Reading Judgements Effectively

May 25, 2022

The practice of law as a profession combines the expertise of law and its application. The constant quest to learn about law and its nuances is required to be a good lawyer. In India, legal cases add to the intricacies of law, making it more challenging.

For judges, lawyers, law interns, professors, and law students studying at the Top LLB Colleges in Jaipur, case laws are an integral part of the legal profession. The statutes and legal cases together paint a cohesive picture of the law where the statute gives the skeletal framework, and the judgments expand the meaning and scope.

Reading Judgements-

Judgments are lengthy documents. An excellent illustration of this point would be the landmark judgment in the Kesavananda Bharati case. Effective reading means reading and understanding the judgment wholly within a short period of time. It would include comprehension as well as the application of the particular case law in the suitable context.

If one is reading a judgment by Justice Krishna Iyer, his ideology and beliefs are reflected in his judgments. Knowing about the judges help to understand the judgment more comprehensively as the reader is aware of the background and where specific thoughts and observations are arising from.

Reading the facts and noting down the key points in minimum words is a good practice. This is of great help when we read the subsequent parts of the judgment where these facts are referred to while explaining the rationale. The next part contains the issues of fact and law. To read the judgment effectively, it is of utmost importance that the issues are appropriately understood in the context of the facts of the case.

Argument formation is an art, and this portion of the judgments is instrumental, especially to the young professionals who have embarked on the journey of law. This skill is gradually developed by reading more and more judgments and watching the luminaries in court, which is included in the course curriculum of Top LLB colleges in Jaipur. It is always a good idea to have bare acts and to read the sections mentioned in the judgment to grasp the meaning in a wholesome manner.

The ability to grasp the matter in an efficacious manner and then applying it is a skill that requires to be polished in an individual capacity. The more a lawyer reads, the better he will comprehend and more skilfully will he be able to incorporate it in the arguments. Effective judgment reading in a short span of time and then expressing it cohesively and cogently is the real skill which every lawyer aspires to sharpen, and this is only possible if there is patience and the zeal to learn more about law.