MANUAL GUIDE ON HOW TO PRACTICE LAW FOR YOUNG LAWYES: A MEASURE FOR MAKING LEGAL INTERNSHIP AND CLINICAL LEGAL AID EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE IN INDIA

 

Sandeep Chandrasekharan

                                  Researcher at National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi

(Joint Secretary, Law and Justice Research Foundation 

THE GAPS IN LEGAL PRACTICE AND EDUCATION: THE ENGLISH LEGACY AND THE INDIAN PROBLEM

A formalization of professional training for legal practitioners under Common Law Legal system can be traced back to 1292, when Edward I issued a royal pronouncement to his judges of the common bench.[1] According to this, they were to find and select “apt and eager” students representing each county in the area to learn the business of the courts.[2] These students were to be based at the seat of the courts, Westminster.[3] The earliest form of education focused on simplicity. [4]Attending court and discussing the cases heard was considered sufficient.[5] The method of legal education available and prevalent at the Inns at any given time depended on whether court was in session.[6]

Compared to the times of 1292, the legal profession in common law countries all around the world has gone trough a significant transformation and broken many grounds with the Three Year Law Degree  (and in many countries like India Five Year integrated courses in Law has been introduced) ‘.[7] Except when it comes to apprenticeship of young lawyers by senior advocates the unwritten customary traditions  still continues where even though a different class of legal academicians have emerged, the former plays little or no significant role in practical training of law students in becoming budding lawyers despite the attempts made by the regulatory bodies at the state and national level which will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

Learning through observation, trial and error method of practical skills in litigation, consultation and legal compliance continues to be imparted from senior advocate to junior advocate as a matter of long standing tradition.[8] This unwritten pedagogy of imparting practical training by senior advocate to the budding junior advocates are often unstructured, irregular, and therefore their outcome is unpredictable and more over time consuming for all the stakeholders, whether that stakeholder is the senior advocate or the junior advocate or the client or the court or the public at large for that matter. To be more specific, every junior advocate will be put through the same trial and error methods repetitiously and the different correct pedagogical methods of imparting practical training are never systematically recorded to avoid repeating the same mistakes again. Resulting in loss of man hours and thinning of confidence of the budding lawyers to stay in the profession and lack of trust or difficulty in gaining the trust of the client by the junior advocate within a reasonable time. This is without considering the fact that there is no standardised minimum wage or stipend for young lawyers working under the senior advocates and the remuneration they receive depends on the senior advocate under whom he or she is interning or practicing and the number and nature of legal assignments they receive.

As a former colony of Britain, India has inherited the common law legal system and many of the laws which where enacted during the colonial days have been reformed while others remain in effect. It is a challenge every former colony faces around the world. The same is true for the salient components of the legal profession and legal education, another colonial legacy also relatively slow to change.[9] Among them includes the sacred relationship between the senior advocate and the junior advocate. It is through this sacred relationship where legal profession meets and greets professionals of legal education today, both of which otherwise occupy a virtually watertight disposition on law in theory and practice.[10] Both these bipolar worlds of legal community seldom get an opportunity to come face to face; where the former (a senior advocate) is in a unique position to apprehend the law in motion and the later (i.e. the professionals in the legal education) is in a unique position to visualise law in its ideal form.

There is and always been a disconnect between how law is implemented and how it should be implemented.[11] This is a disconnect that is faced in each and every country, but it is in its acute form within a developing country like India and the same has a bearing on the effectiveness of institutions implementing rule of law and justice as well as institutions imparting legal education and awareness.

FILLING THE GAPS IN LEGL PRACTICE AND EDUCATION: THE NEED FOR A COMPLETE LAWYERING PROJECT

The problem is apparently simple and oblivious. As acknowledged earlier there is a wide gap between academicians and the legal practitioners. This has been aggravated by the interpretation of ethical rule against holding office of profit imposed upon anyone practicing law in India so as to protect the independence and dignity of the legal profession.[12] As per the prevailing rules in India with regard to office of profit in the context of practicing law, a person who is serving as a fulltime academician is an employee of the educational institution in which he or she is serving and therefore in effect are holding office of profit, consequently barring them from legal practice in India.[13] The voices calling for a relook into this interpretation of office of profit to enable  full time academicians to practice law are gaining momentum.[14] This ethical rule is one of the primary cause for the widening gap between legal academics and legal practice which gives way to other ancillary challenges and missed opportunities for implementing or administering rule of law and justice in India. The solution for bridging the gap between legal academicians and practicing lawyers suggested by the Bar Council of India and the Indian Law Commission is to permit practicing lawyers and retired judges to teach laws in legal educational institutions.[15]

There is indeed a consensus as to the existence of a wide gap between the lawyers and the legal academicians. The challenge is in visualising the extend of the problem and accordingly formulate a very specific and detailed solution. Whether agreeing to allow legal academicians to take up practice alone will be enough as a solution which will benefit the budding lawyers?[16] The Bar Council of India (BCI) has indeed made an effort in this direction through the Legal Education Committee (LEC) constituted by the BCI.[17] LEC in turn forms and act through the Accreditation Committee to supervise granting of accreditation to institutions in India to impart professional legal education.[18] There are a number of parameters for providing accreditation by LEC through the Accreditation Committee.[19] Even after granting accreditation to an institution the LEC through the accreditation committee shall continue to evaluate the performance of such accredited institution in imparting professional legal education. Among the variables taken into consideration for evaluating the performance of an accredited institution includes Academics.[20] Within academics for obtaining and maintaining accreditation one of the criteria is a mechanism for providing clinical legal aid and internship.[21]

To accommodate legal internship as part of formal legal education the Bar Council of India has introduced the mandatory internship assignments  as part of Three Year and Five Year Law Graduate Program.[22] Each registered student shall have to complete a minimum of 12 weeks internship for Three Year Course stream and 20 weeks in case of Five Year Course stream during the entire period of legal studies under NGO, Trial and Appellate Advocates, Judiciary, Legal Regulatory Authorities, Legislatures and Parliament, Other Legal Functionaries, Market Institutions, Law Firms, Companies, Local Self Government and other such bodies as the University shall stipulate, where law is practiced either in action or in dispute resolution or in management.[23] All students shall at least gone through once in the entire academic period with Trial and Appellate Advocates.[24] Each student shall keep Internship diary in such form as may be stipulated by the University concerned and the same shall be evaluated by the guide in internship and also a core faculty member of the staff each time.[25] The State Bar Councils shall be required to prepare a list of suggested Senior Advocates, district-wise with at least ten years’ experience who are willing to take under internship students during the vacation period.[26]

The guidelines on internship of law students provided by the BCI constitutes a minimum standard and that too only to the extend of standardizing the observation and reporting method of imparting practical knowledge of law. There is virtually no collective analysis of the information collected by the law students through such internships. If the data collected through observation and its recording in the internship is analyzed properly we could see a pattern emerging which will shed light on the common procedures and documentations followed in implementing laws by authorities or institutions. These common patterns which are nothing less then repeated steps of drafting and filing of legal documents containing common phrases and terminologies which may be applied commonly in all scenarios to comply with the appropriate procedural law; which when complied will activate the power vested within the appropriate authority or institution to advance a remedy or service for a legal problem or legal need sought by the client through the advocate.

To remedy the gap between the legal academicians and the practicing lawyers and to enable law students to enter the legal profession as successful servants of law and justice the following point of view and actions must be taken. 1) In professional ethics even if it is blasphemous to say, it is a fact that, starting an office or a legal firm by an advocate or a team of advocates along with other professionals especially para legal professionals is as same as running any other business. 2) Identifying new business opportunities for providing the services of an advocate, analyzing which legal services are in demand over the other are crucial to running a successful legal firm or office. 3) Along with identifying demand for services and exploring new opportunities an advocate also needs to become more efficient in imparting skills to junior advocates working under him or her and also equip them in acquiring new skills. 4) There is also a need for increased transparency for the clients in the services rendered by the advocate for him or her so as to maintain the trust and accountability elements of legal profession and bring regularity and predictability in the administration of justice as far as the clients are concerned, which intern increases the trust of the public in the different institutions of administration of justice and towards their individual as well as collective functionaries which includes the members of the bar and the bench.

To achieve the said four objectives Cochin Institute of International Arbitration (CIIA), Cochin, in association with Law and Justice Research Foundation (LJRF), Thiruvananthapuram has taken up a project with the nomenclature “Complete Lawyer”. The immediate aim of the Project is to aid the law graduate to become a successful legal practitioner within two years after law graduation. The timeline set forth is nothing less than ambitious, taking into consideration the persistent anachronistic and time-consuming methods of imparting practical knowledge in law under the current customary practice of observation and trial and error method without proper analysis of the effectiveness of the best method or approach, resulting in longer and uncertain duration to become a successful practicing lawyer.

PHASE-I: THE NEED FOR A GUIDEBOOK ON ACTIVATION AND DE-ACTIVATION         OF POWERS OF INSTITUTIONS OF LAW AND JUSTICE TO PROVIDE LEGAL REMEDY                

 The project will take into confidence the roles that only academicians in legal education , the law students, junior advocates, the senior advocates of the bar and bench, members of the law enforcement agency, and members of the state and central civil service as members of the legal fraternity can fulfil. One of the first steps the project will be taking to realize its objective of making a law graduate a successful lawyer within two years is to prepare a play book or a rule book to guide the academicians, senior advocates and the law students and the law graduates in playing their respective roles or responsibility in facilitating a successful pedagogy to impart practical training in law. The salient features of such a playbook or rule book or guidebook shall be the following:

1)     Based on Research Facts: The content of the Guidebook will be informed by conclusions and suggestions based on a statistical analysis of all the data collected on the observation and trial and error made while imparting soft skills of legal practice in law firms around the country. For the said purpose the appropriate data collection and data analysis method will be identified and applied accordingly. Preliminary research will focus on the ranking of most popular remedies claimed from each institution of law and justice, the method of activation and the method of de-activation of such remedies applied by practicing advocates in such legal institutions for providing legal remedy. For the popups of conducting a pilot study to access the feasibility of such research the team from CIIA and LJRF has selected Kerala High Court as its first institution of law and justice for conducting the said research.

2)     Institution Specific: There will be a Guidebook for each institution of law and justice. Institutions in the context of the guidebook are the animators of remedies for grievances provided under law for violating rights or omission of duties imposed on the state as well as members of society. The Guide Book will be setting out the different powers and duties of  a particular institution that can be activated or de-activated through an advocate on behalf of a client or by the client himself or herself to remedy a legal grievance or to prevent the abuse of such remedial mechanism under law to ensure justice.

3)     Articulating the steps to be taken to animate or inanimate remedies under law:  The powers and functions of an institution of law and justice seldom activates itself. It needs to be activated by the advocate on behalf of the client when there is a need to remedy a legal grievance through the activation of such power or function under the law enacted by the legislature in accordance with the constitution or de-activate the same to prevent any abuse of the same. The guidebook will identify and articulate the steps taken by the advocate to activate or deactivate the appropriate power of the appropriate institution to remedy a legal grievance or abuse of the institutional system.

4)     Ensuring the steps are being complied with: The Senior Advocate in collaboration with the legal academicians and for the benefit of the client, the client himself or herself can ensure that the law students or junior advocates for that matter are taking the appropriate steps for activating or deactivating the powers of an institution to remedy the legal grievance or abuse of the system concerned and successfully deliver justice. Meanwhile the guidelines themselves will give a bearing to the law student and the junior advocates as to the current position of a procedural step that he or she has taken with an objective to activate or deactivate the powers of an institution of law and justice to address an injustice or abuse of such a system.

5)     To empower the law student or the junior advocate to operate autonomously: The law students or junior advocates will be empowered to act autonomously to take positive actions or steps resulting in the appropriate activation or deactivation of power(s) of a particular institution of law and justice flowing from laws including procedural as well as substantive enacted by the legislature rooted in the Indian constitution.

6)     To build confidence in the client as to the delivery of justice:  In addition to aiding the law students and junior advocates to get a barring with regard to steps they have taken to activate the powers of an institution on behalf of a client to address the legal grievance a client might be having, the articulation of procedural steps contextualized by the appropriate substantive law defining the power of an institution of law and justice to provide legal remedy will also aid the junior advocate and the law students in gaining the trust of the client as the client will be able to follow the progress made by the law student or the junior advocate in providing him or her the remedy by activating or deactivating the appropriate powers of an institution of law and justice. With the help of the guidelines the law students and the junior advocates are in a position to demonstrate and be transparent to the client as to how much progress they have made in activating or deactivating the concerned powers of the appropriate institution under the appropriate law substantive as well as procedural.

7)     Aid Judges in Assessing and Monitoring the difficulty of each step for activation or deactivation of a power of an institution of law and justice: A Guide Book articulating the different steps taken be advocates on behalf of their clients to activate or deactivate the appropriate powers and functions of an institution of law and justice according to the appropriate procedural and substantive law can also aid the judicial officers to have a greater appreciation for the difficulties of each individual steps taken by junior advocates leading to the activation or deactivation of relevant powers of the concerned institution of law and justice under the appropriate procedural and substantive law. Accordingly, such judicial officer will be in a better position to decide whether to provide additional time to comply with each individual step or a series of steps as a whole and prevent the trial proceeding from being delayed unnecessarily due to unnecessary adjournments or postponements of hearing of the case by the bench.

8)     Statistics on the most frequently activated powers of an institution: The Guide Book shall also maintain an up to date statistics on the most frequently activated powers and the method of deactivation by opposition council in order to give  an indication to the advocates at the bar and judicial officers at the bench  as to what legal service offered by the advocates are in most demand and least demand and appropriate and develop the resources of the institution and the advocates accordingly

9)     The ultimate beneficiaries:  The clients who approach the institutions of law and justice through an advocate, the advocate himself or herself, the law faculty who has sent his or her law students for internship to such advocate, the junior advocate for that matter assisting the senior advocate and the judicial officers of manning the concerned institution of law and justice and the public at large are beneficiaries of the said Guidebook. The steps provided in the institution specific Guide Book shall provide transparency to the client in the activation or deactivation of powers of an institution of law and justice and accountability to the senior advocate, law faculties, law students, junior advocates and judicial officers at each and every hierarchy of institutions of law and justice.

PHASE-II: CREATION OF AN AUDIO-VISUAL LIBRARY OF PROCEEDIGS WHICH LEADING TO ACTIVATION OR DE-ACTIVATION OF POWERS OF INSTITUTIONS OF LAW AND JUSTICE

 The concept of justice is under continues investigation by the public, jurist, law makers and judges alike. As a concept that originates in our mind influenced by external forces, law and justice as  reflect the organic nature of human mind and it grows or dwarfs in its scope and ambit from time to time and are not anachronistic or stagnant. Whether changes are gradual or revolutionary, one of the elements that facilitate the continuing investigation into law and justice and its ever-changing scope and ambit is facilitated by human conscious and subconscious mind through the medium of language that we speak and express as our own body language to another person or group of persons. In summery we address this complex but seemingly elegant process as interpretation of law and justice.

Knowing the procedural laws and the substantive law and articulating them into steps to be taken to activate or deactivate the powers and functions vested in an institution of law and justice is only half the job. The  final step in activation or deactivation of powers for advancing a remedy against possible injustice by an institution of law and justice involves an intellectual transaction of dialectics.[27]Such dialectics must be based on legal facts. The guidebook which is created in phase one of the complete lawyering project will only aid in arriving the appropriate forum and selecting the appropriate legal facts for activating or deactivating the powers and will be inadequate in aiding the young lawyer on how to activate or deactivate through dialectics with his opposition council in the presence of a judicial officer.  

The dialectics are facilitated between the council and the opposition council by the judicial officer of the institution of law and justice. Ideally it is a dialectic of legal facts and issues among the councils of the bar on behalf of their clients and sometimes the clients themselves and the judicial officers of the bench materializes within the four corners of an institution of law and justice and the existence of violation of justice is identified and the appropriate remedy is advanced by the said institution of law and justice through the appropriate powers vested with it under the law made by the legislatures which is also rooted in the Indian Constitution 

To ensure a productive dialectics of legal facts and issues and an appropriate scrutiny of existence of violation of justice by the appropriate institutional mechanisms manned by individual human beings there are some unwritten rules that must be observed regarding the delivery of such dialectics by the councils of the bar leading to the diagnosis of existence of violation of any law leading to violation of justice ending with the activation or deactivation of the appropriate powers of the institution of law and justice to rectify or remedy the injustice or to prevent the miss use of such institution.

As the manner in which the dialectics must be conducted are unwritten, they cannot be understood and appreciated by reading books. Such unwritten rules of dialogue among the councils and the witnesses in some cases before the judicial officer of the bench are purely live human interactions which also includes subtle communications made through appropriate body language which cannot be explained in words. Such elements make the dialectics a social transaction that needs to be observed by young and upcoming lawyers. The dialectics that are transacted between the councils before a judicial officer the stages of which are nomenclature in law as chief examination, cross examination and re-examination needs to be understood and inculcated by young and upcoming lawyers by observation.

For the purpose of facilitating such observation by young and upcoming lawyers in phase two of the complete lawyering project there needs to be a audio-visual library of dialectics conducted by eminent lawyers in land mark cases whether civil or criminal and the same recoding has to be dissected into different stages of a successful dialectics establishing the need to activate or de-activate the powers of the institution of law and justice for remedying the violation of law and infringement of justice or abuse of a legal system. Through observing the audio-visual library of different dialectics transacted by different lawyers in the same or different cases  the young and upcoming lawyers and law students alike with the aid of their senior advocate and law faculty may succeed in dissecting them and applying the different approach to create their own style of appropriate dialectics that may successfully convey their point of view on the need to activate or deactivate the powers of an institution of law and justice to deliver justice or to prevent the abuse of such institutional system.

The audio-visual library can be virtual or physical or both. The audio-visual library can be created by video recording the proceedings in an institution of law and justice in which the privacy of the witnesses or the clients for that matter is appropriately censored through appropriate editing of such audio-visuals to protect right to privacy of such clients or witnesses in a case without losing the continuity and coherence of dialectics conducted in such a case. If the audio-visual library is created virtually the access to the same may be restricted to advocates, law students, academicians and research scholars to further investigate the salient features of a successful dialectics leading to activation or deactivation of powers of an institution of law and justice to advance the appropriate legal remedy or to prevent the possible abuse of such system.

For creating such audio-visual library there is a need for collaboration between the bar and the bench. There is a need for coordination between the bar association at the district level as well as bar councils at the state and central level. The modalities of creating and maintaining such audio-visual library with due safe guard for ensuring right to privacy and dignity of individuals at the same to provide transparency in the proceedings of the institution of law and justice need to be further discussed and ironed out by the members of the bar and bench. But if phase two comes into reality it will be a revolutionary milestone in India’s legal profession and legal education.

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[1] King Edward I issued a royal edict to common bench judges to recruit “better, worthies and more promising students” from each county to learn the business of the courts by attending cases, participating in moot courts, and joining with judges and lawyers to meet together in what became the Inns of Court. See Ralph Michael Stein, The Path of Legal Education from Edward I to Langdell: A History of Insular Reaction, 57 CHI.- KENT L. REV. 429 (1981). In 1292,

[2] Ralph Michael Stein Ibid.  See also A Brief History of the Legal Education in UK, Bar Council of India, accessed from: http://www.barcouncilofindia.org/about/about-the-legal-profession/brief-history-of-legal-education-in-the-uk/ on 14/11/2020 at 5:20 pm

[3] Ibid. See also Ralph Michael Stein Supra n.1

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] The Bar Council of India has, by its circular No. BCI:D: 1518: 2008(LE/Rules-Part IV) dated 24.12.2008 and Cir No.1/2009 (LE) dated 27.2.2009 communicated to all the Universities requiring them to upgrade legal education by introducing integrated double degree Bachelor‟s Programme in law with five years learning after 10 +2 of students‟ career with adequate number of papers in the first degree with major and minor subjects, languages and required number of papers in law with compulsory, clinical and optional subjects. In order to give effect to the Bar Council‟s reformative measures and incorporate them into the University curriculum

[8] As per the recommendations of the Parliamentary Investigation Committee in 1846 it was only in 1871 that Oxford, and in 1873, that Cambridge reformed their cariculam and initiated formal legal educational institutions in U.K (from were India inherited its legal system and legal education) and reformed their law teaching faculties. Even then the best law students stayed in the traditional system, as the established bar did not accept a university degree as the equivalent of practical experience as they want to retain the inns as the centre of legal education. See A Brief History of the Legal Education in UK Supra n.2

[9] Ibid.

[10] Supra n.8

[11] This is reflected in the different school of thoughts on legal philosophy especially between the positivist school and the natural school of thought.

[12] According to Bar Council of India (BCI)  Rule 49 Chapter II, Part VI : “An advocate shall not be a full-time salaried employee of any person, government, firm, corporation or concern, so long as he continues to practise and shall, on taking any such employment, intimate the fact to the BCI and shall cease to practise as an advocate, so long he is in such employment. These rules are made by the Bar Council of India in exercise of its rule making powers under the Sec.15 of Advocates Act, 1961

[13]  The rationale behind Rule 49 was explored by Bombay High Court in Birhanmumbai Mahanagarpalika v. The Secretary, Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa 2013 (2) ABR 1038. The High Court Observed as follows: ““The rationale underlying Rule 49 of the Bar Council of India Rules is that employment in a fulltime salaried capacity detracts from the primary role of an Advocate as an independent professional who is subservient to none else than the cause of justice. A conflict of duties and interest may arise. A member of the Bar engaged on behalf of a client is expected to utilise his or her knowledge, experience and professional skill in an objective and fair presentation of the case of a client. In doing so, an Advocate does not cease to possess a sense of professional autonomy accompanied as it is by a duty towards the cause of justice… Adversarial battles between litigating parties involve not only the parties and the lawyers who represent them, but there is above all, a commitment to the cause of justice that the institution of the Court embodies. Lawyers have traditionally been regarded as officers of the Court precisely for this reason.”

[14] The executive committee of consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) has decided to take permission from the Bar Council of India (BCI) to allow full-time faculty to practice law in courts, a press release from the Nalsar University of Law said on February 21, 2019. The committee said that not allowing law faculty to practise in courts of law was harming’ the legal system as law teachers are equally important stakeholders in the system as lawyers and judges and the teachers can contribute meaningfully to the legal system, said the press release. The committee also said that the country badly needs litigation lawyers and needs to decrease the gap between theoretical law and practical law. To do that, it is very important that teachers along with the students visit the court from time to time. See Kajari Goswami, NLU seeks permission from BCI to allow full-time law faculty to practice in court, India Today, ( accessed on 31/01/2021) NLU seeks permission from BCI to allow full-time law faculty to practice in court - Education Today News (indiatoday.in). See also: Litigating Law Teachers: Petition Body of Arguments, Contributed by Legally India (accessed on 31/01/2021) Litigating Law Teachers: Petition Body of Arguments (documentcloud.org)

[15] Supra n.12 BCI Rule 51 permits the lecturing and teaching subjects, both legal and non-legal. However, this right is subject to the Advocates (Right to take up Law teaching) rules, 1979. According to rule 3 of the said rules an advocate may, while practicing, take up teaching of law in any educational institution which is affiliated to a University within the meaning of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956 (3 of 1956), so long as the hours during which he is so engaged in the teaching of law do not exceed three hours in a day. See also 184th Report on the “Legal Education & Professional Training and Proposals for Amendments to the Advocates Act, 1961 and the University Grants Commission Act, 1956” where the Commission is of the view that there is an overwhelming need to reintroduce appointment of adjunct teachers from lawyers and retired Judges on part-time basis. See also Salem Advocates Bar Association v. Union of India 2002 (8) SCALE 146

[16]  Supra n.14

[17] Constituted under Rule.2(xvi) of Bar Council of India Rule of Legal Education, 2008. The said rule was formulated for the purpose of enrolment as advocate and inspection of Universities for recognizing its degree in law under Sections 7(1)(h) and (i), 24(1)(c)(iii), and (iiia), 49(1)(af),(ag),and (d) of the Advocates Act, 1961 made by the Bar Council of India in consultation with Universities and State Bar Councils

[18] Ibid. Rule 29.

[19]Ibid. Rule. 30 read with 31

[20] Ibid. Rule. 31 (iii). Other variables for assessment of accredited institutions include administration and finance. See Ibid. Rule 31 (vii) and (viii).

[21] Ibid. Rule 31 (vii) (g)

[22] Ibid. Rule 25 (a).

[23] Supra n. 3 Rule 25 (a)

[24] Ibid. Rule. 25 (b).

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid. Rule 26.

[27] Dialectic or dialectics, also known as the dialectical method, is at base a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned methods of argumentation.