My first ever hearing and trial
Pupils these days seem to have little to no expectations of being called upon to do hearings or trials during their pupilage. Even if they were offered such an opportunity, they are likely to decline it because they think they are not ready. My sense of it is the common pupil appears content to busy himself at the hem of his Master’s garments stroking its tassels instead of convincing the Master he should be robed sooner and not later; I am referring to the work, not the attire. These pupils see their role as limited to learning while providing support to their Master or other lawyers in the firm instead of doing the cases themselves. They are content for their participation to be limited to mentions, case managements, preparing draft applications or submissions, carrying bags, binding documents or authorities. There is no sense of impatience about being on their hind legs. Most seem content to associate themselves with high net worth disputes or contracts to decorate their CV or social media profiles. The tragedy is how few possess ambitions beyond that station for their pupilage, or even in practice. Often, when I tell a pupil they will conduct an application hearing or even part of a trial, a look of panic and anxiety flashes across their face quickly followed by a clumsy explanation that they should not do it because they lack the relevant experience or knowledge. I find this attitude baffling because when I pupiled in my father’s firm in 1998-1999, a goal of mine was to impress my boss enough that he trusted me to conduct a hearing or a trial before my call to the Bar. Whether I won or lost was a separate matter. That I was tasked to handle such a matter whilst a pupil was enough for me. I somehow got it in my head at the time that such an accomplishment would be an impressive feather in my bum in building my legal peafowl tail and something to strive for. And if I am candid about it, I had dreams of winning a David v Goliath fight; I wanted to win against a full grown lawyer whilst I was a mere pupil. Now just because my father was the senior partner of the firm was no guarantee I would get to work on such cases. Although my father’s firm was nepotistic in orientation, merit still determined the quality and type of work assigned to us by the boss, Izzat, who was in charge of the firm’s day to day management. Back then, if Izzat thought you could not do the work, you would not get the work. It was that simple. It is the same logic I apply to my firm these days: be worried if you do not get work, not if you get work. I had to make a case out to the boss that I was ready for it. And we did not make our case by oral advocacy with the boss; we proved it by deed: by handing in quality work to the boss timeously, consistently and thoughtfully, by taking the initiative to have something ready before the boss asked for it, and generally making ourselves indispensable to whatever it is the Master is working on. In doing that, we built up our competency and credibility with our Master to the point they trusted us not simply to do a piece of work, but with the work itself. I didn’t know it at the time but this was the kind of thinking ahead I had that is encapsulated in a pithy saying (I got it from Yap Siew Yee’s LinkedIn Post; she’s a lawyer too and writes thoughtful short posts about her legal experience which I enjoy; so do check her out), which I have stolen and revised as follows: When you are a law student, think like a pupil. When you are a pupil, think like a lawyer. When you are a lawyer, think like a partner. When you are a partner, think like a managing partner. When you are the managing partner, think like an entrepreneur, but not entirely like one. When you are an entrepreneur but not entirely like one, think like an enlightened contributing member of the Bar. When you’re an enlightened contributing member of the Bar, don’t be a planet Uranus. Those pithy paragraphs are about thinking beyond our current station in life and to be constantly striving for the next stage of our developmental trajectory. That is important to give us our developmental trajectory and psychology a sense of momentum and progression. To think only within our current station of life stagnates and weighs down our trajectory and development. We progress in the doing not with wishful thinking. When I compare my attitude then with what seems to be the prevalent thinking today, I think it amusing and a little tragic. Amusing because the present common pupil is a fearful anxious bundle of nerves instead of a budding warrior that does not count fear or favour as his or her close and constant companions. On the contrary, there is as much fear as there are favours. Pupils fear taking responsibility for cases and it is regrettably common for them to ask favours from friends about legal matters they are supposed to comprehend by reading statutes, cases and practitioner’s guides. Tragic because I see this notion and reticence extend into a fresh lawyer’s early years of practice: the idea they should only conduct a case after obtaining training and experience. Although some learning and training is helpful, understand that we will never be perfectly ready to take on a case. There will always be parts of a case we did not expect or could not know at the start of the case. But these can be overcome as the case progresses. Each case is a learning experience as much as it is a performance of execution. The longer we put ourselves off from
