Can law student give legal advice? Can law student give legal advice?

Posted 2 years ago

Can a law student in India give legal advice to people ? Is that legal ?

Ayantika Mondal @ Prime Legal

Responded 2 years ago

A.Hi,
As per the Advocates Act, only the recognized individual are allowed to provide professional legal advice. If the student is representing himself as a qualified and recognized advocate, then he is liable to be punished as per the law. But, if the student is giving advice on a personal note, then he is not liable for any offence.
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Anik

Responded 2 years ago

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A.Hi,
It depends. If the Advocates Act permits only the recognized lawyer to give legal advice in the professional manner. Whereas, the student can give legal advice on the personal note. If the student is giving advise disguising himself as an practicing advocate, then that is an punishable offence.
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Abhimanyu Shandilya

Responded 2 years ago

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A.Interesting question demands interesting answer.
Section 29 of Advocates Act, 1961 says that Advocates to be the only recognised class of persons entitled to practice law. -Subject to the provisions of this Act and any rules made thereunder, there shall, as from the appointed day, be only one class of persons entitled to practise the profession of law, namely, advocates.

And again reiterates in Section 33 Advocates alone entitled to practise. —Except as otherwise provided in this Act or in any other law for the time being in force, no person shall, on or after the appointed day, be entitled to practice in any court or before any authority or person unless he is enrolled as an advocate under this Act.

Basis the above two Sections it is very clear that only an Advocate is allowed to practice law and appear in courts to represent a client in the court of law (except for parties appearing in person for their own cases). The question that arise here is should we restrict the "Practice" to just appearance to courts or should we consider it more than that like advising, conveyancing etc.
If Practice is restricted to just courts then a law student should not have any problem in providing the services of advising clients and if practice suppose to mean more than court appearance then a law student should not be allowed to advice clients.

But the buck does not stop here. If law students are not allowed to advice then how is it possible to run the country wide national programs like Legal aid Services which are a national duty to the state coming directly from the Article 39A of the Constitution. Under the Legal Aid Services the law students are supposed to visit, interact and advice the client on many legal issues.

In my opinion since practicing and appearance is not permissible without holding the degree and passing the Bar Exam so, the law graduates can not practice in court and that is absolutely fine but providing advice while they are pursuing law is something which should be fine as it is beneficial for the client and for the budding Lawyer too. Let the market decide if the client wishes to take advice from a lawyer in making then why not and the law of caveat emptor shall play its role.

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Vaidehi Samant

Responded 2 years ago

A.There is no law as such which stops a law student or anyone from giving any legal advice to people on personal basis but important thing is the advice should be correct and well researched and such law student should not give such people legal advice in disguise of qualified lawyer otherwise it will be a punishable offence and therefore be honest to your advice seekers that you are law student so far but have enough knowledge to legal advice to people and therefore to treat you as general consultant. Thank you.
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Advocate Vikas Arora

Responded 2 years ago

A.Yes, Why not, for giving an advise to someone there is no requirement of any degree. In Canada the Lawyers are bound to provide the advise in writing and in case the same found to be wrong the Canadian law permits the client to prosecute the lawyer however in India there is no such law. so if you have that ability there is legal impediment to advise someone about their legal complications.
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