Senior advocates should groom juniors: Gopal Subramanium

Solicitor General of India and chairman of the Bar Council of India, Gopal Subramanium, has said that a lawyer needs tremendous inner reserves. "You have to have mettle, you are going to be tested and life is never the same on any two days", he said.

"You must also have immense faith in yourself, the law and the positivism that justice prevails. Once you lose that faith, it does not take long for the judge and the litigant also to lose faith. The danger that one may be unpopular and misunderstood, or sound unpleasant are all calls that one has to take in one's stride. It is all about that inner confidence which can sustain a lawyer even when he does not have money."

"These source of this inner reserve may be by pursuit of knowledge and a constant craving for learning and information. I find that judges who want to learn more and more, get to the right spot without a moment's doubt. The same applies for a lawyer."




Speaking to Rainmaker about the responsibilities of a senior advocate, he said that a senior advocate should be prepared to sacrifice money. "In South Africa, many of the justices of their constitutional court told me that they designate a lawyer only when they are sure that he can go hungry - make a sacrifice for a cause, a case or a litigant. That required tremendous courage."

He also said that a senior advocate needs to have the ability to be objective, dispassionate and to articulate facts correctly so that the court is truly assisted. "The third is the ability to say things in a proportionate manner so that the right perspective emerges before the courts. This requires art and advocacy and he must also be learned."

"Apart from these fundamental functions, he has the great duty and responsibility to groom juniors. No senior advocate should function without training at least three to four juniors at a time. He is blessed with money and he has to make some resources available for a young junior to survive in today's world. This is the least which a senior can do, and it is the lasting contribution that he can make to the legal profession. He must groom and train juniors, particularly those who do not have the advantages of a background, or affluence or those who belong to the marginalised sections of society."

Speaking to Rainmaker about memorable moments from his early professional life, he said that "when a judge recognizes the moral paradigm of a lawyer and appreciates it openly in court, that is food from heaven." He said that he could sustain himself for days on a smile or a compliment or appreciation that he was on the right track. He said that the moral track of a judge and a lawyer are actually the same. "If I don't feel that sense of alignment, it makes me feel uncomfortable."

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Gopal Subramanium
• Senior Advocate
• Solicitor General
• Bar Council of India
• lawyer
• judge
• young lawyers
• moral core
• sacrifice
• Supreme Court
• justice
• positivism
• faith

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Please Please Please people do not waste your time getting into litigation unless your father (or uncle or someone very close to you) has a established practice and don't accept jobs where you are told to work for free or for horribly small sums of money.You will lose many years in frustration and total despair. I would suggest people to drop Law as a career altogether litigation or non-litigation you will have to do seriously morally disgusting things in order make money It.s a sick profession