The Occult in Legal Practice
In Dato’ Mahadev Shankar’s delightful collection of anecdotes appropriately titled, Legal Anecdotes, there is a story called the “The Occult”, which begins with this line: “In the life of a lawyer, one sometimes comes face to face with the occult.” This is true. If you haven’t had such an incident, I’m afraid you have not had the authentic experience of Malaysian legal experience. This was my encounter with the occult: I pupiled in my father’s firm, Azzat & Izzat, between 1998 – 1999. My good friend, Andrew Leong, pupiled at the firm too. He is now a respected family barrister and recorder in England. However, back then Andrew Leong, Esq., sat in the cubicles upstairs of our office. There were three cubicles in a row just outside the library close to the partners’ and lawyer rooms. I sat downstairs. Andrew sat in one of the cubicles, next to my cousin, Tariq Ismail, who had by then assumed the role of the firm’s eternal paralegal. Although we were a floor apart, Andrew and I often hung out together during our breaks, discussed our work and legal arguments. Andrew and my initiation into the occult legalistika began one fine Monday night midway through our pupilage. That evening we worked late. We had our respective written submission to get ready the next day for filing in court and service on our opponents. We stopped at around nine-ish for dinner and went over to the Bangsar McDonald’s for burgers. We ate, drank, bitched about this and that then headed back. Our office then was at Jalan Setikasih 5, Bukit Damansara (since taken over by the architect firm, GDP Architects). The route we took back to the office had us go down the steep hill of Jalan Beringin before we took a generous left turn to reach Jalan Setiakasih 5 and our office, which was in a row of six stand alone shop lots. At the turn off there was a triangular patch of grass. It was around ten thirtyish when we passed this triangular patch. I noticed a single lighted candle in the middle of the patch. I thought it strange because it wasn’t there when we left, or I did not notice it there when we left. “Did you see that, Andrew?” “See what?” “A candle at that patch of grass. We just passed it.” “No. Why should there be? There are enough street lights around.” He was right, of course. People do not simply light a candle and leave them in the middle of triangular patches of grass at turn offs; especially those that live in Bukit Damansara. Andrew parked the car and we walked to the office. As we approached it we smelled a strong stench in the air. We also noticed splotches of faint yellow and white adorning the entire front of the office. When we reached the sidewalk there were smashed bits and pieces of the eggshells on the ground near the walls, some of which were glass. The entire front office was covered with rotten eggs that I surmised were thrown at close range. The stench was unbearable. It inspired us to the point of vomit many times. If you told me that they found the most rotten eggs in the world and let it rot some more before throwing it at our front office walls, I would have believed you. We decided not to bother the bosses or the staff by telling them and cleaned it up on our own. In retrospect we should checked what cleaning equipment we had before we decided to clean the place up. It turned out the office only had a vacuum cleaner, a variety of liquid soap and cleaning solutions, and cloth because the office was fully carpeted. It was too late to pick up cleaning equipment then. We dug out a pail. We took as much cleaning detergent as we could find. It didn’t matter what it was for. We took them all: floor cleaner, toilet cleaner, window cleaner, and dishwashing soap. With a handful of cloth each, we set to work. It was hard, grueling, and smelly work. Some of the yolk and egg white had dried on to the surface. In truth, it was not dissimilar from the work I would handle in the years to come. We divided the work. He would take one half and I, the other. We started at the edges and met in the middle. So there we were, two young pupils with degrees from Bristol University dreaming of stellar legal careers cleaning the office front of a shop lot of rotten egg whilst immersed in stench in Bukit Damansara late night until the early morning. Not quite the inspiring start most pupils hope for, but I’d like to think it was not bottom of the barrel. When I reflect on that heady night, perhaps the cleaning Andrew and I did was good wholesome experience, good wholesome legal experience. Because that’s what litigation is about: cleaning up and resolving other people’s mess they cannot or are incapable of doing so amicably themselves. If human beings could resolve their disputes with each other amicably, reasonably and fairly, there would be no need for litigation lawyers or courts. But litigation exists because a great many people (I include artificial entities in this definition) cannot do this, don’t want to do it, or are incapable of it, and there are a group of people who enjoy that sort of work – dispute resolution. So whenever you catch yourself complaining why we need lawyers in this world, the answer is because of unreasonable, greedy, and fearful people, and there are lots of them. Present company, which comprises you who are reading this and me, are excluded, of course. We wiped and washed the front office three times because the stench of rotten eggs was powerful. We used all the liquid soap, cleaning materials and even found a room air freshener to scrub the stench out. Even
