Pay as you go

According to Thomas Hobbes, “Human is brutal, nasty and short by his nature.” By brutal, nasty, and short, he meant that a man, from its inception, has the tendency to deprive others off the rights and privileges in any shape or form brutally and forcibly. Even in the law of jungle, a man has to fight for acquiring his snatched right. By the evolution of individuals into a society the mode of fighting has been significantly changed. Earlier, a man used force to redress the wrong committed to him, but modern civilization has capped the brutality and vengeance of a man within the four walls of law. If a society is governed by the law, it shall be called a ‘Civilized Society’. If in a civilized society, law is protecting everyone’s right then the civilized society turned into a ‘Welfare State’. In a Welfare State, it is the duty of the State to protect rights including right to life, property, liberty and so on so forth and in case of infringement of above-mentioned rights, there should be a proper, adequate, and just mechanism to get back the infringed rights. In the modern world, the most effective method of protecting the right, that have been evolved and developed through sages down the ages, is Judicial and Litigation System. There is a general perception among the masses that in order to redeem your right and rectify the wrong you must invoke the Judicial System which requires ‘Hands of Gold and Feet of Iron”. Meaning thereby that litigation is expensive and consists of a long route. It is the duty of the Welfare State to provide Speedy, Expedition and Inexpensive judicial system to its citizens but there is heap of the stages involve in a litigation which make a mode of acquiring right back a sluggish, sloppy, and costly one. The most important cost involved in the whole procedure is the fee charged by the Lawyer, a person who has a command over law and becomes attorney of a litigant before the Courts of Law. There are different methods available in the market for charging the client. A Lawyer may demand his whole fees in advance and secondly, he may charge the fee on every date of hearing. All the above-mentioned methods make a client insecure. There is another method to pay a Lawyer his fee at the end of litigation and this method makes a Lawyer insecure. Therefore, there is a need to balance between the insecurities of a client and a lawyer and to restore the fiduciary relation between them. Thus, Joy of Justice has introduced the idea of “Pay as you Go”. The word “Pay as you go” itself suggests that neither the Client has to pay the whole amount in advance nor at the end of the litigation, in fact, the client shall pay the agreed fees in piecemeal i.e., a client shall pay a fixed chunk of the fees at every stage of proceeding. To illustrate, if there is a litigation relating to a civil matter that has been contested by the defendant, the litigation shall involve following stages that are institution of the suit by Plaint, Summoning of Defendant, Appearance of Defendant, Submission of Written Statement, Framing of Issues, Evidence of the Plaintiff involving Examination-in-chief and Cross Examination of Plaintiff’s Witnesses, Evidence of the Defendant involving Examination-in-chief and Cross Examination of Defendant’s Witnesses and lastly final argument; in legal parlance summing up the whole case. For all the afore-mentioned stages if a lawyer charges you Rs. 200,000/-, then the client does not have to pay the amount in lump sum. A Client shall pay in different installments as his case proceeds which means that Rs. 200,000/- shall be paid through installments for the services rendered and the stages accomplished. The Concept of ‘Pay as you go’ shall secure both the client and the lawyer and ultimately lessen the burden of the litigants. Another benefit that may emerge from the concept of ‘Pay as you go’ shall remove another insecurity of the client that is relating to the performance of a Lawyer. If a client is unsatisfied with performance of a lawyer, he may get the case or brief back without paying any additional amount and the lawyer shall receive a fee for the services rendered. If any additional amount for the upcoming stage has been paid then the Client shall be entitled to receive the additional amount back. To sum up, the concept of ‘Pay as you go’ that has been introduced by Joy of Justice shall act as a dumper where all the insecurities of the client and the lawyer shall be dumped and a bridge where trust and securities of the client and the lawyer shall meet.