Will I Ever Argue A Case of Some Importance?
I asked myself that question from time to time in the first few years of practice when I ran the gamut of debt and traffic claims and defences in the lower courts for the firm. I asked myself that question during those long, dull and lonely waits. If I weren’t waiting in the subordinate court registry, I’d be waiting in court waiting for my case to be called up. In the good old days, whatever we filed in the court registry took ages to be sealed or find its way into the court file, if at all it did. If you filed something the day before the court mention date, forget about it being the court file the next day. Either the application or affidavit would be missing or the court file altogether. We had to file them at least a week before the mention or hearing date. But that was no guarantee that it would be in the court file. Since the digitalization of the courts, lost applications, affidavits, and files are a thing of the past. But in the past, it was a regular and common occurrence, which explained why I was a regular and common visitor to the subordinate court registry. Back then, the subordinate court registry at the Jalan Raja courts was split into two. The Magistrates Court registry was located just inside the official entrance of the Jalan Raja courthouse buildings. The Sessions Court registry was on the third floor if I am not mistaken. It was a long walk up. I spent many hours of the morning (sometimes afternoon) under semi-bright fluorescent lights that cast their cold, indifferent light over the cheap-looking wooden partitions and transparent acrylic counter divider, waiting for lost applications and missing court files to be found. Sometimes, I waited for hours only to be told, ‘Fail/permohonan tak jumpa. Tulis surat.‘ (The file/application cannot be found. Write a letter) I often went back disgusted at having wasted a whole morning sitting around unproductively. The work at the office did not get done while I waited in court. This was the time before mobile phones and laptops. If you didn’t bring any entertainment to the courts, good luck passing the time if your friends weren’t around. I was always braced for the wait. I had a book, newspaper, notepad, a pen, my files. My tools of entertainment were always close at hand. But even those failed to stem the relentless waves of boredom at times. Back then, I waited so much in court I used to joke I wasn’t a lawyer but a waiter. I waited for a mention date, a file to be located, an application to be called up, and to see court clerks and officers. There was always something to wait for. In those lonely, futile moments, I wondered whether I would ever argue a Federal Court or a Court of Appeal case. Never mind if it is not significant, though any appellate court decision is. It didn’t matter what area of law. It didn’t matter if I won or lost. I was happy to argue any case at that level. There were occasions when the anxiety of never having an opportunity gripped me. It seemed so far away from my daily work. I did traffic accidents, debt claims and defences, execution proceedings, petty crime and the routine, low-level kind of litigation. I didn’t see how kicking tenants out, auctioning off goods and suing debtors for their dues, never mind spending half my life at the court registries, would elevate me to the exalted heights of arguing fine ethereal points of law in the appellate courts. I’d like to think I have come a long way from my early days, at least 20+ years of practice worth. I don’t do routine legal work like I did when I started practice. I am privileged and pleased to be called upon to be involved in a variety of interesting litigation and cases. There is never a dull moment or case. I am privileged to argue matters in the superior courts, not infrequently. I don’t know whether any of the decisions I was involved with were significant or influential. That matters less to me these days. Anyway, those matters are not for me to declaim. It is for others and legal history to consider. I am simply there to argue the case as ably as I can within my professional ethics, tradition and abilities and to savour the experience along the way in the company of my colleagues. I’d like to share a few observations from my experience of coming up with legal grunt work in my early practice to conducting cases at the appellate level. Firstly, it is not about how you start but where you end. We all have to start somewhere. When we start at the beginning, in a long-established profession with deep traditions, it is inevitably at the bottom. There is no shame in starting at the bottom because it is natural. We don’t have experience. We don’t know enough law. The shame lies in never leaving the bottom. I learned a lot at the bottom. Though it quickly became drudgery (routine work bores me), those were important years. I learned how to carry out service of documents, what substituted service is all about, judgment in defaults, how to set them aside, striking out, summary judgment, discovery and all kinds of applications. I learned the nitty gritty and the granules in between, as well as a lot of useless stuff. I learned the various ways to enforce judgments: how to bankrupt someone, wind up a company, sell their belongings or property, and evict tenants. It was just as important to know how to enforce a judgment as it is to obtain one. Although they are no longer at my fingertips, I can still find them around my elbows. All these basic, low-level, routine work later served me well throughout my career in practice. That work helped lay
