On 1st July 2023, the EBC Group hosted the 6th edition of its iconic Student Ambassadors Conclave at Hotel The Muse, Delhi. The event brought together 50+ EBC-SCC Online Ambassadors, across leading law universities all over India. The event was graced by presence of all the Directors at EBC Group; Mr. Surendra Malik, Mr. Sumeet Malik, Mr. Raghunandan Malik, Mr. Abhinandan Malik, Mr. Sumain Malik and Mr. Sudeep Malik. The Dias was shared by Senior Advocate Mr. Rajshekhar Rao, who was the chief guest of this event. The visionary ideals shared by the Directors and the Chief Guest, inspired everyone towards the path of success and service. The Directors had fruitful interactions with the student ambassadors and gained valuable insights from them.
The following are some highlights of this event.
Inaugural Address by Mr. Surendra Malik (Managing Director, EBC Group)
➢ Welcomed everyone in the EBC Family.
➢ Discussed about what students study in law school
1. Study about the legal information
2. Gain knowledge and understanding of law
3. Learn researching skills and interpersonal skills
The EBC and SCC Online deals with the legal information aspect. EBC’s salient feature is providing legal information that is authentic and reliable.
➢ Gave example of EBC’s Bare Acts that has legislative history with rich footnotes. This information helps while dealing with old appeals based on previous law. (Especially useful in tax law, where the Income-tac Act is amended almost every year by the Finance Act)
➢ Highlighted that learning in classroom depends on two fundamental aspects:
1. Teachers
2. Books (Good textbooks supplement what you are taught in classroom. The EBC Publishing deals with this aspect.)
➢ Underscored that the most essential skill of a lawyer is finding the law. As law is constantly evolving, this makes it even more challenging. So, SCC Online comes to aid in this and makes finding of law an interactive process.
➢ Accentuated the use of Law Digests and Commentaries. He said that it elucidates how a topic/ subject of law has been covered.
Address by Mr. Sumeet Malik (Director, EBC Group)
➢ Started by expressing gratitude to all the Directors for gracing the occasion by their presence; thanked Ms. Bhumika Indulia and Ms. Saranya Mishra for the organizing of this event; and extended a warm welcome to all the student ambassadors.
➢ Spoke about the history of the Eastern Book Company. The Company started with the publication of Headnotes, which soon became popular. The heads at EBC proposed corrigendum in judgements, by writing query letters to the Supreme Court Judges. They were successful in getting numerous corrigendums issued from the Registry. Then, with the course of time, the legal publishing business of EBC transformed with the emerging technology, which gave rise to ventures like SCC Online, EBC Reader and EBC Learning.
➢ Further enlightened everyone about the work culture at EBC and the role of student ambassadors
Address by Mr. Raghunandan Malik (Director, EBC Group)
➢ Mr. Raghunandan gave presentation on EBC Reader, which is India’s first eBook reader for legal content. He said that EBC Reader provides means for access. It allows you to dynamically browse your book and interact with your text; searching, highlighting, copying and note-making. He highlighted the following features about the platform:
1. Search Tool: It gives option to find Bare Act with key words related to it. E.g. If you type “Bar Council”, the Advocates Act 1961 will appear; If you type “marriage”, all the acts related to it will appear.
2. Side Bar: It helps to sort, based on title/ author/ latest release. It also gives access to the Notes you created. Moreover, the shared lists can be made and retrieved through this.
3. Notifications Tab: It gives notification about the recent releases.
4. Advanced Search Tab: Gives options of Search Methods and Search Areas (to filter search according to your need). For example, search the phrase “contempt of court”. After clicking on search, the outcomes will be divided into three parts on your screen:
Filters | Result | Enlarged content of the result you select
5. Post Search Filter Tab: There are two options available to filter – Category of Books (i.e. books/ bare acts/ journals) & Search Sets (i.e. through subjects of law)
6. Boolean Search: This search allows you to combine keywords with operators (or modifiers) such as AND, NOT and OR to further produce more relevant results.
7. Copy Feature: You can copy-paste from the EBC Reader (up-to 2000 words at a time)
8. New Features: Ability to seek collections and add books in it; Advanced search and search through annotation; ‘Bare Acts search’ feature now introduced in Table of Contents; Clip option introduced in the Notes section (now you can use the same notebook everywhere).
9. New Content:1100+ Lawyer Commentaries & Student Books; 150+ Bharat Law House Titles; More than 1100 statues covered in 248 Bare Acts; Supreme Court Yearly Digests (SCYD) since 2010; Law Journals; Practical Lawyer Magazines since 2016; Law Dictionaries and Referencers.
Address by Mr. Abhinandan Malik (Director, EBC Group):
➢ He spoke about EBC Learning and presented about the following aspects of it:
1. Goal: To revolutionize legal education in India by providing cutting-edge online platform that empowers individuals to enhance their legal expertise and thrive in the dynamic legal landscape.
2. Salient Features: Accessible, flexible and high quality learning experience; Online and offline classes; Recordings available with Studio Recorded Videos, EBC Books and SCC Materials; Reputed Instructors – firm partners and experienced teachers.
3. Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy in EBC Learning:
Remember > Understand > Apply > Analyze > Evaluate > Create
EBC Learning is bridging the Gap by delivering training at two levels:
Bloom Level 1: Remember, Understand & Apply – Knowledge
Bloom Level 2: Analyze Evaluate & Create – Skills
4. Recent Offerings: MA in Corporate Law with NALSAR; IPR Program; and AOR Exam Course
5. Featuring pre-class assignments on the platform to create a level of understanding the before class
6. Advantages of taking course on EBC Learning: High quality professional content; Unparalleled practical training; Tremendous flexibility: lectures, study materials and discussions – at your own pace, time and place; Network and collaborate with legal professionals and fellow students; 1-on-1 Mentorship and Placement Assistance; Certification and degree from top brands and law schools.
The ‘Explore’ option on the Dashboard facilitates you to access different courses, programs and talks. After clicking on it (e.g. Explore Course), you are able to see a list of courses available. From here, you may browse the course of your choice and filter it based on topic, purpose, level, etc. For each video lecture, the transcript of the same is available.
Address by Mr. Sumain Malik (Director, EBC Group):
➢ He spoke about the journey of SCC Online, right from building the CD Rom Software to the Web Edition. He mentioned about how the EBC Group tackled different technological challenges over the period of time, to come up with SCC Online that we see today. Further, he discussed about the way forward, with the ambassadors. He took feedback from them, as to how the EBC Products can be better.
Honorary Address by Mr. Rajshekhar Rao (Senior Advocate)
➢ Urged the students to study the judgements that stood the test of time.
➢ Stressed on importance of legal research without electronic means, i.e. by traditional methods (through books, journals and other sources).
➢ Opened up about his journey from the law school till now and his friendship with Mr. Sumeet Malik along the way.
➢ Talked about his learning from Justice Indu Malhotra (when she worked as senior advocate in the Supreme Court). He mentioned that even if a person becomes a senior counsel, he/she should try to craft his/her own draft, because later-on if he/she gets an opportunity to become a judge, it requires the skill of drafting.
➢ Shared his anecdotes when he was working as junior under Justice Indu Malhotra. Mr. Rao learned from her that even if one is brilliant, he/she has to maintain professionalism in the work.
➢ Mentioned about how SCC Online is known for its quality and reliability today.
➢ Advised young law students with the following: Know your law and know your judge; Do every work sincerely and give your hundred percent; Be punctual in your work and never take anything lightly; Be critical and be practical.
Address by Sudeep Malik (Director, EBC Group)
➢ Spoke about law and technology and deliberated on how AI will transform the legal field.
➢ Discussed about the recent case in which ex-Google engineer said that Google’s new AI called LaMDA, is sentient. Mr Sudeep Malik opined that AI might not be sentient currently. According to him, we are still many years away from seeing AI become sentient.
➢ Recommended young students to watch the TV Series ‘Battlestar Galactica’, to get an insight about how the future may look like
➢ Cautioned on the use technology that it is to aid and not to depend on.
Presentation of the New Features on SCC Online
➢ Mr. Sumeet Malik presented the new feature of ‘Browse Curated Topics’ on SCC Online. This feature aims at providing quick and relevant information on important topics of law. The specially curated section enables you to browse through the Statutory Law, Case Law and Articles on the selected topic. Mr. Malik gave the following demo on how to browse curated topics:
1. Login to SCC Online. Under “My Library” section you will find the new “Browse Curated Topics” option.
2. Once you are in “Browse Curated Topics”, you will see grid of main Topics which when clicked gives you an option to select subtopics. Simply click the category you wish to explore further.
3. For example: Clicking on “Arbitration, Conciliation and Mediation” will give you the list of subtopics under it.
4. Further selecting the subtopic of “Arbitration” will show you the Curated articles, case law and statutory law relating to that topic.
5. Further clicking on “Statutory Law”, will not only show the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, but also show all the relevant sections of different statues that relates to arbitration.
➢ He also presented the new feature of ‘Case Law by Section’ on SCC Online. He demonstrated it through the following example: Go to My Library > Click on “Case Law by Section” > Type “Penal Code” > Select “Section 97 – Right to Private Defense” > Draw Law Report
Special Session on the Role of EBC-SCC Online Student Ambassadors
➢ Ms. Bhumika Indulia (Coordinator, Ambassadors Program) and Ms. Saranya Mishra (Sub-Coordinator, Ambassadors Program) highlighted about the following duties of the student ambassadors:
1. Conducting training sessions for EBC products.
2. Reporting events of your law school (Competitions, Call for Papers, Seminars, etc.).
3. Coordinating sponsorships for events at your law school.
4. Spotting errors on SCC Online/ EBC Reader and help in the curation of content.
5. Make students aware of the new features and new database added to SCC Online, EBC Reader and EBC Learning.
6. Make students aware of the new publications of Eastern Book Company.
7. Make sure that the library of your law school has books published by EBC.
8. Promoting and posting about EBC/SCC Online, on your social media handles.
Awards
➢ Student Ambassador of the Year: Vedika Kakar & Taha Bin Taseem
➢ Impact Ambassador: Jyotshna Yashaswi & Anirudh Das
➢ Social Media Star: Dikshi Arora & Madhumita Ravindran
➢ Highest Usage of SCC Online: Symbiosis Law School, Pune
➢ Honorable Mentions: Khushi, Shruti Dhonde, Toshika Soni, Divya Gyan, Gaurav Khatwani, Achintaya Soni, Tushmi Udyalak, Divyansh Moralia, and Arshia Jain
