LFR got LATENT: A Platform for Law, Art and Beyond
A few years back, a 17 year old came from Gwalior to Kolkata, a city which he had just read in the newspaper, seen in movies and imagined through tales of our freedom struggle. The 17 year old had worked for two years in law entrance exams with some fears that his weak English didn't cost him the exam. But fortunately, CLAT 2015 was an exam which was so poorly drafted and disorganised that the cutoff went really low, one could do without depending on the English subject to clear CLAT and he made it to NUJS, Kolkata. This student who had a legendary name behind cricket team player, Rohit Sharma just dreamt to just sit once in flight, to speak fluent English and to make this world a little better. No points for guessing that this person is me who is now building Law Firm Ready and launching LFR Got Latent while getting excited about the potential of this space.
Going back to my college journey, there was so much to do as soon as I entered college. There were too many case laws of plenty of pages, and faculties who were teaching European renaissance (which I barely understood). The first month vanished in a blink of seconds and I was processing all the cultural shock with the students coming from all parts of the countries. I was making new friends who were all looking to enter cool societies such as cultural committees, mooting, debating, sports amongst others. Gwalior didn’t give me enough exposure so I tried to put my hands on applying to most of these societies. However, a half page CV (which had a Rangoli Competition winner entry) and poor interviews ensured that I couldn’t make it to these societies.Â
How Poetry Saved Me in College
In the same first semester, I heard my friend reciting a poem he had written and it took me to older times in high school when I had written a small short story. The friend inspired me to start writing back and Rohit, the poet, was created. At the end of the first year, I narrated a poem which was called NUJS me jeevan which became a solid hit and the poem continued for five years. Suddenly people started knowing me more, faculty reaching out to me telling how much they loved it. That was the first time I saw how art can save someone when other things are not. Whenever I felt isolated, lonely or heartbroken, it was poetry which soothed my heart which helped me process my emotions better.
Why do all children dream but most adults stop dreaming?
As someone who had learnt classical music for four years, in law school I also ensured that I participated in every singing event (can hear me singing a song here), tried my hands in theatre which I still love exploring as I am staying in Delhi NCR now. I was enjoying the thrill of being creative, artistic while also studying law. A lot of my interpersonal learning came because of theatre and talking to artists all around, which I realised very late in life. At times, I also sometimes questioned if it is really love for art or am I just pretending to love art.
A friend, Sachin who runs Agami recently gave me an example on how children dream so much and use those imaginations to keep on thinking out of the box. They don’t waste much time on overthinking or what is happening around them, but they are so much into investing their energy into building something. Then society and the system pushes them so much deep into the social norms and a lot of them stop being dreamers with passing years.
Sometimes, despite seeing so many artists and lawyers, I often used to wonder why art and law are not seen together in any space. So many of my friends were dancers, singers, painters and post college most of them just gave up doing the artistic activities they once loved (Thankfully covid helped some of them get back too). This might have to do with how formalised we have seen the legal system, a lot of which find its reasons from colonial history.Â
This is a very interesting TedX talk around art and few examples on family law and child rights. Dr. Emily Muir, an artist and a lawyer shares about an artist’s approach to legal research and how art becomes an expressive tool to explore new and diverse perspectives of law.Â
The reason I am narrating all this is I believe that law school, working in the legal fraternity can be tough and sometimes we forget that we were once storytellers, dancers, musicians, illustrators, designers, theatre performers (one of my team members told me it is also called thespian these days :P). This initiative of seeing back their Latent or Talent and featuring various art forms is an attempt to start featuring the creative side of our LFR family and larger legal fraternity to remind them what they have somewhat forgotten.Â
One can feature painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, music, illustrations, songs, raps, poems or literally any art form and we will create a virtually art gallery for our legal fraternity. One can even send us how they see law through artistic design and experiences.
Multifold Inspiration behind LFR Got Latent
The inspiration of this project came because of my team members as well. Our youngest member Nitin runs a podcast on Law ka Safar with Future Lawyers and Mubaraka is a dancer and theatre performer. Snehaa is not just a storyteller but considers herself a cinema critic because she likes watching netflix and judging stories Bhabesh is not an artist but he wrote playing football as art so I will count it as art as it is the conscious use of skill and imagination to create something that is beautiful or expresses important ideas or feelings. So I will consider him dribbling as art too.
Himani is a designer, and garba lover but more importantly she is that artist who pushes the team to think of making law accessible to all through design.
Gyanesh is a photographer where you can see some of his series of photos below:
And Riya loves painting and singing! One example of her beautiful expression is below:
One of our team members, Snehaa, mentioned the importance of launching something such as LFR Got Latent for law students. She mentions that:
Life in law school is filled with moots, internships and cramming for exams that when I ask myself who I am apart from being a law student, I come up with so many different things that don’t resonate with me anymore.
I think of meme ideas, but I never have the time to actually post them. I am a reader who hasn’t had the time to pick a fiction in months. I am a writer who hasn’t written anything without citations in the past year.
Law school is where you grow, but sometimes you grow so much that your roots go underground. We are proud of our mentees’ accomplishments, not just the internships they get or competitions they win but we are also proud of how funny your jokes are, insightful your non-legal articles are and the sheer talent that is inside of you!
Three decades back , a legal scholar Professor Emeritus Roger Abrams in his text ‘The lawyer as an artist’ wrote that the lawyers who are also artists can be the creative generators of new doctrine, new voices, and reach beyond traditional notions of law and policy to make the law serve the society better.
I sincerely hope that, regardless of whether you personally identify as an artist or art enthusiast, if you are a law student, lawyer, judge, or anyone involved in the legal system, I invite you to participate in LFR got latent. Collectively, we will make make it a platform where lawyers and law students are seen beyond their work identity and to see them as fellow artists too. So, send us your stories, snippets, poems, art work, any art work, and we would love to publish it and show all our mentees, mentors and subscribers who you are apart from being a brilliant student!
All you have to do is fill: https://forms.gle/hRN6e2qzhA9YA3Qu7 or email us at lawfirmready@gmail.com with subject matter, LFR Got Latent.
I sign off with a spotify playlist of our mentees from Batch 14th where different cultures, different tastes and different experiences bind us together through an art form; Music!
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