr@vidhi.org with the subject as ‘Application for National Convenor’ or ‘Application for State Convenor and Name of your State’ by 5th September, 2020.
Note:
1. All the positions are Honorary, Unpaid, Part-Time & Work from Home Leadership Positions with Minimum 1 Year Commitment.
2. The above list of positions is not exhaustive.
Eligibility
The details of the eligibility criteria have been given here:
Nationality – A candidate needs to be the Citizen of India.
Education – Applicant must have completed the Bachelor level education in law from any recognized university in India or equivalent.
Age – The age of the applicant must be between 21 years and 35 years.
Important Note – Law Students are not eligible for these positions. However, they are eligible for National Coordinator and State Coordinators which will be separately advertised later. Students who wish to apply early / express their interest in these positions are welcome to apply but they must change the subject of the email accordingly.
Desired Skills and Abilities
1. Strong communication skills, including public speaking and writing.
2. Excellent organizational skills and the ability to handle multiple projects.
3. Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
4. Excellent analytical and abstract reasoning skills.
5. Ability to think strategically, creatively solve problem, exercise good judgment and lead change.
6. Ability to work in a dynamic team and build strong working relationships.
7. Ability to flexibly share leadership and build consensus.
8. Ability to take initiative and take difficult decisions when necessary.
Learn More About Us
What is the core idea of India Law Forum?
The core idea is to create a network of lawyers, Legal Aid Services, Law Schools and Organizations who work towards the common aim of making access to justice and legal aid efficient, easy and fast. We want to ensure that genuine causes do not get lost in a labyrinth of identifying organizations to support them. With time, we also want to introduce crowd-funding of genuine public interest litigation. As the regulations around third party funding of arbitration becomes clearer in India, we would also want to introduce this idea for disputes with MSMEs and individuals. The forum will also organize awareness campaigns, group discussions, lectures, workshops, conferences, seminars, summer schools, and competitions.
Why was the India Law Forum created?
India Law Forum was conceptualized 2 years ago as a platform to enhance community participation among lawyers. With the nation-wide anti-CAA protests and mass detentions, various lawyers organized informally to provide free legal aid and get the detainees released. The need for a pan-India organization to mobilise legal aid and ensure collaboration between a diverse set of lawyers was felt. This need was again felt during the migration of labourers from urban areas in the early months of COVID-19. Accordingly, we wanted to revise and revive the model for India Law Forum to engage with legal services at different levels –
- Eminent jurists and Senior Advocates to take up causes for public interest and civil society;
- Legal aid societies, NGOs and legal aid cells/clinics in various law universities to provide legal aid and collaborate;
- Volunteer lawyers; and
- Companies with active legal teams
How will the India Law Forum work?
At a basic level, we are trying to plug the lack of a pan-India organization for lawyers to collaborate and come together to solve issues, make access to justice affordable and advocate causes which affect the society. Some of the issues which we want to address are:
- Create a network between those facing legal problems and a wide range of players like Legal Services Authorities, NGOs, law schools, think tanks and policy researchers, as well as public interest lawyers
- Play an unbiased, apolitical, empirical, legal research-oriented role to advocate genuine causes
- Financing the solutions through crowd funding (subject to issues of conflict)
- Ensure collaboration between legal professionals on the one hand and between legal professionals and seekers of access to justice
- Provide awareness and communication to the public about the mechanics of legal problems in a simplified manner
- Engage with stakeholders in formulating policies.
What is India Law Forum’s Strategy?
The existing system on making legal aid accessible is inflexible and disorganized. There are legal aid and NGOs on one hand which take up specific causes and approach lawyers individually to take up their causes. We believe that integrating these two ends on a common platform is essential for better and efficient access to justice.
There are three problem areas that need to be resolved – identification of legal issues and how best to resolve them, identification and collaboration with experts who handle such issues regularly, and affordability and accessibility to a system which can not only coordinate through the network but can also provide solutions at the initial stages.
We propose to create an organization which is structured and at the same time allows individual flexibility to its members. To illustrate, a person approaches us for legal aid in a domestic violence case. At the initial step, we will not only connect them with NGOs/ Professionals/ Legal Aid Societies working in the sector, but will also be in a position to provide preliminary legal assistance through our volunteer lawyers.
