Human Judgment in the Age of AI, Cross-Border Practice, and Writing Publicly with Yash Jangid

Welcome to Studying Law Around the World. I'm Claudio Claus. In each episode, I talk with lawyers, law students, and professors from different parts of the world to talk about legal education, careers, and what the profession looks like in real life. We talk about the hard parts, the surprises, and the decisions that shaped their paths. Whether you're planning to study abroad, thinking about working in another legal system, or just curious about how law works around the world, this podcast is for you. Today I have the opportunity to interview Yash Jangir. He has an incredible story. He's an advocate registered with the Bar Council of India, has been practicing law since 2003. His focus has been on advancing expertise in arbitration and artificial intelligence. He also has an LLM in commercial and corporate law from Queen Mary University in the UK, and also is qualified for the Call to the Bar in England and Wales. Beyond that, he's also an officer at the International Bar Association. Thank you so much for making the time to come to the podcast today, Yash. Thank you very much, Claudio. It's genuinely good to be here. Absolutely. I'd love to hear a little bit more about, you know, your journey in the legal space, also your, you know, motivation to, to be a lawyer, to be working with this very interesting field of, of arbitration, AI technology. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself? Yeah. So my journey becoming a lawyer really started in a classroom when I was like around 10 or 12 years old. And we had this subject, social science, where we used to study about the Indian history. So when I was at school studying, reading the history books, I noticed a pattern over there that earlier nobody had pointed out to me, that the people who built modern India, whether it be Mahatma Gandhi or the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, or the person who drafted the Constitution, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, all of them were lawyers and almost all of them were trained in London. So I had this thing in my mind that if I wanted to do something meaningful, it would be That I should become a lawyer. So that has sown a seed. Apart from that, I didn't have any other knowledge at that time what the law exactly is. So when I was like, again, like when I was around 10 or 12, the idea of becoming a lawyer was planted in my mind after reading the history books. Now, as I come from a traditional artisan community, like the carpenter community from India, and that historically had no proximity to power, so in my family, I have not I'm the first generation lawyer. I, then I, in 2017, I decided to join a law school. The really, and the things started changing in COVID. So into March 2022, so I was studying law in the other city. It's in Pune, Maharashtra. So in COVID, I had to come back to my city. And at that time, things went completely, I'd say, off the road because there were no more physical classes. were no more physical examination. So in January 2021, I decided to join a litigation chamber as a legal trainee while being in my 4th year of my law school. So I was working there from January 2021 to March 2022 as a legal trainee. And in March 2022, I had to travel back to Pune for my final semester examination because of the COVID has also started to improving. So I went To Pune. Before going, I was offered a job at the litigation chambers I was working, but the pay that was offered was substantially low. So I was offered like around ₹4,000, which if I convert into the US dollar, it won't be even $40 per month. So that was a moment that made me think like what actually I want to do in my life. Is it actually what I want to do? So But in all these things didn't seem correct at that moment. I felt like, no, there's something else that I should. And I had this in my mind that I'll do the litigation for 2 to 3 years, then I'll go to London for my master's. So that was the whole plan. But after thinking back, I realized that I should apply for the master's that year only. And fortunately, I got an admission into the Queen Mary Commercial and Corporate Law program. And in the same year, I was awarded a scholarship by the government of Rajasthan. So which helped me support my education. So that's how I landed up in UK. So it was not a plan, but it all came out of the situation. That's amazing. What, what an incredible story. I really appreciate you sharing that. I found it fascinating how, you know, it comes from, from many years ago and from growing up really that vocation to become a lawyer and to make a difference. And I really do believe that, you know, with, with these ideals that you really helps you to strive and do so much in the profession. And I'm curious here to hear a little bit more about, you know, you're qualified in India, you have gone through the process towards the bar in England and Wales. You just mentioned a little bit about your studies. What are some of the biggest differences that you've noticed between these systems? You know, the podcast here, Studying Law Around the World, really, I really love asking this to our guests to hear a little bit more and to understand this very international scenario. So when I was finishing my LLM in London, I knew that I wanted to have a practical exposure to the UK legal market. And my first plan, like most international students, I chose a solicitor route. So just for your audience, I'll just briefly explain how the legal system works in the UK and how it works in India. So in India, after, after doing your law degree, you enroll with the State Bar Council. And after enrollment, within 2 years, you have to give the All India Bar Examination, which gives you which, if you qualify, gives you the license to practice throughout India. And advocate mainly does the soliciting work and even the arguing. But whereas in the UK, it is completely a distinct thing. So in UK, the profession is mainly divided into 2 segments. First is either you are a solicitor or a barrister. Solicitor and barrister, if I have to speak in a very general term for your audience to know, it would be that solicitors are those who provide the legal advice and they do not do the arguing. The arguing is left with the barristers. So barristers argue before the courts and barristers cannot directly have an access to the public. They get their clients through solicitor. So in April 2024, I found a job as a litigation paralegal at Sylvain Law, which is a solicitor's firm. So while working there, I've realized that being a solicitor, to work as a solicitor is not something that I want. So I've started finding, researching about the alternative route, this of becoming a barrister. So a person like me from India with having an Indian law degree, even having an LLM from UK, I was still required to undergo 1 year of graduate diploma in law, another 1 year of a bar practice transfer course, which another 2 years with a huge investment. And previously I was already studied 5 years law in India, then 1 year of master's, and I didn't think seemed like a correct thing for me. If I'll, again, I'll have to invest this much amount of time and money. So then I researched and found that if a person wants to become a barrister, like who coming from a different jurisdiction and have a license in a different jurisdiction, they can actually get an exemption. So the regulating authority in the UK is the Bar Standards Board. So if someone wants to qualify, they can apply for an exemption under Transferring qualified lawyers category exemption from academic and vocational component. So what these two components are academic component basically what are the training exams that you have to give and the vocational component is you have to undergo a twelve months of pupillage period which can be termed in the layman's language like a traineeship wherein for the first six months you are required to do the non-practicing where you shadow the barrister and the other six months you can. Under the supervision, you can take your own cases. So I applied for an exemption from both academic and vocational component on the basis of my Indian qualification and Indian license. So I was granted a full academic exemption wherein I was just asked to undertake the bar transfer test similar to containing the similar subjects to the bar course. And for the vocational component, I was given a 3-month exemption in the non-practicing pupillage period. So that's how I applied and I got this exemption. And now when I talk about the differences between the 2 systems, like people would expect me to talk about wigs and gowns, and the real differences I see are structural. And if I have to point out, I can say like there are 4 differences. First is scale. And I don't think people outside India can imagine this. A single High Court judge in India might have more than 100 matters listed in one day, 100. And the Supreme Court of India also hears more cases in a year than some apex court here in a decade. And that skill changes everything— how judges read, how lawyers argue, how justice itself is rationed. Now coming to the second difference, it was of the oral advocacy. Because of that skill which I have mentioned earlier, India is ferociously oral. You may get 3 minutes to make your point before the judge moves on. You learn to think standing up. England, whereas by contrast, frontloads everything into written submissions, skeleton arguments, structured timetables. The oral hearing is often the last mile, not even the whole journey. Coming to the 3rd point, it would, I'd say, be procedural culture. England runs on the clock— directions, deadlines, case management. And the system is engineered for predictability, whereas India, on the other hand, runs on flexibility, which has real costs in delay, but also a strange virtue. The system bends to accommodate human reality in a way rigid systems can't. And now coming to the 4th point, it is the difference I'd say is of specialization. An English barrister might spend an entire career inside one niche of commercial law. Whereas an Indian advocate, especially in the high courts, stays a generalist for years. Constitutional matter in the morning, consumer dispute at noon, commercial arbitration in the evening. And I did all of the 3 in the last single week, in the last month. So when people ask me which system is better, I refuse to question. I refuse to answer because India has taught me the agility, the ability to think instantly. argue anything, survive chaos. Whereas on the other hand, England has taught me structure, precision, preparation, respect for process. And I think the lawyer who has both is dangerous. It's the best in the best sense of the word. Thank you so much for sharing that. I always find it fascinating to see, you know, the differences in the different systems. When I first started the podcast, a lot of the focus was specifically regarding how do you become a lawyer in your country? So it was, it was quite amazing to hear all those very peculiar things that you can see in different jurisdictions. And I appreciate you making the time to explain a little bit of how the system works both in the UK and in India. And also going back to that introduction that we talked about in the beginning, I believe your work touches in arbitration and also some of it in AI. So I'm curious to hear a little bit more about your work and also even specifically talking about arbitration and AI. Where do you see the strongest connection between these 2 areas today? Okay. Before speaking about like how I got into the arbitration and this AI work, I'll first answer what's the strongest connection that I see. So the strongest connection, and I want to be precise over here because there's a lot of noise on this topic. It is not about the replacement, rather the discussion should be about the augmentation. And let me explain why arbitration specifically. Where the AI will matter the most in my understanding as of now. So think about what a major international arbitration actually looks like. You might have a construction dispute between, let's say, a contractor based in the Middle Eastern state, governed by English law, seated in Singapore with documents in 3 languages and a record running into hundreds of thousands of pages. And international arbitration, before anything else, is an information processing problem of staggering size. So you're required to undertake a huge research, read documents, and I think the information processing is exactly what the AI will do brilliantly. So the document review, which a junior lawyer might spend 6 weeks undertaking, can be done in a single day with the help of an arbitration. The translation across languages instantly. We can search the testimony also, use the AI. For searching testimony to find out inconsistencies, take it for the case management, chronologies, data analysis. In all these areas, the AI can help. The grunt work that consumed and frankly burned out a generation of junior lawyers, AI would eat that. And here I'll say something, something slightly provocative. There's also a justice argument hidden inside this. The cost of arbitration has become a barrier. Slow and medium enterprises increasingly cannot afford the process that was designed to serve them. AI cuts the cost of the document-heavy stages. It doesn't just make arbitration efficient, it also makes it accessible. And it is not limited to the productive story. That's an access to justice also. And I think this has fallen out of the conversation currently, but this is the line that I hold, that there is a frontier AI must not cross. And that frontier is judgment. And because most of the people might forget that the entire, the entire arbitration institution rests on one asset, and that one asset is trust. Parties from different countries who don't trust each other's court agree to trust a human being, an arbitrator, to weigh evidence, assess credibility, and be fair. Strip out that human judgment and you haven't automated an arbitration. You have just abolished it. So we can ask questions to ourselves. Can a machine assess whether a witness is lying? We know that answer certainly would be a no. Can it weigh commercial reasonableness across 2 business cultures? At the present, how the AI has developed, the answer remains a no. Can it take the moral responsibility for $100 million award? Again, the answer remains a no. And more importantly, the parties haven't consented to that. They appointed an arbitrator. Not an algorithm. So the future that I see and the future I will argue in my book is not about the debate about the AI versus arbitrators. It'll be AI-assisted arbitrators. So if your listeners want to take a one sentence from this answer, let it be, it'll be that artificial intelligence can help us process information much more faster. Just human intelligence will still be required to deliver justice. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. I find it fascinating to see the takes that really see AI in this light, that it really has a changing and very interesting power, but also that it can, in a way, be used for good if done with the correct bounds. And I appreciate you bringing the moral aspect of it as well and how that really has to be taken into consideration, the whole accountability of the lawyer, arbitrator, and those that are, you know, involved in the process. I'm curious here as well to ask you, you know, you've been involved with the International Bar Association. You've studied abroad for your LLM. You know, a lot of this global legal conversations going on. And I'm curious, you know, how has that shaped the way you think about your career as well? When you realize that, you know, the legal community, when sometimes we are bound by You know, our, our own country's bar in a way that you're not admitted to law everywhere, but in aspects, in ways when you practice arbitration, for example, it feels a lot more transferable, right? So, so I'd love to hear a little bit about your thoughts on that. So if I have to speak about my journey first before for the audience, my journey with the IBA, the International Bar Association, was started like completely by an accident. I think like most of the international careers start like that. So when I was pursuing my LLM, like in 2023, I was doing 2 things in parallel at the university. First, I organized the first student-led AI summit, which was titled as Idea for Humanity: AI is Evolving Education, bringing together academics and practitioners to discuss what AI was about to do, how we teach. And at the same time, I was also writing my dissertation on how the WTO's legal frameworks would need to adapt to the artificial intelligence and the digital economy. Because of the both of the works, I was constantly in conversation with the lawyers and academics. And I still remember, like, there was one of the senior UK barristers which said to me almost in passing that IBA is offering scholarship and your research fits the same, so you should apply. Now here's the thing. I almost didn't. My somewhat, I'd say that the imposter syndrome kicked in and same as in life, exactly I thought that IBA would be the opportunity I can get to present my research. So last year, by combining my research from the summit that I organized and the dissertation that I wrote, I applied for the IBA's Academic and Professional Development Committee scholarship. And fortunately I got that scholarship. I attended the annual conference in Toronto last year, and that's where I'd say, like, if I have to tell from my experience, what is it coming back to your question that how it helps the people and how difficult it might be to adapt to a different legal culture. I'd say that my time, particularly at AIBA, that conference has helped me have an understanding. So I got a chance to have a conversation with many people over there. So I met a lawyer. From Brazil, I met lawyers from Japan, which I didn't do in like even living in London. So that really helped me. And all I have realized that underlying, you have these similar legal practices. Laws might be different, but how you practice law remains the same. Like how you should argue, how you should do research, how you should, like how you should train yourself in the original side of the advocacy, in the appellate side of the advocacy. These things at the core remain same. So they, they don't change substantially. And when we go out and listen to the people from different jurisdictions, from different areas, we, I think if I have to speak for myself, my horizon has, my understanding of the law has expanded substantially. Absolutely. No, that's so interesting. The work you've been doing, I found it fascinating. I was reading a little bit of your recent posts on LinkedIn as I prepared for this. Podcast, and I saw that you recently worked on a petition around accent discrimination. So I'm curious to hear a little bit more about that story. What pushed you to take that step? And, and what does that experience say about the role of lawyers beyond the traditional file, you know, of practice of the law? Okay. So last year, so I'll just, as if you have to become a barrister, additionally with the doing the undertaking the exams and pupillage, you're also required to attend 10 qualifying sessions in the UK. So, qualifying sessions are like events. It could be events, seminars, lectures that an aspiring barrister must attend. So, last year, I was attending one such qualifying session at the Inner Temple, and there we were asked questions like, what do you think on this topic? Almost every one of them was answering that question, but I was feeling hesitant to answer that question. The reason was not that I didn't know the answer and I was not sure. If my answer is correct or not. Instead, it was something different. I felt hesitant because in that entire room, most of the people, like almost everyone, had an English accent, but whereas I was the one who had an Indian accent. So, I kind of felt hesitant. I didn't speak at that moment, and that was a turning point where I realized that even though I have a qualification, even though I think I can answer the question, and still I wasn't able to do that. Upon deeper reflection, I thought that I'll do something. I'll do something for people like myself who doesn't have an English accent and wants to find they don't lose their confidence. So upon doing further research, I found that what I can do is work in the accent discrimination field and how, what kind of work that I do. So in the UK, you have the Equality Act. So equality has 9 protected characteristics, for example, race, age, sex. So if you are discriminated on any of those 9 characteristics, you can have a discrimination case. But that 9 protected characteristics didn't include accent. So I thought, okay, let's do one thing. Let's try to work for this particular thing. I had written to my inner— to the inn that I'm associated with, the Inner Temple. They appreciated it, but they said they couldn't do much. So I thought, what can I do? So I wrote a petition the House of Commons and submitted at 10 Downing Street, that is the official residence of the Prime Minister of the UK, demanding that there should be an amendment to the Equality Act and accent should be added as a 10th protected characteristic. And the petition is still pending. There has nothing— the work has not been done much. We are still waiting for some positive response. But things like this, now coming back to how they can have a benefit in the legal practicing, I'd say that it helps lawyer to think from a policy perspective because every law is debated in the parliament before it is enacted or implemented. When you work in these fields, your understanding of the interpretation of law improves, your understanding for the advocacy also improves, like what can be the underlying reasons of how the law is enacted. So I think it helps a lawyer. to have a better understanding of the jurisprudence, I'd say, to a better understanding of policymaking. And also it helps you to meet people from the different segments of the society, which I think otherwise would be difficult. I appreciate you mentioning a little bit more of that. I find it fascinating when lawyers go beyond that and really go into the advocacy point, right? So it's just incredible that you're that you're also, you know, advocating in this sense and looking at your path so far, you know, from litigation to policy work to international engagement, engagement. How have you found, you know, in this transition from being a student to being a lawyer, how have you found good ways or good habits to decide where to focus your time, your energy, as you're looking into developing and growing as well as a professional? Claudia, if I'll have to be honest with you, I have Not certain. I've thought like how I'll divide my time. It's just the, whatever the work demands, I try to work in that direction. For example, if I have to tell you, like when I came back to India right now, so the Indian legal industry is mainly dominated by a few of the certain communities. I feel very sad that it is the major families that have hold over the legal profession. So when I came here, I, and I don't have any legal background per se. So I also faced a problem that the community do not have a representation. There's also not a women representation in the higher judiciary. So coming here, I've realized that, okay, I need to do something for this as well. So when I came back to India, I started a campaign, which is Justice with Representation, wherein I'm trying to persuade, or I'd say request the judiciary to present their judicial data, judicial social diversity data, because in India, Though we don't have a race problem, but we have the, we have a caste problem. So, and I was like, okay, judiciary should present the caste-based data. I saw what are the personal challenges that I'm facing and what are the solutions that I can do, what I can do from my end. So there's nothing structured in this. So whatever the task demands me, whatever the situation demands, I just take it and do it. And I don't know if it's the right thing or not. That only the time and experience will tell, but as of now, there's nothing as such structured. I appreciate the honesty here. I think that's one of the cool parts of being in this position of getting to talk with different professionals and lawyers who are building their practice and all that truly means, right? So it means that we are still developing. We're always trying to look for new ways to do things and get better at it. And I appreciate you mentioning a little bit of how you're approaching this at this moment, because it really, it is meaningful, right? We have a substantial part of our community here who listens to the podcast who are very early career professionals as well. So I always find it interesting when questions come up about, you know, building good habits and all of that. And it really is a process. It takes truly a lifetime. I wanted to wrap up today's episode asking you if you're thinking about young professionals are trying to build that international career, what are some, what are some pieces of advice that, that come to your mind as you think about that? Actually, I won't say that I'm in the capacity to give advice to anyone, but rather share my, from my own personal experience, what I think can be helpful for the young lawyers. First is that I have consistently reading the legal biographies and even from the, there are certain letters from Abraham Lincoln as well. Wherein he was approached by a young member of the bar asking that if he could join his chambers. So Abraham Lincoln replied in a letter that, look, gentlemen, you don't need to be at my chambers to learn the law. Instead, I would suggest you, you do something else. So he suggested that you should read, read, read, read a lot. And that's what I've realized even in India as well. There's a lawyer, a famous lawyer, That we all look up to, and his name is Mr. Nani Palkhivala. Unfortunately, he's not anymore with us, but he also had this distinct reading habit. So I'd first say that develop a reading habit, and it has personally helped me a lot. Reading, reading, reading. So for me, at least from the litigation perspective, I can say that reading would help you a lot. And second, I'd say write, write publicly. So write early and before you feel ready. Because the feeling of readiness arrives here after the actual readiness. And I'll take it from my example. Like I wrote a research paper which unexpectedly got me the IBA scholarship. I'm even writing a book that is attracting a conversation. So I think like if you do a writing, you can connect with those people which you might not otherwise connect. So because you're sharing an idea, because if you're doing a litigation work, you're impacting It can be somewhat limited, but if you are writing, if you're writing on a topic of great public importance, it can cross the boundaries as well. And you can unexpectedly build a connection. And the third, I'll just keep it brief, that treat networking, do networking and treat it as a service, not as an extraction. The more you network with the people, write cold emails, ask for a favor, ask them for help, because people are genuinely willing to help you. So at this moment, I think these all are the things that I think will be the advice if I wanted to give to my younger self. Fantastic. Well, I really appreciate you making the time to come in the show and share a little bit about your story and all that you've been doing. I find it just fascinating to follow it and I'm looking forward to continue following, you know, your next steps in the years to come. Also, thank you all so much for making the time to Listen to today's episode. Thank you so much, Claudio. It was genuinely a pleasure and I hope I was somewhat useful to your listeners. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much.