Some hard truths about legal practice
In October this year, I accepted an invitation by Mr. Harcharan Singh to give a talk to the university’s law students at an event called Taylor’s Dialogues on the Law. Mr. Harcharan left practice after 29 years at the bar to teach law. He is now a senior lecturer at Taylor’s University. He got in touch after he read Answer yes or no only, understand? The purpose of Dialogues on the Law is to expose law students to ‘experts about their thoughts on particular legal issues and to start dialogues about those issues’. I was given a free hand on the topic. I chose the title: Some hard truths about legal practice. I had half to three-quarters of an hour to speak about the topic followed by a question and answer session. I chose that topic because I noticed a trend amongst the lawyers coming into practice over these last few years. Many harbour untempered expectations and attitudes about legal practice and some do not deal well with the vicissitudes of legal practice. In my assessment, they expect too much too soon or felt entitled too soon, or both. That kind of expectation or attitude is a slippery slope that easily slides down the path of frustration and disappointment with legal practice. The aim of the talk was to lower the law students’ expectations at what they might find at the end of that legal education rainbow. To explain that a better approach to begin one’s practice is to carry few expectations instead of many. One does not begin a career with one’s jug of expectations filled to the brim because we will spend the rest of our career emptying it. It is far less emotionally and psychologically daunting to begin with a slightly filled jug and spend the rest of our career filling it up, if at all, we feel the need to. The talk, according to Mr. Harcharan, was well received by the law students. There were no burnt effigies of me found the day after on the university grounds. I did not receive ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ posters on my social media. These absences satisfyingly corroborate Mr. Harcharan’s assessment of their feedback. Naturally, I wanted to share the talk here. But, quite naturally too, I forgot where I put the piece of paper I hurriedly scrawled my speaking points after I was done with my talk. After failing to find the damn thing these last two weeks, I decided to rewrite the talk I gave and hope it comes as close to what I imparted that morning. _____________ Good morning to all of you. Today, I intend to tell you four hard truths about legal practice. There are more, but these will do this morning. I use the word, Hard, because it may be difficult to hear or take given our conditioning. I do this not to dissuade you from it. I do this so you understand and join the legal profession or working life with an appropriate expectation and attitude. This is important to avoid ending up disappointed and jaded too quickly or intensely. It is also important to ensure we continue to develop and grow into the best version of ourselves as lawyers. The right mentality sets us up optimally to deal with adversities; the wrong mentality damns us to eventual misery and mediocrity. The first truth is that your suffering is not unique or special. I know you studied hard to get to where you are. I know you worked hard to get to a good law school, cultivated the right teachers, and hit the grades you wanted. I know of your many sleepless nights to finish those assignments to the standard you intended. I know of fun moments sacrificed because you prioritized your studies and grades. I know you gave your best and more. I know all about your trials and tribulations. But these are hardships and trials and tribulations students that came before you suffered too. It is not unique. It is not special. In fact, it is so common, it is really not worth mentioning. All of us had to go through our respective hardships and trials and tribulations to get through high school, college, and university. I did. My parents did. Your parents too. Many that came before us and many that will come after us will suffer some degree of stress over the state of their education. If you think your education was tough, listen to the next generation. Your experience of hardship and suffering for your education makes you as common as you are unique. Your suffering may not make you unique, but it gives you something better – an opportunity to empathise with those that came before you and that will come after you. It is a reminder we are part of this great family of humanity that has gone through the same experience but in different ways. Be respectful of those that came before you as those after you – they may have suffered more than you ever did in getting to the same place. Be moderate and temperate in celebrating your achievements, particularly your public ones. The second truth is that nobody cares about your degree or what your grades are. In the working world, we are judged and measured by what we can actually do and do well, rather than what grades we got. In the working world, our paper is akin to a foot in the door; it chinks it open and could possibly even hold it open for a little while, but it won’t send us through. Our paper was issued by an academic institution. It certifies how well we know what they teach us. It does not certify what we can do with that knowledge. In truth, all our grades say about us is how well we were at passing the exams our university teachers or educational organizations have set for us. That we responded with the correct answers or
