CJI Cautioned Against Tendency to View Life Only Through The “Lens of One’s Career” But to Look Beyond for Mental Health as Well”!

Karma Global one of the top 5 labour law consulting firms in the country, has recently hit upon yet another significant milestone in the journey of tying up with SUNDEEP PURI ASSOCIATES AND ADVOCATE, where both these Firms have formally joined hands together to collaborate and create a bigger alliance by scaling up its business on Pan India basis and Internationally to give greater reach of its services together, to its hundreds of clients all over. The pandemic has changed the very way we do business, disrupting everything from global supply chains to financial markets which subsequently paved the way for change, new adaptations and rebuilding of business models with compliances being at the at the heart of this change. In this context, the Enterprises to need a change in mindset for those who want to remain on the right side of the law. “If the government can change, corporations need to be faster than the regulatory authorities in changing their mindset in this automation game. Only a few years back, we had compliance people to check and update on compliances conforming to the prevailing laws but now the nature of work is changing and we have the platforms that put all the dates, and laws in the form of a checklist for us, which comes as a lifesaver," At present, not all but most of the companies have woken up to the reality of this changing compliance landscape with the announcement of the new labour codes and with it, there is a growing trend towards digitalization to improve compliance and ensure that organizations are saved from the stiff penalties imposed on defaulters. “Every other day you have a different regulation change happening across numerous States, recent example with Chhattisgarh going in for old pensions while other States are opting for new pensions. We have many vendors who are going towards digitalization to track these compliances and regulation changes," and Karma Global is proud to have adopted the new AI technology and automation much before others could even think about it. With the changing notifications from the government, and the requirement of reporting real-time data to authorities on a month/quarterly/half yearly, and annual basis, it is a technology that has set new standards and disrupted traditional methods and practices. An increasing number of companies today are using a mix of internal and externally developed technology tools to keep pace with the fast-changing compliance landscape and are standing with Karma Global for its state-of-the-art “Weprocess” and “Wechecked” tools that offer advanced features, chatbots, machine learning, single uploading of all documents, and final evaluation together with remediation of non-compliance.

“The compliance scenario in India has gone so far that everything is interconnected. One failure somewhere is going to reflect in many records. We see the government rolling things out step by step to make sure that they have a more robust compliance mechanism and a compliance-driven economy.

So in this regard, besides the business profile of Karma Global relating to labour laws, it will now focus whole time also on legal and para legal issues and matters with the collaboration of Sundeep Puri & Associates who are already into legal matters such as disputes, litigation, and court cases.

CJI Cautioned against the Tendency to View Life Only Through The “Lens Of One’s Career” but To look beyond for Mental Health as well”!

CJI cautioned against the tendency to view life only through the "lens of one's career". The stressful and competitive nature of legal profession is a factor for mental health issues among lawyers, said Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud. In conversation with Professor David B Wilkins of Harvard Law School: The first primary cause of mental health issues is the adversarial tenor of the legal profession. There is something in our profession by which people take pride in its adversarial tenor", CJI said in a virtual conversation with Professor David B. Wilkins of Harvard Law School.

"Long working hours, sleepless nights, no exercise, and financial worries make the profession stressful", he said. The CJI added that after the pandemic, several lawyers lost work. Also, many lost their friends and family system, depriving them of an emotional support system. The CJI added that law can be a "feudal and exclusionary profession" and persons from marginalized communities, women, the queer community, and persons with disabilities face difficulties. Junior lawyers, especially those who are not in law firms, are troubled by financial anxieties.

Stressing the importance of mental health, CJI cautioned against the tendency to view life only through the "lens of one's career".

"The question is not how can good mental health advance my professional interests. Mental well-being is of paramount importance, even if it cannot advance your career in any way. It has an inherent value. In any case, it does improve your performance in the long run by just pursuing a holistic pattern of life.

We have created a system that rewards excellence at the cost of practically everything else. There has to be a change of mindset across the profession. Holistic well-being must be considered an essential part of a lawyer's life. We have to avoid the tendency to glorify overwork and burnout. That is a race to the bottom. Law firms and barrister’s offices must encourage a sense of professional camaraderie. Above all, we have to dispel the stigma which surrounds mental health issues". The CJI also spoke about the need to pay adequate living wages to young lawyers. "It is important that we adopt an intersectional approach towards mental health, particularly in the context of the very stressful environment which lawyers have to confront in this profession", CJI said. The virtual event was organized by the Harvard Law School Centre on the Legal Profession to confer CJI Chandrachud with the “Award for Global Leadership” in recognition of his lifetime of service to the legal profession in India and around the world.

CONCLUSION - Rajeev Bakshi says an upcoming lawyer entering the legal profession carries a fear of failure …!

A lawyer’s job is purely a mental exercise. It involves solving problems, finding alternative solutions, translating ideas onto paper, and communicating those ideas clearly. This is why protecting mental health is so crucial in this profession: a lawyer’s ability to think and solve problems in a justified manner is essential to their livelihood. Summary of a journey of a young lawyer who enters this profession: I am a middle-class boy from old Delhi and my life has been a roller coaster ride. I earned my law degree from Campus Law Centre, Delhi in 1983. I started my career in 1984 in the Food and Fertilizer Industry in Delhi. The salary was never my sole motive but the opportunity to learn and grow in the legal field were my goals. On my first day, I was assigned the task of handling labour disputes in courts, and initiating disciplinary proceedings against delinquent employees. At that time, there was a lot of militancy in the Union and industrial jurisprudence was evolving. My boss was a hard taskmaster, very bold and quick in decision-making. For a raw junior straight from college, his thinking and style of functioning in the later part of his career are greatly influenced by his first boss. He did not teach me the principles of labour law or how to draft a petition, I learned the court procedures and drafting while on the job. At that time, the appearance of advocates before the Labour Court and Industrial Tribunal was not permissible without leave of the court. This gave me ample opportunity to represent the company before the court as a management representative and I learned to draft of pleadings, record evidence, frame issues, fighting on the burden of proof, etc. on the job. In my long career, I have felt that every in-house counsel and upcoming lawyer must have trial court experience because the foundation of every case is laid in the beginning. I have worked in all four metros in different companies like ICI, Jubilant Organosys, Lafarge, Godrej, and JSW. At every stage of my career, I was on a learning spree. I came to Mumbai in 2007 by choice as I wanted to learn about capital markets, banking and finance, and Mumbai being the financial capital of India provided ample opportunity. As more people are willing to speak about mental health, what might be the causes of mental illness in a legal fraternity? The prime reason for mental health issues among the legal fraternity is insecurity in the legal profession. This is true for a transaction lawyer as well as an in-house counsel. I have seen that barring a few, most of the lawyers irrespective of their standing at the Bar, still suffer from insecurity. Fear of losing a case and a client is a disproportionate burden in their minds, which often lead to stress. For a client, there are no permanent friends or enemies but only permanent interests. An upcoming lawyer entering the legal profession carries there is a fear of failure. He feels that any adverse order or observation from the court is the end of his career. This leads to a stressful situation. I have seen medical issues related to mental health is more prevalent among litigation lawyers. Unlike a transaction lawyer, a litigation lawyer must protect his reputation on a daily basis. Very often liberty or dignity of a client depends upon the performance of the lawyer and any mistake by the lawyer can cause incarceration or substantial loss to his client. He may win three cases for a client but if he loses the fourth case, the client will without any hesitation give the next brief to some other lawyer. This fear of losing a case, and a client, also leads to insecurity which ultimately reflects on his health. Karma Global works across a wide variety of industries, constantly looking for ways to offer new services and increase its global businesses. In order to serve today’s technology to tech-savvy clients and employees, Karma Global planned much ahead of its time by adapting to processes and systems to accommodate the quickly changing markets. As the Industry is continuing to get more and more competitive, Karma Global is bridging the gap, setting itself in tune with the latest technology trends in order to maintain a competitive advantage for all of its over 400 domestic and global clients. Automation and AI - Karma Global was among the first to improve efficiencies, the first in the vendor auditing process to fully automate and streamline any and all processes surrounding the auditing business of entities and vendors. The chatbot and AI did a fabulous job of giving machine output, with a quicker pace, cheaper rate, and more accurate level of auditing and reporting. This helped in elevating the roles of our Auditors to focus on complex tasks that require more brainpower or the human touch, leaving some of its task to the capabilities of the machine. Incorporating chatbots in customer service allowed time for our expert representatives to spend time dealing with more complex issues which could ultimately add to the user experience and this is what set us apart from others. Automating repetitive processes in our systems helped us free the valuable time of our expert staff allowing them to reach out to more clients. For this purpose, Karma Global has both full-time related to the staff and also indirect staff who are freelancing with us for enhancing our IT capabilities to the next level on the cloud platform. Also, clients with issues such as litigation, disputes, closure, lockdown, retrenchment, and layoffs could take the help of Karma Global in sorting this out since it now has a formidable partner by the name of Sundeep Puri & Associates to provide further solutions on such or any legal entanglements.

Proprietary blog of Karma Global Tech Management LLC

This blog has been collated and compiled from various sources, adaptations, and illustrations by the internal staff of Karma Global with the knowledge and expertise that they possess, for its monthly newsletter Issue 08 of February 2023, and in case of specific or general information or compliance updates for that matter, kindly reach out to the Marketing Team – kush@karmamgmt.com / yashika@karmamgmt.com

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