Student-run site simplifies complex legal jargon

CHENNAI: For the last three years,

Aswini Ramesh

, a fifth year student at the city’s School of Excellence and

Law

, has been visiting government schools to teach students about menstrual hygiene and ways to prevent and report cyber bullying. But the 22-year-old often found herself deluged with questions on fundamental rights, domestic violence, custody battles and more recently before the lockdown was imposed, the Epidemic Diseases Act.

And so, to help people understand legal concepts, Aswini last month started a student-run

portal

— www.lawrewired.in — that demystifies the Indian legal system and provides diverse legal education to students as well as the general public. The

site

is managed by 19 students from across the country and breaks down important legislations to simplified information on what they intend to do and how they can be utilized.

“We have three broad categories — a blog that updates you on the current legal news, a section on case analysis that takes you through some landmark judgments and a section with FAQs pertaining to various acts,” says Aswini, who along with fellow law students Aunnesha Dey, Riddhi Jangam, and

Geerisha Mojee

, forms the core team.

The site functions under the supervision of an advisory board comprising legal experts and professors. “Complex legal jargon often makes people take the law for granted or intimidates them. But the fact is, laws are for the people and we want to simplify it for them,” says H B Keshava, a city advocate and member of advisory board. The team is now working towards improving the portal’s accessibility by launching it in regional languages including Tamil and Hindi.