Honesty May Not Pay Immediately In Legal Profession But In Long-Run It Always Pays: Senior Advocate Arvind Datar

As a part of the 75^th year celebration of the High Court of Orissa, the Lawyers’ Day was observed in a special way on Friday in a function organized at Odisha Judicial Academy, Cuttack. The Day is celebrated by the legal fraternity of Odisha to commemorate the birth anniversary of Utkala Gouraba Madhusudan Das. Arvind P. Datar, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, attended the event as the Chief Speaker.

Mr. Datar hailed the initiatives and reformations brought in the High Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Dr. S. Muralidhar. He said no other High Court has improved this much during these last couple of years as the Orissa High Court has done.

Honesty Pays In Advocacy

While addressing the lawyers who were felicitated for completing 50 years at the Bar and other young lawyers, he said,

“This is the finest profession. This is the profession where honesty always pays. It may not pay tomorrow or day after, but in the long-run it will definitely pay. This is the only profession where a lot depends on your own merit. You are the architect of your future.”

He said that his seniors in the profession are the main reason behind whatever he has achieved in his life. He told the audience about the advice of his senior who had asked him to learn the skills of advocacy by following the footsteps of other seniors and by emulating their good qualities.

He narrated his experience when he was an LLB student in the Madras Law College during the national emergency. During that time, most of his classes used to get cancelled due to frequent strikes. He used to visit the Madras High Court which was near the college.

“I used to come to [the] Court and see the great lawyers of the generation. I used to keep making notes of how they argue. Mr. K. Parasaran, Mr. G. Ramaswamy and Mr. M.R. Narayanswami were there and in Court, we had the opportunity of seeing H.M. Seervai, Fali Nariman, Nani Palkhivala come and argue. So, I always made it a point to go and attend.”

Lessons From Veteran Lawyer Kesava Aiyangar

He acknowledged to have learnt the most important lessons of the profession when he went to brief Senior Advocate R. Kesava Aiyangar (father of Senior Advocate K. Parasaran), who was then 93-years-old, in a contempt case involving Ramnath Goenka, the Founding-Director of Indian Express Group.

He narrated about his interaction with the veteran lawyer, who told him that there is no concept of ‘contempt’ in Roman Law, to which he conceded his ignorance as he was not taught Roman Law at college. “If you haven’t learnt Roman Law, you are not fit to be a lawyer,” Mr. Aiyangar retorted.

During preparation of the case, Mr. Datar said he got some invaluable lessons from the legendary lawyer which he then shared with the young members of the Bar. One of such lessons was “if you endlessly prepare, you will be endlessly unprepared.” He advised, 48 hours before a case comes up for hearing, one should wrap-up his preparation for the case.

He also received another advice from the doyen of the Bar that a lawyer must give 60% of his efforts and energy to reading the briefs and undertaking research and the rest 40% should be dedicated for thinking about the case.

“Don’t keep on reading till the last. Please think about your case, think about the other side’s arguments. Keep thinking about the possible methods of putting your case,” he added.

Lessons From Mohan Kumaramangalam

Mr. Datar’s senior was the junior of Mohan Kumaramangalam, former Advocate General of Madras and later a Cabinet-Minister in Indira Gandhi’s government. After Kumaramangalam returned studying Law in London, his father (a former Chief Minister of Madras) asked him to meet the then Chief Justice of Madras High Court to seek his advice before joining the profession.

The Chief Justice advised him three things. Firstly, in any case, first study the Judge. Secondly, study the facts and thirdly, if you have time left, study the law.

His senior also shared an interesting anecdote with Mr. Datar. Once Kumaramangalam was arguing before Justice Somasundaram of Madras High Court. There is a famous case in Administrative Law titled R. v. Islington. During the hearing, Justice Somasundaram was mispronouncing the name “Islington”, by reading as it is and not keeping the second letter of the word, i.e. ‘s’ silent.

Kumaramangalam pointed the same to his junior, i.e. Mr. Datar’s senior. He clearly said that the Judge is mispronouncing the word as the second letter of word must stay silent while pronouncing. However, when his turn came for arguing the case, he also kept on mispronouncing the word, even though he knew it to be wrong. This surprised Mr. Datar’s senior who asked Kumaramangalam as to why he also did the same mistake.

“Look, I have to do the best for my client. It is my client’s life. It is my bread and butter. What will I get by proving the Judge to be wrong?” replied Kumaramangalam.

Need For Rigorous Preparation

Thereafter, Mr. Datar gave some pointers for the young members of the Bar which he has learnt from his experiences over the last four decades in the legal profession.

“First is preparation, preparation [and] preparation. Unless you master your facts and the law, you simply cannot deliver the results and believe me, you easily know when the lawyer is not fully prepared and it’s very easy to know when lawyer is well prepared.”

Importance Of Mastery In English

Secondly, he advised the new entrants to the profession to improve their speaking and writing skills in English.

“One way is always keep Roget’s Thesaurus next to you, keep a book on King’s English next to you and try to constantly speak English. Because ultimately if you are going to rise to the highest echelons of the profession then a mastery of English language is necessary. It may be unfortunate but this is the ground reality and unless you master English, it will be a handicap as you grow higher and higher.”

Minimising Wastage Of Time

He asked the lawyers to constantly read, learn and minimise the time they spend chatting in Court corridors.

“My senior told me that ‘I never want to see you sitting in the corridor chatting’… I was always fascinated that what makes a person reach levels of success, what makes a person reach stratospheric level of success, something beyond the ordinary level of success. As Fali Nariman told me that there was saying that many people are of the ‘Hobbs class’ of cricket but there is only one ‘Bradman’. There are a few people in the Bradman class. So, what makes people to go to the Bradman class and that was a quest for me and I started interviewing people who were working with [Nani] Palkhivala. There, I was told that he never went to the canteen in the Bombay High Court. He never spent time in corridors, constantly reading and reading.”

He said that his senior advised him to carry a copy of the Madras Law Journal or the Supreme Court Cases with him all the time. Thus, he advised the lawyers to keep on reading law journals in the spare time they get and to keep themselves updated with the latest developments.

Introspection & Setting Clear Goals

He motivated the youngsters to ask themselves the question, “who can I be?” He asked them to set their goals very clearly.

“Of all the sad words the saddest words are ‘it might have been’. So, the regret is very bad. I would suggest that if you can set your targets. See where you want to be in 2025 and where you want to be in 2030.”

He recommended everyone to see Zig Ziglar’s ‘Seven Steps to Achieving Your Goals’. He said that video is quite useful for all young lawyers who want to go to the top.

“Finally, one thing [that] I have learned recently which I am trying to follow and it has been very useful, is ‘daily introspection’. Every young lawyer, everybody should, at the end of the day, ask himself [visualize a day from the morning to evening] what did I do? Where did I make a mistake? How can I do better? This introspection has helped me even at this age,” he added.