Practicing Advocates

#PracticingAdvocates

A new debate has arisen about practicing advocates. The crux of the matter is that the “guardians” think many advocates leave practice and join other profession without informing the bar, therefore their name continue to appear in the rolls of advocates prepared by the state bar councils. So, a new concept of “practicing advocate” has been introduced. I think the word “practicing advocate” is an oxymoron. Neither any concept exists nor can it ever appear in future where few people can be allowed to retain the title of an advocate even when they are not practicing as such. So, the real test is whether one is an advocate or not.

For this test, one needs to go back a little in history when there were barristers and also other law practitioners like solicitors, attorneys, vakils, etc. All these nomenclatures were merged into a single nomenclature of an advocate. So, an advocate today can well be either of these categories: he might be appearing before courts like a barrister or might be a mere attorney/solicitor — however, not allowing advocates to solicit clients is an unnecessary hypocrisy, which has led to outgrowth of touts, albeit illegally. So, appearance or non-appearance before a court of law is irrelevant for the test of being an advocate/law practitioner, and the office bearers of bar associations and bar councils have been unnecessary burdened with a responsibility for which they have no expertise. No criteria have been laid out — nor can any be laid down — thus arbitrariness in decision making in such circumstances can’t be ruled out.

AORs and Senior Advocates have been exempted from this test, for they have already been tested and are being continously tested for their commitments by the courts themselves, and the test is certainly based on their appearances before the courts. So, the message is clear that the advocates are being tested based upon their appearances before the courts, which is faulty as it fails to take into account the fact that not all advocates have privilege of touts and also that some may just like to prepare briefs for barristers than present briefs in courts.

Furthermore, I fail to understand what is the need of introducing such a test after the differentiation between the different categories of law practioners has been done away with. I think this is an extremely confused state of affairs. If you want to have committed personnel for appearances before the courts, then reintroduce barristership and then let the test be applied to them. Else, let the same freedom to solicit clients and take-up part-time jobs, which is available in other professions, be available to advocates as well. I think this hypocrisy of an advocate being an officer of the court and an agent of his client, both at the same time, is hurting the profession because we now know well enough that most advocates in such circumstances find it convenient to accumulate the love for their rich clients in the deep pockets of their black coats, which black colour the courts also love not because it signifies the dilligence of an officer of the court but because the judges wear the same black coats with deep pockets — no wonder the rich advocates are also the most respected one.

About the Author

Ankur Mutreja
Ankur Mutreja is an advocate-cum-writer, and his blogs are amongst his modes of expression. He has also authored number of books, which can be downloaded from the links on the top menu.

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