The more you know about things that aren’t directly connected with your profession, the richer your practice – Senior Advocate, Jayaprakash Sen

Jayaprakash Sen was made a senior advocate of the Bombay High Court early this year. In this interview with Bar & Bench, he talks about his love for advocacy, the uphill struggle for juniors and the importance of maintaining one’s integrity in the legal profession..Bar & Bench: You are a third generation lawyer. Law must have been an easy choice..Jayaprakash Sen: My father is a senior counsel in the Kerala High Court and my grandfather was a lawyer as well, in Calicut. My grandfather was more academically inclined though; he wrote a book on the Marumakkathayam system of personal laws that governs Nairs in Kerala. I suppose when you see your father and grandfather practice, it seems like an easier choice than if you were from a non-legal family. But, honestly, my father wanted me to choose something else..Bar & Bench: Why? .Jayaprakash Sen: Maybe he didn’t think my gifts were towards something like managing an office or dealing with clients. And that probably also explains the choice that I’ve made to become a counsel. If it actually came down to business development or drumming up work, I think I would have done very badly. So now I have the advantage of not having to deal with litigants directly. I am doing the parts of the legal practice that I enjoy doing most..Bar & Bench: What drew you towards law?.Jayaprakash Sen: I used to read very widely, so I had this natural inclination towards the liberal arts. That meant that I could do a course in literature or social anthropology, but I suppose that at the point of time, those weren’t particularly attractive options. The one area where I could pursue my taste in the liberal arts seemed to be law. That is because the law is not inconsistent with your taste in literature or broader interests..I think that as a lawyer, the more you know about things that aren’t directly connected with your profession, the richer you practice is. I spent five years in law school pursuing not just the law, but reading all sorts of things that would interest me otherwise – fiction, or non-fiction, as the case may be, and it suited me perfectly. Of course, at that point in time legal education was less regimented than it is now. There were lectures of course and we did turn up for them (pauses) occasionally..I loved my five years there. In fact, ILS was the only place I applied. It was a bit of a gamble, but it worked out. In hindsight would I have done things differently? Maybe. I’ve taken one or two big gambles in my legal career as well. One of them was, of course, counsel practice in Bombay..Bar & Bench: Bombay is a tough market to crack for an outsider. .Jayaprakash Sen: After ILS, I spent some time in Cambridge pursuing my LLM. I was in New York University as well. I spent a few months between these stints abroad practicing in Kerala. My dad’s office was there, so it was very easy. All that I had to do was walk in and argue a brief. I didn’t really have the responsibility of running an office, but I had the pleasure of engaging in the act of advocacy without any of the responsibility..Bar & Bench: That’s a very frank way of putting it..Jayaprakash Sen: But it’s true. I know that is where my skills lie. I don’t think I would have been able to run a law firm or handle the business development side of law. Today, the way larger law firms are structured, they are more like businesses. And they have to be, I’m not saying this as a point of criticism. But that’s not the side of legal practice that I enjoy..When I started in the profession, Delhi was not the ideal place for a junior who doesn’t really have a foothold in the city. It did not really have an evolved junior Bar..Also in Bombay, it would never cross the mind of an attorney that a junior counsel would take his client away. The separation is so impermeable, so rigid, that there is no question of a junior counsel engaging in direct practice. None of us counsels, even as juniors, ran a de-facto office. We did not have somebody to do the filings nor did we deal directly with litigants..I think law firms [in Delhi], or at least advocates-on-record are nervous about the prospect of their clients being taken away by junior lawyers. Also, they see no added benefit of briefing a junior. What a junior would do, an advocate-on-record would prefer to do himself and then engage only a senior..Bar & Bench: It must have been tough..Jayaprakash Sen: It was. I had no family in Bombay, no friends, and I hadn’t done law here. I managed to get into Freddy De’vitre’s chamber. Shyam Diwan, in fact spoke on my behalf and introduced me to Freddy, who was generous enough to agree..Apart from being a very good lawyer, Freddy was also a lovely person. I think that’s important as well – to work with someone who is actually good as a person and not merely as a professional. He was a very generous and magnanimous man, who was willing to acknowledge competence in a junior, and I’m sure that helped..Bar & Bench: How did you manage financially, with the whole apprentice model that is followed in Bombay?.Jayaprakash Sen: It means you’re paid nothing. Both in Cambridge and in New York, I had full scholarships. Their stipends were very generous, so I came back with a little bit of a cushioning, which helped me get through about a year of legal practice..The system here, unlike in Delhi where juniors do receive a stipend, is such that if you join chambers, you’re paid nothing. The senior is actually doing you a favour..Bar & Bench: Do you believe in that?.Jayaprakash Sen: I do, because the system works, strangely enough. I know it’s worked for me. Because at the end of the day, what the senior is giving you is an opportunity to be associated with him and his name. The solicitors who brief the seniors will then generally push some work your way..Then, it’s a question of whether you can build their confidence in you. That’s really all there is to it. I know that it is work for me, because I have no other reason to get work in this city. I didn’t know any lawyers, I didn’t have any contacts in firms, so work had to come the traditional way..Bar & Bench: That sounds unforgiving..Jayaprakash Sen: It is unforgiving. I had the option of joining my dad. Not joining him was probably a bigger risk than I realised, and I see that now in hindsight. But I’m fortunate that it worked out. It seems unlikely that you join a chamber and expect work to come, but it does work, it has worked for many of us..At the same time, it has not worked for many of us. It is unforgiving because there is no parachute, nothing to catch you on your way down. There are counsels who once commit to their choice, just stick to it. They may be financially well-off, or have senior counsels as family members, or family that are partners in law firms that can push work their way. So they usually have some connection and means of surviving in the profession. But if you have none of these and no work comes your way, your choices are very limited, and at some point you have to abandon that choice and do something else. That’s the way it’s been always. But I suppose there’s some amount of risk in every choice you make..Bar & Bench: Would you expect your juniors to work for no money?.Jayaprakash Sen: Yes. All of us follow that model, and the point is that they are not working for you. A senior counsel in Bombay has no work to give a junior, his work is coming from his own attorney. The attorney comes to you because he expects you to appear, so it is not work that you can delegate. At the most, you might ask [the juniors] to do a few pieces of research here and there..All that the junior can hope to do is to make enough of an impact or impression with the attorneys that come to brief, so that some work begins to come his way. If I ask a junior for a piece of research, I ask him to pass it on directly to the attorney, and that’s how the system works. I don’t know a single chamber in Bombay that pays. I don’t think it’s about to change because the seniors don’t need juniors, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It has always been seen as teaching, rather than work being extracted..Initially when you join, you are the senior’s shadow. As the work keeps coming in, you find yourself at a distance from the chambers. You’re meeting people, you’re taking care of matters of your own, and it is that distance that culminates into your own chamber..Bar & Bench: What do you think makes a good lawyer?.Jayaprakash Sen: The obvious things are a command over the language and clarity of thought. Something that, in my opinion, is extremely critical is absolute and unremitting integrity. It sounds old-fashioned but it is the only way you are going to build your career and reputation. The judge has to trust every word that you are saying in court. If you gain a reputation for deceiving judges, your career will take a nose dive. Or you could have a niche practice where you entertain clients who want you to do anything to win their case..That is a choice you have to make early in your career, and that is where your chamber plays a role. It’s important to join a senior or a chamber whose integrity is beyond the slightest shadow of doubt. He lays down a template which you should follow, and you’ll know what you want your practice to be. Every day, you have to prove that you deserve the judge’s trust..You will find a lot of counsels in Bombay voicing exactly this sentiment. A lot of them have earned a reputation for integrity and they’ve done that by being careful every single day of their lives. It’s more typical than rare, because it’s self-serving. I’m not saying that it’s a moral obligation of any sort that you have to be honest. If the faith that judges have in you is eroded, then you’re in trouble..Bar & Bench: What draws you to advocacy?.Jayaprakash Sen: I think the act of persuasion is enjoyable. Words are your tools; if you enjoy language and communication, then you will enjoy advocacy. I can’t imagine doing anything else as a lawyer, like working in a law firm, doing transactions etc..Bar & Bench: In your opinion, should lawyers apply to become senior counsels or should the title be designated?.Jayaprakash Sen: Ideally, it should be designated. I don’t think any High Court does it anymore. In some ways, it is more gracious to be designated, but in some ways it is impractical. For instance, there may be a brilliant lawyer in the city civil court, or a competent criminal lawyer, or a tax Bar, who many High Court judges may not be familiar with. That should not be a factor that prevents them from getting a gown..Bar & Bench: You are known to pay a great amount of attention to detail..Jayaprakash Sen: I don’t know where I got that from. Maybe it’s a little OCD! (smiles).It’s an important trait to have as a lawyer. At the end of the day your matter is not yours, you are representing someone else, and you have to do the best you can..Bar & Bench: You also manage a remarkable work-life balance..Jayaprakash Sen: It is a conscious decision that you have to set out to do every day, otherwise work can easily absorb you. For some lawyers, work is life, but that has never been true for me. There are a lot of other things I want to do. I want to travel, go to a classical music concert, catch a play or make some time for work outs. There are a million things other than work that make a full life. I think law, and counsel practice in particular, gives you that luxury. It is not something a law firm offers..Bar & Bench: Would you suggest law to anyone? .Jayaprakash Sen: I would, wholeheartedly. The profession has become more sophisticated in terms of the tools lawyers use, the structures law firms have and the work that they do. I don’t think that this is a bad thing. You can make money and still preserve the integrity of the Bar. People understand “commercial” to mean an abandonment of values. I’m not sure that this is true. Despite the fact that the profession has grown, I don’t think that you should forget the things that you stood for, whether you’re practicing in a law firm or in a Bar..There is always the struggle to maintain the life-work balance, there’s always a flipside to being paid handsomely. But that’s not unique to law..Bar & Bench: And in deciding between advocacy and non-litigation?.Jayaprakash Sen: I would say advocacy, because that is where my heart lies. Once again, it’s a choice each person has to make for himself. I don’t think advocacy is for everyone. Everybody has a particular set of skills and if they are suited towards advocacy then I would say, “Become an advocate.” You’re far more in control of your fate and you enjoy every minute of the work that you do.