“A Remarkable Journey”

Wednesday, January 10 (Happy Birthday Matt!):

After being rescued from our room, we visited the Gandhi Smriti Memorial Museum, which is on the grounds of the house where Gandhi spent his last 144 days. The museum, like all of India, is a study in contrasts. The ground floor of the house, which was left as it was the day Gandhi died, contains an a simple but powerful display that tells the story of his life through photographs and quotations. The upstairs, however, contains a high-tech, multimedia, interactive exhibit that attempts to bring life to the principles that he espoused. Outside, you can trace Gandhi’s last steps to the spot where he was assassinated.

That evening, we made a presentation sponsored by the Bar Association of India and the Society of Indian Law Firms. We arrived at the headquarters for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) to find that we were going to present in an auditorium that reminded us of the U.N. with microphones at every table, two screens for Powerpoint, and a banner the size of a billboard announcing our program. Picture the words “Legal Writing Programme” three-feet high and twelve-feet long. (Pictures will follow once we receive the disk from the two professional photographers who were there.) During the introductions, we were presented with bouquets of two dozen red roses each. In addition, we received beautiful lacquer pencil boxes.

Thursday, January 11:

Starting at 7:00 a.m., in what the locals insist upon calling fog, but which feels suspiciously like smog, we set out for Agra, 120 miles to the south. On the way, our driver wove his way among not only cars, motorcycles, auto-rickshaws, and bicycles but also camels, ox- and horse-drawn carts, and the occasional cow wandering in the road.

Two and half hours later, we arrived at the Taj Mahal. Among the three of us, we’ve seen the Great Wall, Machu Picchu, and Angkor Wat, but the Taj Mahal left still left us speechless. No matter how many pictures we had seen, we still were not prepared for its elegance, grandeur, and serenity. And luckily, because the Taj is on a river, the skies were blue.

Our guide was superb at showing us details of the artistry of the etched and inlaid marble. Anne was so impressed that when we were taken to the obligatory tourist marble store, after the seven salesmen treated us to a live infomercial, she not only bought a lovely blue and white tray, she also purchased a table with 897 pieces of stone inlaid in marble. While they charge by the numbers of stones, the good news is that they do take VISA.

Friday, January 12:

We were picked up by one of Mr. Bhasin’s associates and traveled to the Karkardooma Courts Complex for a presentation for the Delhi Judicial Academy. After being saluted on arrival, we entered through the “Judges Only” entrance and were escorted through the busy courthouse by a half-dozen judicial and police officers, who literally parted the seas for us, pushing members of the general public out of our way. Because we were running a bit late, we had a quick cup of tea with the administrators, then proceeded to the lecture hall, received large bouquets, this time irises, and then got underway.

Although we’re not exactly sure where we got the idea, we thought our audience would be High Court judges. As we entered the room, we noticed that the audience members were all in their twenties, and we assumed that that they were law clerks. However, once we started the presentation, we realized that these people did, in fact, draft judgments. After the presentation, we finally found out that they were magistrates in training.

In India, graduating law students can apply for positions as magistrates, the lowest rung in the judicial system, and if they are accepted, they go through an intensive one-year program combining theoretical training and “student magistrating,” so to speak. Half of the participants in our session were going to be sworn in and start hearing cases the following week, so they were very eager for any practical advice we could give them.

Our next appointment was with Lexadigm Solutions, a firm that provides outsourced legal services to attorneys and companies in the U.S. When we planned our day, we had no idea that the firm was in the complete opposite direction from where we were. The Judicial Academy was kind enough to lend us a car and a driver for the drive out to Gurgaon, a fast-growing satellite city about 25 miles outside Delhi. While our driver knew how to get to Gurgaon, he didn’t know the address we had been given, and we had no idea that Gurgaon is a huge, sprawling high-tech center with one construction site after another, each one with a bigger and more creative futuristic glass-and-steel office complex.

We stopped to ask directions, headed in one direction, stopped again, headed in another direction, called the office, turned around again, found a building with a name similar to the one we were looking for, turned around one more time, asked one more person, and arrived . . . only an hour and fifteen minutes late (although it took us another 20 minutes to find the office once we were inside the building).. When we finally arrived, our driver proclaimed, “It has been a remarkable journey,” and it certainly had been.

Lexadigm, with approximately 20 attorneys and room for 10 more, is one of the first and largest legal process outsourcing (LPO) firms in India. We met with Rahul and Teeshna, the two founding members of the India office. Both young, bright, and entrepreneurial, they gave us a tour of the office and explained how they train their new employees to conduct research on Westlaw and how to write memos and briefs for a U.S. legal audience. Both were quite proud of the business that they had built and were particularly proud that they had written two briefs that had been filed in the U.S. Supreme Court. Our favorite moment during the meeting, however, came when Laurel was telling Rahul and Teeshna about our article exploring whether Ugandan attorneys might benefit from engaging in similar arrangements with U.S. firms. Laurel began explaining that Ugandan attorneys would probably not be able to compete with Indian attorneys at this point because the infrastructure in Uganda is not reliable. Just as Rahul was about to respond, we found ourselves sitting in the dark. The irony was not lost on anyone. (However, the power came back up within seconds and the computers, which are on back-up generators, never went out.)

That evening, we had dinner with Tanvi, a friend of Anne’s brother-in-law. Talking to Tanvi, a young female architect, was nice change from talking to lawyers about law.

Saturday, January 13:

Another day, another presentation. Today, we presented to students and faculty at Delhi University, Campus Law Centre. We learned that Delhi University, with 400,000 students, is the largest university in the world. As with all of our other visits, it started with the obligatory tea with the “Professor in Charge” in his office. As before, all the faculty troop in (actually they “toddle” and that really is the word they for it) one by one to greet us. This time the welcoming committee included numerous High Court judges who were there for the release of a new student-written law journal.

Today’s presentation took place in a large lecture hall that was not heated. Given that Delhi was experiencing one of only 20 cold days of the year, we were impressed that the audience stayed through the presentation even though all of us were shivering . Today’s flowers were carnations. The presentation went off without a hitch and with a new addition—a stray black cat strolled across the stage during Anne’s presentation.

After a tour of the campus and as we were saying our goodbyes, the students invited Laurel to join them in their game of cricket. The pictures speak for themselves. Laurel is keeping her day job.

One last memory of the Delhi Law Campus—just inside the gate to the campus we saw the outdoor unauthorized bookstore.

Dinner that evening was with the family of our student and research assistant, Amrita Sharan Srivastava. We thoroughly enjoyed hearing her father talk about his cases as an Additional Solicitor; meeting her sister, brother, and cousin; and eating her mother’s delicious homecooked food. For one night it felt like we were part of an Indian family.

Sunday, January 14:

We’ve just arrived in Mumbai, having flown here on SpiceJet, which, according to their website, offers “spicey good fares,” but little in the way of food (spicy or otherwise) on the flight, so we’re off in search of dinner.

This week’s stats:

Animals we’ve seen in or on the side of the roads: cows, goats, camels, monkeys, one pig, and one elephant. Animals we’ve seen in the room during our presentations: one pigeon and one black cat, who joined us on stage.

Flowers and gifts we’ve received: roses, irises, carnations, lacquer boxes, shawls, and bronze statues of Shiva.

VIP's we have met: president of the Bar Association of Indian, president of the Society of Indian Law firms, several High Court judges, a number of magistrates, a consumer court judge, an additional solicitor general, a former attorney general, numerous deans of law schools, and countless law faculty members.