Working towards eliminating the deep-rooted issues in one's sector of work is a heavy burden, especially in the legal sector that has a long history. Arjun PK and his team of eight at the Indic Law Project are trying to do just that. He is making the legal field more accessible to people, especially the marginalised sections. Speaking on how it all began, Arjun tells, "When I was in law school, we started this organisation called the Legal Collective for Students. We were into strategic litigation and policy research on students' rights. Now, what we are doing is something called the Indic Law Project. It is essentially trying to address certain deep-rooted issues in the legal sector. Firstly, there is a dearth in the usage of technology in the legal field. When it comes to law, if you are a lay person and you want to find information about, let's say, labour laws, there is no customised tool to address your specific query on the internet. Secondly, we are trying to address the lack of inclusivity in the law sector. There is a meagre representation of people from the Dalit community, Scheduled Tribes or transpeople for that matter."
Arjun is ambitious to create an ethos of sophistication for people interested in legal studies. He says, "What we are doing right now is that we are building an ecosystem that involves both technology and information. Under our knowledge project, we have started providing courses for preparation towards law entrance examinations and we are charging a fee for that. We have plans to expand on that by providing legal solutions for the common man in everyday situations. Under our technology project, we are trying to create a LinkedIn-like portfolio platform for lawyers. The revenue that we obtain from these two projects is being used in two domains — one of which is an accessibility project, where people can access legal information on the internet. We are building a website for this that will be similar to Wikipedia."
Arjun also has plans to recreate the legal scene in various flamboyant ways. "We are trying to bring in modern storytelling techniques like content creation and animation and then, build a narrative around our legal structure, history and constitution ideals." Speaking about including the alienated sections in the legal field, he added, "We also have the inclusivity project where people from historically marginalised communities can use our platforms for free in order to prepare for law entrance examinations. We've spent the past six months developing this product. When we generate more revenue, we also plan to support the people from marginalised sections by taking care of their law college tuition fees.
Speaking about some of the challenges that the organisation is facing right now, Arjun says, "Capital is a major obstacle for us right now. Also, it is difficult to hire people whom you expect to work for you for measly returns. Finally, the whole project is a huge task at hand. Planning ahead with minimal funds is going to be difficult."
