REALITY IS DIFFERENT IN ADVOCACY!
(1) In a society where the major population is poor and uneducated, advocacy has a little role to play as earning profession at least for the person coming from poor & uneducated family. Yes, it is true that Dr. B.R. Ambedkar became law in his own by becoming an architect of Indian constitution inspite of being born in socially backward class family & suffering all kinds of hardship, but it is also true that he did not make his advocacy as profession of his own livelihood. He fought throughout his life by all legal means for upliftment of lower class without bothering about his own income and safety. He thus made advocacy a truly noble profession.
(2) But today there are thousands of advocates (of which I am one) coming from poor and uneducated families who dare to enter into legal profession with attraction of dignity and high income earned by few top advocates from legal profession. It is dangerous for persons coming from poor and uneducated families to make this profession as means of earning livelihood. I can tell this by my own experience (which some advocates may criticise) that it is very very difficult to survive in this profession at least in India if you are making your poor family totally dependent on the income to be earned from legal profession. This is because the reality is different in advocacy in a country like India having large number of population poor and uneducated.
(3) There are two basic points to be seriously noted in this connection. First point is that advocacy has not become an essential service in a country like India like marketing of essential commodities such life essential food, medical and police service. The poor and uneducated people in India are less aware even about their basic human rights and they are habitual to digest injustice. They prefer settling their disputes with the help of local agents who act as settlers. These settlers are not qualified lawyers, but they are trained in settling disputes by using some pressure of local panchayats or politicians out of court and get such settlements documented by executing small affidavits before local notaries or small agreements registered with local registrars of documents. The poor people avoid going to courts because of inability to pay high advocates fees and long delay in judicial process. This fact has proved that advocacy is not an essential service on which people should remain dependent on mass scale. It is needed by few rich businessmen and the few powerful politicians who engage services of top lawyers of country by paying their very high fee.
(4) If advocacy does not make itself essential service, then does it make it as entertainment service? That is not at all possible because the law is a serious subject & not a subject matter of entertainment. The poor people will buy tickets and will go to watch movies in cinema halls instead of going to advocates. The law and its legal maxims, principles do not attract poor & uneducated mass. The term justice is not the same for rich class and poor mass. It is very very different for these two categories. As aforesaid, rich hire top advocates and poor engage local settlers. So where will many advocates coming from poor and uneducated families go? They just struggle for their basic survival. Even the workers having full time jobs can be said to be in a better position and more secured than these poor advocates.
(5) The foundation of this article is based on two main points which are essential for learning by such poor advocates viz. advocacy is not an essential service in the countries like India and advocacy is not at all entertainment art anywhere in the world. I had decided in last week to remain away from social media till the present corona lockdown gets lifted completely making people free to attend their regular jobs with masks & social distancing code but I could not sleep yesterday with a serious thought that I have made a wrong choice of making advocacy as means of earning my livelihood without proper study in advance. But how could a textile mill worker's son i.e. me make such study well in advance is also a big question. The purpose of this article based on my personal experience is not to lower the dignity of noble profession of advocacy and not to discourage newcomers who are enthusiastic about entering into this profession, but to caution those coming from poor & uneducated families with the fact that reality is different in advocacy so that those who want to come in this noble and dignified profession can come well prepared. Thank you!
-Adv.B.S.More©18.7.2020
