Interview of Mr. Nishikant Bibhu (Asst. Professor, Galgotia University) on Career in Academics

Sir , please introduce yourself to our readers .

My introduction cannot be started without adding my parents Mrs. Manju Sinha & Dr. Arun Kumar. I belong to a middle class family from Nalanda, Bihar. Completed my BA LL.B from Chanakya National Law University and LL.M in Corporate Law from NLU Jodhpur and Currently working as an Assistant Professor at Galgotias University.

Please tell us about your law school period and what are certain things which one learn during law school which helps him/her in professional career ?

I consider my law school period as a new phase of life for me, which I never presumed to be like that. Giving it a sense, I should say that, I belong to a middle class family and my notion towards a college life, while I was in my school, was quite traditional, like going to the class writing exams getting a degree and search for a job. I Thought the college life ends here.

Law is a different world all together, I realised when I entered into my Law school after my 10+2. A law school is not just a college but a stage where you are always facing a world waiting to observe your performance of life, be it academic, political, cultural, social, and at the end of the day shaping you with almost every skills, the world expects from you.

These are nothing but the observation of my five year stint at my law school, where I kept myself involved in every academic, cultural, political and extra curricular activities. I headed the Moot Court Committee, Headed the IDIA team, connected with the different sections of the society through various other mechanism, started taking interest in social activities and ultimately managed to get the pre placement offer from a Mumbai based Law firm.

What is the one thing you experienced which changed totally after you finished your studies and entered into professional life ?

In simple terms I will say that, when I entered into professional life the one thing I experienced that all your skills are subordinate to your knowledge. In a law school we all are young and we give more time to mooting, debating, leadership skills and less time for developing the academic content. I also did the same. After the law school, I assessed myself as a person who earned various skills from his law school but less at academic stuff, even after securing a decent marks. Here by saying academic stuff I never meant marks or grades but mere the basic knowledge of all the laws (subjects) which we study in our law schools and frankly speaking it is not just for the sake of this interview, I really felt so. I was very much fascinated towards moots and debates, I participated and even won some of National Competitions, but the thing which I think I could have done with my mooting and debating interests was achieving mastery on the bare acts, provisions, concepts, which I did not do. This totally changed my notion after my law school days. This was a new experience to me out of the college.

After your graduation you got a P.P.O. in D.H. Law associates and after that you became the legal officer of Bajaj Allianz Insurance.

You already were achieving many things from the corporate world then what really intrigued or inspired you to do LLM from NLU Jodhpur and enter into academics and lectureship.

See, decisions are slaves to the experiences. After passing from the college I developed an interest to learn the fundamentals of all the subjects I studied in my college life and this is still my expectation from myself and from every law graduate like me. One must have at least the deep fundamentals of all the subjects one studied in a law school. While working in corporate, I somewhere used to miss it and also had no time to develop while being in profession; hence I made it my profession. I opted for academics. I believe that where the attention goes energy flows.

What are the things which a law student should do in college , if he/she aims to enter into academics and lectureship ?

Please share your experience regarding your academic performance along with other co-curricular activities and internships which you did during your law school and how it helped in achieving such a remarkable feat .

A Law School does not teach you Law but develops your mental capabilities to learn. I think a law school is a better platform to develop teaching skills. If you aspire to be an academician, you should be a good researcher, a good mooter, a good debator, a good writer with a high quality content. I do not think this can be developed anywhere but the law school. If a student ignores any of the activities of a law school, be it mooting or debating or case writing , MUNs and aspires to be an in academic world, I think he or she needs to be a little cautious as these are the skills which give you the methods of delivery of your content in the classroom. At the same time I say your academic content should not pay the cost of these activities.

I was deeply involved in almost all the societies running in the law school and was also heading the Moot Court Committee, IDIA, Legal Aid Cell and was a member of debating society & Placement cell. I am very thankful to my law school, my professors there who gave me a platform through these activities to develop my mooting, debating & leadership skills which help me to deliver my lectures, these skills give you courage to stand in the class full of students directing them, handling questions which are shot sometimes even for trapping a professor.

When I talk about internships, ours was the time when grapping an internship in a first tier law firm or with any big face of litigation or we can say in any NGO or commission, used to depend on the mercy of our seniors of other law schools as I was in the second batch of my Law School. Securing a good internship even with anyone’s help was a big achievement and by our own was a divine luck. However the situation has changed now a days.

I interned in PUCL, HRLN, Chambers of Adv. Mohan Parasaran (The then Addl. Solicitor General of India) Indian Oil, D.H law Associates. I kept my internships repeated at D.H law Associates, Mumbai. I am very much Thankful to Mr. Nusrat Hassan, The managing partner of D.H Law Associates who offered me the repeated internships at its Mumbai office, where I interned thrice and also offered me a pre placement offer in the starting of the fourth year of my college. I am also one of the founding members of Delhi office of the firm.

What piece of advice would you give as a person who have written and published several research papers to law students who have just put their foot in law college and have an interest in the research arena? How to deal with general issues whilst writing research paper like how to go about it, choosing a topic that grasp the viewers attention, how to garner relevant information pertaining to the topic and how to make the content different from what's already out there?

Interest in research means you are born to study law. The first issue while writing a research paper is the “selection of topics”. I advise all the aspiring authors to be very careful while choosing your topic of research. Do extensive study of the literatures even before finalising the topics, if you have multiples in your mind. Try to search the research gap in all those topics by doing a through study of all ideas in your mind. Catch the gap and then select your topic. Always try to choose such topics where a less number of published works are there. Give time to learn the various modes of citation style, strictly follow the format. Use simple language while writing. Honestly acknowledge the original author. Do not hide behind paraphrasing techniques.

Please share your journey of completing B.A.LL.B. from Chanakya National Law University to becoming an assistant professor of Galgotia University.

A have my journey with plethora of variations. I Completed B.A LL.B from CNLU in 2012 (2007-12) with a PPO in my hand from D.H Law Associates where I worked for some period. Later on I joined Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Co. Ltd. as a Law officer, dealing in MACT Cases. Further I tried my luck in Civil Services, unfortunately couldn’t make into it, but that was one of the best academic phase I lived. Further I joined NLU Jodhpur for my higher studies and pursued LL.M in Corporate Laws. Immediately after that I joined MATS Law School as an Assistant Professor and also completed my M.Phil under the supervision of Late Prof. G.P Tripathi. Currently I am working as an Assistant Professor at Galgotias University.

The time when the whole world is running after money, what really inspired you to work for the marginalized sections of society.

Please share this experience of yours and any message regarding this which you would like to convey to the law students regarding this

Marginalized sections are marginalized because, they have not been worked for. Social ignominy and issues faced by them is hardly taken care of or even deeply thought of by most of the mainstreams. I think nothing can be more hospitable than understanding a person ,his issues, his adaptability challenges, his ignorance by the society, his social hard time.

While interning in PUCL (People’s Union for Civil Liberties) Jaipur, which was the time when the Jaipur terrorist attack was concluded in May 2008, I was actively involved in the relief work at Jaipur and the remote areas of it. I encountered such a devastating situation faced by the Bangladeshi Migrants settled in the outskirts of Jaipur, who were claimed to be terrorists were being arrested by the police on the name of being the reason for the attack. I have become a witness of the extreme atrocities faced by them. I visited their huts, their bastis, talked to them, went to police stations talked to SHOs and I was shocked hearing the reasons for their arrest. This was the first time my mind came out of the fascinating world of my law school. I thought myself attached to them and with every marginalised sections I can reach upon. I have also organized workshops for Dalit maids under the banner of Bihar Dalit Vikas Samiti. I worked with the students of poor families who aspired to pursue Law from National law Schools and Worked under IDIA, (an initiative by Late Prof. Shamnad Basheer) as a teaching team in charge and as a state Director for their sensitization. I visited different districts of Bihar, categorised government schools where such poor kids were getting their school education, went on to sensitize them. Managed donations for their studies, these also involved lot of administrative hurdles. So I think my life is running between my two parallel duties one for my profession and the other for my inner satisfaction and this will ever continue.

Thank you so much sir for talking with us , please share with us some lessons which you would like to convey to law students across India .

At last I want to say that a law Student is considered as a complete package in outside world. Complete your personality by getting involved into every academic, co curricular activities going on in and around you, in your law school but always make sure you keep the academic content with yourself. The ultimate aim of your study is not only to do your professional duties which everybody does but also to fulfill your social obligations which bind everyone and a few opt. Try to manage several things at less provided time, which always happen in the law schools (like Diwali night party and Project submissions at the same time). No one is perfect in this world but if you chase perfection you can achieve excellence.