Arvind Datar

What are the best and worst things about your job?

Best things: Independence , fresh challenges every day, no limit to one’s success, a variety of work suited to each one’s practice, long vacations.

Worst things: Delay, frequent adjournment, lack of systematic working by the courts and the absence of good or specialised judges.

Who was the first lawyer you ever worked under? What is the most important lesson that you learnt from him/her?

Mr. Natarajan and Mrs. Ramani Natarajan. The most important lesson I learnt was his advice: “It does not matter whether you decide to be a cobbler, make sure that you become the best cobbler in the world”. The second important lesson I learnt was to never antagonize or quarrel with a judge. “Remember it is your client’s life. It is only your bread and butter”.

If a seventeen year old came to you and asked you whether he/she should consider a career in law, what advice would you give?

I would earnestly urge him to pursue a career in law. In particular, I would advise him to take up active practice. If he can wait for ten years, and work hard, success is virtually guaranteed.

What was your first car?When did you buy it?

TOYOTA CORONA , in 1990

Which is your favourite restaurant?

The Bubble Café in the Taj Residency at Cochin .

What was the best book you read last year?

“The Elegant Solution”, by Mathew Mary and “The Nine’ by Jeffrey Toobin.

Where did you go on your last vacation?

Japan in October, 2007.

Which historical figure would you invite for dinner? If you could only ask one question of him/her, what would you ask?

Lokmanya Tilak. I would ask him to lay out a plan to make India a great nation.

What is the most significant change that you would make to the law school curriculum?

I would add at least one course on “Time Management, goal-setting and planning one’s life”. I would also request a few courses to be added on “advocacy”. The most important thing is that I would change the pattern of teaching and ask the law colleges to work on week-ends and have a holiday some time during the week. This would enable several practising lawyers to take up classes during week-end at law colleges.

What is the most significant change that you would like to see in the legal industry in the next five years?

I would like to see the following changes:

(i) A moratorium on any more new law colleges,

(ii) Making examinations meaningful so that every law student has the basic skills for practice.

(iii) I would earnestly consider the introduction of a bar exam as a pre-condition to practice in the courts.

(iv) I would like the introduction of an all India Higher Judicial Service on the lines of the IAS, IRS and IPS.

(v) I would like the application of modern management principles like Kaizen, TPM etc. to the working of courts.

(vi) In the courts, particularly in the lower courts, I would like to focus on the working of the Munsiff and Magistrate courts because these are the courts that affect the common man the most.

(Arvind P Datar is a Senior Advocate at the Madras High Court and one of South India’s prominent litigators. The extremely successful practice aside, he is also a prominent author, notably on Central Excise, and also serves on the Editorial Board of the Madras Law Journal. His three-volume commentary on the Constitution of India has attained the status of a must-have for all Indian legal libraries).