When courts close, what will half the world’s

lawyers do?

Deb Zyoti Das1 *

1
BBA LLB, Himachal Pradesh National Law University, Shimla, Hi-
machal Pradesh, India

Keywords: Pay disparsity, Lawyers, Pandemic, CoVid-19, Courts close, World, Situation

1 Introduction
1.1 The Legal Profession
The profession of law is very diverse and includes various job opportunities, besides
solicitors, barristers and judges, there is a massive array of other lawyer and non-lawyer
career paths that one can follow, from legal journalists, legal secretaries, typists, human
resources personnel, paralegals, arbitrators, magistrates, mediators, mainstream advo-
cates, legal analysts, drafters, criminal lawyers, civil lawyers, legal advisors, government
lawyers, and attorney to solicitor advocates, coroners, lecturers and court clerks. But
still, the court complexes and the system remains crucial and the midpoint of all law &
legal activities.
The Legal profession is seen as to be comprised of only those who make headlines
and front pages of the morning newspaper. Mention lawyers and the image that strikes
the public is that of famous names who move around in Audis and BMWs and charge
massive amounts of money. The legal profession features some senior counsels who
charge lakhs for a hearing and crores as retention fees. But that is just a small fraction.
This group is a small minority but they corner a disproportionate number of important
matters in the courts. The vast majority of lawyers, especially in the lower courts,
function on a case-to-case basis for their income and depend upon daily court filings
and litigation processes.

* E-mail: debzyotidas.official@gmail.com
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1.2 Courts closed

“When all the courts close”
Since the dawn of the present societal structure, courts have been an unavoidable
aspect of the economy, of life, it is more integrated into the system into our daily lives
than we usually realise. Courts hold up the idealistic values that have been enshrined
in the constitutions across countries and within countries, values that would have fallen
through the cracks if not “enforced” and kept in check. Conflict is inevitable, and to
resolve a conflict we need a mechanism that is armed and trained to fight back disputes
thus maintaining the smooth flow of the society and keeping in check the most barbaric
form of human behaviours.
Since the establishment of modern courts and judicial systems, there have been
many isolated instances of courts closing, judicial structures collapsing with the rise
and fall of countries, with wars between nations, but, this is the first time that a Pan-
demic of such severity and consequence is at the hands of the humankind since 1968;
yes many pandemics took place in between the latest being the 2009 swine flu pan-
demic but, it was not disruptive, no air travel was disrupted, no country went into full
lockdown, every moving part of the economy was normally functioning or to say at
max functioning with precautions. The Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 has brought the
world to its knees with most of the countries affected and no cure; the ongoing pan-
demic might as well turn out the largest and deadliest pandemic ever. It has forced the
whole world to a grinding stop. The world has now entered into the “survival mode”,
with the majority of countries enforcing lockdowns, martial laws, crowd control laws
and issuing pandemic rules and regulations that affect each and everything in a country
and its subjects.

2 Current Scenario
As they say, in the rarest of the rare event, courts across the world have now closed
their doors. The Coronavirus lockdown has brought the wheels of the justice frame-
work almost to a grinding halt. Courts across the world are closed, with only the most
important of matters being heard that too through video conferencing facilities where
available otherwise it is in for a complete stop.
Across the microcosm, the lockdown has brought to the fore the great disparity in
the legal profession.The "unequal mix" has been exacerbated during the lockdown. And
when the courts do not function, the economic situation of those in the legal profession
becomes precarious.
Hence, the question arises what will the lawyers, the advocates, the legal pro-
fession do that
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In Egypt, all civil and criminal trials have been suspended; France’s highest court just
like India, Turkey and majority of the countries, has suspended most nonessential pro-
ceedings and has shut down all physical court proceedings and workings. Singapore’s
& Italy’s court system has shut down; the Chinese court system, quickly suspended all
physical work & transitioned to online trials. In the UK, the Supreme Court is conduct-
ing entire cases by video link for the first time in its history. In the US, the approach
adopted varies from state to state. The chief judge of New York state, Judge DiFiore,
announced the postponement of all nonessential court functions and adopted a virtual
court system.
The realities of economics tends to be more brutal than in theory

3 Arguments
According to available statistical data and news reports of various countries, it is
evident that enormous pay disparities exist amongst the legal profession which have
been highlighted due to the pandemic and the closing of courts.
Due to several constraints lets take, the world’s oldest democracy, the largest democ-
racy, and the most populous countries’ data samples into consideration.
In the US, there are 1.3 million lawyers1 - nearly half of all law school graduates
take jobs at law firms, firms that have only so much to sustain the employees without
the workings and inflow of cash, large scale retrenchment have already begun.
In India, with 1.4 million enrolled advocates, the Bar Council of India, said that
only 10%2 of the Advocates in the country are in a position to survive in times of crisis
without any earning.
China being the source of the pandemic and the first hit, have experienced a much
worse scenario that other countries that had an idea what they were dealing it and were
able to take measure quickly, relatively speaking.
With limited data available, international law firms with offices in mainland China,
the Hubei Province and cities like Hong Kong, Wuhan ordered full closure of all activities
and allowed only bare skeletal staff to work from home remotely.

4 Conclusion
The coming weeks will be a period of national hardship. Our courts—the backbone
of our constitution—will be stretched to their very limits and the extreme consequences

1
American Bar Association Profile of the Legal Profession
2
Letter by the BCI to the Prime Minister of India
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of a failing justice system will be clear for all to see. Accordingly, in the long term,
lawyers may look back at this episode as the beginning of a fundamental shift in the
means by which justice is administered.
It is time for the Inns of Court—membership bodies of vast wealth—to consider
the creation of schemes to support such barristers over the coming months. More fun-
damentally, there may be greater consideration of the future of the independent bar,
operating as groups of self-employed individuals pooling resources from a barrister’s
chambers. If you are able to conduct court hearings from your front room, new models
of working will increasingly emerge.