Started career with car's dickey as office space: Justice Hima Kohli

There will never be a right time for women to enter legal profession, Supreme Court Judge Justice Hima Kohli said on Tuesday while urging women lawyers to shatter all glass ceilings and break barriers. .Justice Kohli recounted how she herself had started out with the boot of a car as her office space."Time will never be right for women in legal profession. It is now. If you don't have office space .... I started my career from the luggage area (dickey) of a car. Shatter all glass ceilings and break more barriers., she said.She was speaking at a function organised by the 'Women in Law and Litigation' (WILL) to felicitate her on her elevation to the Supreme Court of India. Justice Kohli revealed how WILL was conceptualised at a round-table dinner. "We thought there are so many things we would like to share with each other and help other women legal professionals. WILL was here to help women with the kind of support we didn't receive," she said.Justice Kohli also elaborated on the difficulties faced by women lawyers since "there is no old boys club or networking for women in the profession" and thus very few women have been able to establish themselves in the field. "Don't be embarrassed as lawyers. Consider everyone as blocks of wood and argue before the Bench. Always be prepared and don't give an impression that you are not prepared. Keep aggression in court and don't carry it home," Justice Kohli advised. She also touched upon the difficulties as a judge. "It is a lonely life as a judge. It is like gold fish in a bowl. If you feel frivolous keep it inside the four walls of your house. You symbolise the whole system and anything private should remain private," she said.Justice Kohli was born and brought up in New Delhi. She was appointed an additional judge of the Delhi High Court on May 29, 2006 and took oath as a permanent Judge on August 29, 2007. She went on to become the first and only woman Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court on January 7, 2021.She was appointed Supreme Court judge on August 31, 2021 along with Justices BV Nagarathna and Bela M Trivedi. .Former Additional Solicitor General and Senior Advocate Maninder Acharya spoke about how "journey of a woman in the field of law is very distinct than that of the male counterpart." "Women are scaling newer peaks but it won't be wrong to say that they are still struggling," said Acharya. .Senior Advocate Acharya further added, that there is a need for a new dawn when a woman law officer or a judge will not be news and "there will be a sea of women legal professionals so that the need to prefix the Mr or Ms is obliterated.".Justice Indira Banerjee of the Supreme Court and Justices Prathiba Singh and Rekha Palli of the Delhi High Court also spoke on the occasion.Chief Justice of India NV Ramana was the chief guest for the event.Read about Justice Prathiba M Singh's speech here.Read more about Justice Hima Kohli here.Follow our coverage of the event:

Started career with car's dickey as office space: Justice Hima Kohli

Debayan Roy

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