LiveLaw and Bar & Bench, Two Websites Which Revolutionized Legal Readings
Last year in November, Supreme Court of India Justice DY Chandrachud commented during a case hearing, he said “I will tell you something in a lighter vein, instead of wading through the pleadings before us, I thought I will check LiveLaw or other platforms for the documents. Justice Chandrachud’s remark comes as an acknowledgment of the significant impact that law/legal news websites have over Indian court hearings in recent years. Especially two websites, ‘LiveLaw’ and ‘Bar and Bench’ have done great work for their in-depth coverage of court hearings.
Despite Television Coverage being banned in court proceedings, the coverage from these two websites gives information about real-time ground coverage via a live Twitter tweet about proceedings. Besides this, the legal websites are appreciated for their speedy coverage of news upload of not only judgments and court orders, but also about pleadings and petitions related to cases. It comes as a good initiative because until now, the legal resources were available only from lawyers pertaining to specific issues. “LiveLaw’ and ‘Bar & Bench’ have revolutionized legal reporting by tweeting about proceedings in real-time, bringing them to the screens of general readers,” reports Scroll.
LiveLaw and Bar and Bench’s readership are not limited to only judges and lawyers. The two websites have millions of readers and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, they have revolutionized common people’s access to law proceedings. The extensive coverage of court proceedings comes with criticism, that much is obvious. Few people think that real-time ground coverage of legal proceedings has undermined the court’s integrity among the general public.
The Scroll reports “While India’s various courts started uploading their judgments online around 2010, the exchanges between the lawyer and the judge were rarely available to people beyond the courtroom. Litigants struggled to understand the trajectory even of their own cases.” “Lay readers now follow the intricacies of important matters as they unfold. Many have realized that even if the functioning of real-life courts isn’t quite as dramatic as the way they are depicted in the movies, the proceedings can often be very compelling,” it says.
If you like the site, please consider joining the telegram channel or supporting us on Patreon using the button below.
