My Law School Journey Till Now

By Himangshu Sonowal, Law Student, NLU Assam, Online Internee@LawOF

CLAT preparation was a tough time in my life. I remember the huge pile of CLAT book, newspapers and GK journals surrounding me. The only solace during that difficult time was my imagination of life in a law school. I had decided by tenth grade that I wanted to become a lawyer and that’s when I learnt about CLAT and NLUs. As the exam approached I became more and more aflutter. When the big day finally arrived and I was properly made to sit in front of a computer screen, I was counting the number of things that could go wrong, from me not knowing the answer to the screen freezing.  The days preceding the results were even more difficult, I had become restless and tensed. The day of judgment finally arrived a week after and I made into NLUJAA through my AIR. Ever since that day till the very starting of college I had wasted time thinking and researching about law school life.

I entered the college campus a day before my classes started to get accustomed to the environment and the hostel. I saw confused souls everywhere, trying to make small talks with everyone to make new friends. The first night made me think if I would be able to adjust into the new life that awaits me from the next day. But after the attending the first few classes I felt much more confident. Being from humanities background I was sure that I would be able to handle the humanities papers like Sociology, History, Political Science and English. The law papers that seemed new were Legal Research Methodology and the Law of Torts. We already had a head start for Torts because of CLAT and for LRM, the professor made sure that we understood the paper without any doubt since it laid the basic concept of research for a law student. In trying to deal with everything that seemed so new to each one of us, a month passed by quickly.

Suddenly we had something more challenging in front of us, Moot! We had been given orientation lectures on mooting since the first week of college but you don’t know what it is unless you actually participate in one. There was a separate Intra Moot Court Competition for the first years since we had almost no legal knowledge, the moot proposition was based on the law of torts which made it easier for us. Before this could happen, we were also assigned as court clerks on the other Intra Moot Court Competition held for the other batches. This gave us some experience on the procedures so we could prepare for our own competition. We learnt that team coordination in a moot team is very important. The making of the moot memorial was a difficult task that sometimes becomes a test to our patience and team coherence. Then comes the actual day of the competition, everyone dressed up in pressed black and white formals, debating and arguing on the behalf of their own clients. Mooting gives a law student the true essence of litigation in courts and we were fortunate enough to participate in this in the every first year of law school.

After this we had to write our mid semester papers when we spent nights without proper sleep to score good marks in examination. When we received our papers, the professors analyzed our answering pattern and directed us on the changes that are needed in our answer scripts. Because of this we could improve our writing and presentation of answers in the end semester examinations.

We were given six project topics for the six papers and for these research projects we had to spend a large amount of our time in the library and on the online databases, searching and researching on more information to prepare a good research project. During the presentation of our projects we faced questions from our professors and also from our classmates. I believe these hurdles are necessary in law school life to make one a good litigator or law expert.

One semester is only one part of ten of law school but it does brief us on the life that a student would lead for the next nine parts. I’ve always heard that law school life is exhausting but fun at the same time. After my first few months in it, I cannot agree more to this statement. I now only look forward for what the next four and half years hold for me in National Law University and Judicial Academy, Assam.