UpComing Events Details

CREATING CHAMPS

IDIA 5^th ANNIVERSARY EVENT

Venue: NLU Delhi, Dwarka (October 2^nd)

&

Delhi Flying Club, New Delhi  (October 3^rd)

We are now celebrating 5 years of IDIA; for it has been five years since we stepped foot into a small government school in the quaint Himalayan town of Pelling and picked 5 underprivileged who demonstrated an aptitude for the study of law.

We’ve come a long way since then, and today, more than 50 of our scholars are studying at leading law schools throughout India. More details can be found on our website: <www.idialaw.com>.

This event will mark 5 years of the IDIA journey. So do come and join us for an exciting two days of brainstorming and reflection, topped with some of the finest cultural entertainment from our talented IDIA scholars. But first some background:

IDIA AND CHAMPS

The IDIA (Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education) project is a pan India movement to train underprivileged students and help transform them to leading lawyers and community advocates. IDIA is premised on the notion that access to premier legal education empowers marginalized communities and helps them help themselves.

Further details on IDIA can be found on its website:  <www.idialaw.com>

IDIA’s overarching goal is to facilitate the evolution of truly unique lawyers that make a significant difference to the world around them. Our aim is not merely to create technically skilled legal professionals, but leaders who transform society in significant ways: lawyers who are: Creative, Holistic, Altruistic, Maverick and Moral Problem Solvers (CHAMPS). Each of these attributes are explored below:

Creative – Our society today is plagued with several complex problems. Solving them (whether within or outside the law) requires a high degree of creativity, as these problems do not admit of ready binary solutions. The need of the hour is to create more lateral and less literal lawyers.

Holistic – To borrow from our ancient traditional medicinal systems, we need to be more holistic in our approach to solving legal problems and less symptomatic. Lawyers need to move away from short-term immediate wins for our client towards a long term holistic solution that heals the underlying conflict and makes society better off.

Altruism – We need to create highly compassionate lawyers who think less about themselves and more about the other.

Maverick: Unfortunately, we have too many conformists today. What we need are legal mavericks, who carve out their own pathways and make a transformative impact on society.

Moral – No matter how smart or competent or creative the lawyer, she will always fall short, if she fails to develop a good moral backbone. We have to create lawyers that stand for the highest levels of integrity and truth.

Problem Solvers – We need to take the law back to its roots and lawyers to the original role that they were meant to fulfill, namely to solve problems, rather than exacerbating them through the courts. We need to also explore alternative dispute resolution mechanisms towards achieving this end.

The CHAMPS project was piloted just a few months ago where IDIA scholars, along with IDIA volunteers, members of legal aid cells of law schools, and legal professionals visited the locale of one of our scholars, identified specific problems faced by their communities and examined the extent to which law could help resolve some of those issues. We’ve documented this in this blog post here.

BACKGROUND ON IDIA AND NLU DELHI

IDIA:

The IDIA project is run on the backbone of highly passionate student volunteers from various law schools, who travel across the length and breadth of India to identify marginalised students with aptitude for the study of law. It then trains these selected students through a rigorous program for the leading law entrance examinations, CLAT (Common Law Admission Test) and AILET (All India Law Entrance Test).

Once selected to the top law schools, IDIA arranges for sponsorships/scholarships and mentorship schemes to help candidates blossom to their full potential and take their rightful places as leading lawyers and community advocates.

IDIA was founded in 2011, and in the five years since, approximately 70 students trained by IDIA procured admission to various law schools in the country, out of which around 40 secured admission to the leading law universities including the National Law Universities (NLUs). They reflect a truly diverse mix, comprising candidates from various backgrounds (children of farmers, stone quarry workers, shopkeepers and clerks) and hailing from various states such as Karnataka, West Bengal, Jharkand, Rajasthan, Bihar, Manipur and Mizoram.

NLU Delhi

National Law University, Delhi, established in 2008, has, within a span of a few year, emerged as a leading law school in India. It now boasts leading research and policy centres, a stellar cast of academics and outstanding students who’ve won several laurels at inter collegiate competitions.

NLU Delhi is one of the foremost supporters of the IDIA project and its commitment to diversity and access to education for the underprivileged.

The IDIA student team at NLU Delhi is one of the strongest teams and has trained several students in the past few years for the law entrance examinations. Two IDIA scholars are also currently studying at NLU Delhi, where their entire college fees has been waived by the administration.

The conference on the 2^nd of October is being jointly organized by IDIA and the Chair on Professional Ethics, National Law University (NLU) Delhi.

Programme Schedule