DIARY OF AN ADVOCATE
- Adv. Anonymous
IRONY OF BEING AN ADVOCATE
This blog is only for purpose of satire (not that it lacks in life of an advocate) and for harmless humor.
Don’t put in high hopes or get misguided
by the title. I will not be sharing any courtroom drama or comical exchanges
happening in the real courts nor would I be sharing any secrets to becoming a successful
lawyer. (there can be only one Mr. Jethmalani)
disclaimer :-
this article is work of pure fiction andany resemblance to real life or livingperson is mere COINCIDENTAL.
And just to make it clear from this very
instance, NO, irl we do not shout ‘Tarikh pe Tarikh’ in courts, coz that’s not
how hearings in the Indian courts work, for the matter of fact nowhere around
the world such things happen.
Even if we tried to be the lawyer, the actor
portrayed in the said movie, we would definitely get our advocate license
suspended (I guess not, that would be too harsh). But, surely the judge would
give us an earful, enough to last for a lifetime and not to forget, not being
able to show our faces in that court ever again due to the utter embarrassment
and the fool we would have made out of ourselves. So enough for the fiction, let’s
get back to the reality.
Advocates are the officers of the court and the
protector of justice (sounds like tagline of Avengers or GOT), at least that’s
what we have been taught in law school. But then you are not supposed to believe
in everything you are told, coz hearsay evidence do not hold in the courts
(that ones for my advocate friends).
On a serious note, we always try to
protect justice in the court, only when we get our favorable dates.
We spend sleepless days and nights
preparing the clients’ brief, obviously when the client has paid our fees in
full. How else do you suppose we’d be able to pay for the 24 hrs unlimited
internet connection and the best quality legal papers to be submitted in the
court (which eventually will be rotting in a corner of the court for years, ‘so
much for sustainable development’).
We travel from one court to another, sometimes up to five courts in a single day, from one end of the city to the other, which includes five different junior advocates being sent to those five courts (you do not expect us to go to a court just to take a date, we have better and important things to tend in the office with centralized A.C. and 20 staff doing ….).
And not to forget the man hours we put behind
the client meetings, are so extensive and exasperating. To explain a client the
legal intricacy and legitimate obscurity (both terms means the same by the way)
is not an easy task.
By the way, it’s not a child’s play to remember
and keep revising a 10 minutes argument and still not getting the date to argue
(favorable to the judge and to me at the same time), for months.
Being an advocate is easy said than
done. Studying non-stop for 5 years just to get 40 out of 100 (coz it doesn’t
matter even if you are a college topper, you might end up at the bottom of the
barrel) is a feet to achieve.
As law students, we are inculcated with the
important qualities needed to become an advocate, if not successful then at
least doable.
Like quality of decision making whilst
contemplating how to make sure 80% attendance in law school to be eligible to give
the exams, when you clearly know what really matters is an internship under another
advocate for practical exposure, is a dilemma of another level altogether.
Spending thousands of rupees on authors’
textbooks for classroom study and as per teacher’s recommendation and eventually realizing
that reading guides like Mokal and Jhabvala, one day prior to the exams are
enough to clear them, are the first kind of defeat you accept gracefully.
And then comes the struggle of coming
from a non-legal family (ya.. nepotism exists here too, but that is a topic of discussion for another day) which stares in your face from day one of law school.
Seeing those belonging (legal background) knowing what ‘Nemo judex in causa
sua’ means and you still trying to figure out the complete meaning and
definition of law is the ‘zeher ka kadva ghut joh haste haste peena padta hai’
(used for that extra dramatic touch).
Running behind Advocates and Solicitors
as an intern carrying briefs, Acts and textbooks (which might not be even
needed in the court) not only takes care of your brains but your weight
training too.
But then the struggle and the lessons do
not end there. Working as a junior advocate under a senior advocate for a year
but not being able to open (let reading set aside) a single brief during that
period helps to wipe out the word ‘zero tolerance’ from your dictionary.
Where should I start about the free
loaders. Taking advice from ten different lawyers (for free stating the same
old money issues, which you can easily gauge by talking to them, is definitely
a lie) and then engaging an advocate who you can find outside the courts making
affidavits for Rs. 500/-.
And not to forget about our non-legal
buddies. You can never make them understand enough that not all advocates can advise
you on criminal matters, some handle civil matters only and then being
questioned ‘kaisa lawyer hai be tu’. (You can’t go to a software engineer to
make bridges or a cardiologist for cosmetic surgery, can you?)
All said and done, but the happiness of
winning that one case which you have given all your efforts to and knowing that
you have done right to someone is enough at the end of the day.
Everything in this article is
fictional. Fictional because reality is bitter to be told or accepted.
1 Comments
Very nice 👍
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