A Pupil’s Remuneration
Mathew Thomas Philip, a senior lawyer, recently made an interesting suggestion about pupils’ remuneration. His proposal was to replace pupil allowances with a pupil loan with comfortable repayment terms. That loan is meant to pay the Master (the pupil’s supervising lawyer) for the education and coaching of the pupil. Mathew reasons that since the pupilage period is an extension of the pupil’s legal education after university and since the pupil’s paid for their undergraduate and their bar/clp education, it follows they should pay their Master or the firm for their continued education. I have read and heard much disagreement with Mathew’s proposal. I have no issues with that, we are free to agree and disagree as we please. However, I am disappointed with the vitriol with which Mathew’s proposal and Mathew himself has met with; I think it is uncalled for, especially when it comes from lawyers and soon to be lawyers. The man has put out an idea; we either agree or disagree with it and provide reasons for deciding so; that should be the end of it. That is how I understand civil discourse to be; and that is how we lawyers should engage. To do otherwise would be a disservice to our profession. There is no need to disfigure the proposal and malign the man. I am pleased he brought it up because it allows the issue to be aired and has created awareness about it. Pupils should thank him even though they disagree with his proposal; what he has done is gotten people talking and thinking about pupil remuneration. Mathew is big on legal education and does much to facilitate and encourage it. A respectful tone is not out of place when responding to and engaging with him. Mathew’s proposal is not new; it is an old one with a twist. That was the position a long time ago; pupil’s paid their Masters for the privilege of an apprenticeship. An apprentice, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is a “a person who is learning a trade from a skilled employer, having agreed to work for a fixed period.” The pupils then did not pay their Masters to be taught but rather for the opportunity to closely watch their Masters practice their craft and learn from that. A Master is not in the business of teaching, he is there to attend to his clients. The pupil’s presence is, in truth, more often a hindrance than a help. Of course, there are exceptions to that, but that is the general rule. I remember asking my father once why he did not pass his work to the pupils. He said, I don’t want to be going back and forth on a simple draft for a week. I have no patience for that anymore. If I can get it done in fifteen minutes and be done with it, so much the better. I can get on with other things. I can attest to that sentiment myself and it is sometimes tempting to take that route. What may take a pupil a week to get done to an acceptable standard can be done by an experienced and learned lawyer in half or three quarters of the day. And that’s if the pupil’s abilities and qualities are of some use. The video above hilariously demonstrates the difference between professionals and amateurs in extreme fashion. Of course the gulf between a senior lawyer and a pupil it is not exactly or always like that; but for the most part it is something like that. And it is something like that in any profession or merit-based environment. There will be those newly coming in, and those who have been there for some time. That gulf of expertise between pupil and a senior lawyer is an inevitability because we have no choice over our births. Mathew’s twist to the old ways was now pupils do not have to seek financing; they are given a loan on generous terms and can now demand more training and education from the Master. I am not with Mathew on this for a fundamental reason; my starting point is pupilage is a privilege, not a right. There is no legal obligation on a senior lawyer to take on a pupil. I disagree with him that pupilage is simply an extension of university or bar school/clp where instruction is given and is expected to continue in pupilage. For me, by the time a person is ready for pupilage, they should be competent at self-instruction i.e. knowing how to learn things for one’s self. I shouldn’t be teaching you how to learn things; that is a given. I am now pointing out what you should learn. Pupilage is an apprenticeship; it is the opportunity to apply theory to real life situations; pupils learn from the work that is given and the experience of doing that work. It isn’t university any more. After all, I am not in the business of educating; I am running a legal business. Legal education does not contribute to the bottom line or for the foreseeable future. Those that do it do so because they think it their duty to ensure the coming generation is better than ours; that is the inevitable changing of the guard. Taking a pupil is a voluntary gesture. But not everyone is like that and that is fair too. One cannot fault them for that or say they are selfish; that is how some lawyers want it to be and they are entitled to that. I can empathize too. It’s a far simpler existence. Nobody else to worry about and pay for; not having to put up with other people’s work. Although I think it a shame their “craft” will not survive them, that should not be held against them. It is their choice. I think about pupils’ remuneration with the following elements discussed above: firstly, pupilage is a privilege; secondly, pupilage is an apprenticeship; thirdly, and generally, pupils come without the experience,
