This interview was taken by Pranjal Sharma and Rohit Pradhan
“Students should be allowed to study legal journalism. It could be like a specialised subject in the last year of law school and could really help students bring up the entire sector.”
Ms. Sanya Talwar an experienced consultant in the field of Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace (POSH) across multiple sectors of industry stalwarts and offers Legal Consultancy, Advisory and Training. Awareness is her forte and she is currently empanelled with the Delhi State Legal Services Authority, directly reporting to Additional District and Sessions Judges at the Central Office in Delhi as a legal counsellor in the recently constituted Central Panel.
As a Legal Journalist, she has experience in Court Reporting, she also reports at Industry leaders (Currently spotted at Live Law – India’s No. 1 Legal News) in legal news is objective & succinct. Detailed legal analysis, legal briefs and summaries as well as writing opinions is within her scope of work and expertise. She has very well demonstrated experience in content creation and Video Journalism. She began her career as a litigation lawyer and worked in courts with senior litigators for 4 years. After that, she began her own work & worked with multiple organizations as a Consultant & independently handled clients in POSH & Litigation from 2017 onwards.
“It is very cliché but the day you start thinking that you have excelled in something you just stop growing. No one is bigger than their work.”
For the sake of our readers how would you like to introduce yourself?
I am somebody who is primarily working diverse legal sectors, i.e., prevention of sexual harassment at workplace and legal journalism. A lot of people often ask me how this works out for me, working in these diverse sectors but the truth is, both these sectors are not entirely different from each other as both are holistically awareness-based sectors. So, when one focuses on awareness in their scope of work, some way or other both these sectors collide with each other. Journalism is something that totally works on awareness. You are creating awareness amongst people as to what happens in the Court, various kinds of Court developments, etc. It brings transparency in terms of what goes on in court. Similarly, the POSH sector is also about meeting people, making them aware of their rights, making them sensitized about what sexual harassment is, their rights under the law.
These both legal sectors are extremely new, did you ever have a mentor? Were there any difficulties that you faced in the case you didn’t have one?
I never really had a mentor, but that’s also because of how I am as a person. I like to find my own way. In the journalism space, but there are a lot of journalists whos work I like. There is one Supreme Court Journalist named Utkarsh Anand who reports for News 18.
But again, I never really had a person that I used to look up to. I mean I like people and I like their work. I’ve always tried to make my own space because I wanted to work in a way which involved two areas and a lot of people don’t do that and most people think it is extremely naïve to even do that.
Therefore, I brought by my own journey and started working the way I want to work. Luckily the places that I’ve worked at in the last two-three years were very inclusive of that fact and I was allowed to do whatever I am doing but of course, I have to keep performing. This is one thing that I always keep in mind that if someone is giving me that much leverage then I have to perform my best for them.
I think one should just be resourceful. Keep performing. Keep in mind that I have to do this, this is my own journey and then you become your own mentor.
If you like doing something, if you enjoy doing it and if you are good at it then there is always scope for you to excel in it and I feel there is no need for anybody to keep guiding you through it. For how long can one expect to be guided? You have to be on your own at some point or another, so might as well start from the first day.
What was your inspiration for taking up the law?
My grandfather. He was a lawyer, I used to see him every day and I’ve always liked the way he was and the way he worked. He always kept telling me that law is something you should do and could do. I also liked the Law and he had always inspired me. I owe it to him completely.
How would you describe your journey towards becoming a legal journalist?
During the time that the Ayodhya matter was going on, I joined this firm called the Center for Law and Policy Research. They have a forum called the supreme court observer where they report the constitutional matters online.
I was doing my POSH practice that time and I was also doing bits and pieces of litigation. I always wanted to do Legal Journalism and Court reporting, while I was googling about it, I found out that CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) was looking for someone to report their Supreme Court’s constitutional matters.
I sent them stories and pieces that I had written for various platforms. Then they reached out to me and said let’s give it a shot Then I gave it a shot and they liked it. Luckily, I started my court reporting with Ayodhya matter and that was really great for me.
It gave me a lot of good hands-on experience at a very early stage in this sector. Then I started doing videos for LiveLaw. It was just a matter of chance where one opportunity after another just started coming because I started looking for them.
You always have to believe in yourself. Your work. You need to believe that you are good at it and you will get better.
What do you think is the scope of legal journalism as a career?
Legal Journalism is growing now, there is a niche sector now where you are reporting court proceeding every minute by minute and now with the advent of technology, updates are breaking news by the clock.. The scope is going to get larger and larger. I get calls from my colleagues and friends who have been practising lawyers for 3-4 years and want to start doing this.
I am slowly noticing the change; earlier people were very averse to it, they used to say you are passing out of law so might as well just become a litigation lawyer or going at a firm, but that’s not the case now. People are taking up in different fields. In terms of monetary aspect also the options are mind-blowing. It is getting very competitive and very vast.
If you already know in college that this is what you want to do and this is where you see yourself then you should intern with lawyers, understand what happens in a court, how are proceeding conducted, What are the basics? Apart from that, one should always reach out to media organizations, they are always on the lookout for interns, I think even Live law is looking for interns right now. You can also shadow a legal journalist and observe how they work.
What are the changes that you think should be introduced in the POSH Act, now that during the pandemic situation has changed the workplace scenario?
The POSH act in itself is very comprehensive in nature and accommodates all workplaces, whether it’s a virtual workplace or a travel workplace because it says any extended workplace which may not be brick and mortar, so it takes into account all the areas of the workplaces, so the Act does not need to be changed, but the policies of a lot of companies do not know how to tackle these newer forms of sexual harassment that have started surfacing.
A lot of companies did not anticipate that employees might have to work from home for so long. Therefore, only basic tweaks need to be made like how sexual harassment can be perceived virtually, what to do when it happens etc. On top of this, the most important task is that the employees need to be made aware of their rights, they need to be told that even if you are working from home and engaging during your course of employment with other people and you feel sexually harassed you have the power to go ahead and complain.
Have you seen a substantial increase or a substantial decrease in cases of sexual harassment at the workplace during the Pandemic?
A lot of articles suggest that the cases of sexual harassment have gone down during the pandemic, and a reason for that could be that there is no person to person, human to human contact when people are not meeting each other on a daily basis, it is obvious that there will be fewer cases of perceived harassments.
It is very early to comment whether there will be drastic change or high reduction in the number of cases under the posh act, and such an observation cannot be made until at least a year. But I believe that a lot of harassment that happens on virtual workplaces is not being accounted for.
The polices and mechanics of work from home are unclear and dicey. The companies do not know what they should do when somebody gets harassed virtually. A lot of companies do not have policies in place for Work from Home sexual harassment. There is a lot of grey area now and it can only be figured out with time.
What is the process of becoming a POSH lawyer?
I started as a POSH Consultant and worked with a PAN India firm which only does POSH and ancillary work. They trained me extensively for 5-6 days and then let me out in the field, so the first thing you should do is intern with a firm like that. There are a lot of firms like that now, across the country.
You can also work with a consultant who is willing to have you as an intern. Just explore how they work and then do a proper certificate course from a Boutique Firm, then you are good to go. All you must do is to keep reading what the POSH Act is and keep reading Judgments.
What is your advice to law students out there?
My advice would be if you want to do something different and achieve something different and if anybody says this is not something you should do or can do then don’t listen to them. Listen to your Heart. Every journey is different. Just because somebody is on a path you don’t have to follow that path.
You can have your own rules and your own set of experiences. Don’t lose heart. If you keep going there will always be an opportunity for you. It is not rocket science to excel in any field in the world.
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