Lastborn Syndrome and Young Lawyers: A Lunch Date Tete-a-tete with My Pupil Master

My name is Dunstan Ondieki, a pupil at Muthomi and Karanja Advocates (“the Firm”). Barely a fortnight ago, the much-awaited Council of Legal Education’s General Notice No. 3 came out. I had clinched the coveted 9 Ps in the Bar Exams (passed the bar) on my first attempt. I am now awaiting admission to the Bar later this year, subject to successful completion of my pupilage program. To celebrate this milestone, my mentor in the profession and now my Pupil Master graciously offered to treat me to a lunch date at one of Nairobi’s high-end eateries, the fine menu of which reminded me of Henry Balow’s famous poem, ‘Building the Nation’.

As we savoured the sweetness of gourmet plantain and the sumptuousness of roast chicken, my Pupil Master, in his characteristic wit, dished out pearls of wisdom tailored for young legal minds:

Dunstan, there is more to legal practice than memory versus speaking and rehashing the black letter law. Now that you have passed your bar exams, you can start learning the actual practice of the law. In the real world, clients are not interested in how much of the law you can recite. They are interested in whether and how you can apply the law to their circumstances and solve real-world problems.

The above words reminded me of a statement from my pupillage interview:

Congratulations, young man. Nonetheless, we must point out, at the outset, that you will soon realise that you do not know much about the law.

The idea that I did not know much about the law initially struck me as condescending and patronising ((as I suppose it usually strikes the Young Bar). Two questions, driven by youthful vanity and naivete, quietly run through my mind. Did these interviewers note the number of clean “A” grades on my academic transcripts from the University of Nairobi? Do they realise I went to Alliance?

Back home, the elders say a young eye is not much better than a blind one. A few months into pupilage, I realised that I did not actually know much about the law. It occurred to me that the doctrinaire approach to legal training in Kenya (and I suspect in many other jurisdictions) hardly prepares anyone to be a real-world lawyer. In the course of pupillage, I have learned that memorising Felthouse v Bindley, Beswick v Beswick, Henthorn v Fraser, or any other of those arcane “Law School 101” cases, does not offer much assistance to my Pupil Master, let alone a client seeking to resolve a complex multimillion contractual dispute. The same applies to mastering any other “Law School 101” case or concept. I have also been amazed at how clients do not care whether one acquired an Honours or Pass law degree as long as they can get the job done. Indeed, all clients seem to proceed on the premise of Lee Kwan Yew’s famous adage that it does not matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it can catch mice.

Back to the lunch date tete-a-tete, my Pupil Master emphasised the importance of demeanour and soft skills in legal practice, especially in the nascent stages of a legal career. He remarked that many members of the Young Bar have a deportment that betrays some form of “lastborn syndrome” (sorry if you are a lastborn). The problem with many lastborn children, my Pupil Master stated, is that they are often spared from house chores, discipline and other forms of hard treatment and experiences that shape the character of their older siblings. As a result, my Pupil Master pointed out, many lastborn children tend to be laidback, entitled, docile, unassertive, modest, shy and lacking in confidence. These “lastborn” traits, my Pupil Master continued, are the bane of a budding legal career:

There is no future for young lawyers who are laidback, timid, docile and shy. It would be best if you grabbed every opportunity to rise to the podium. When you get to the podium, you must be audible, eloquent, assertive and confident. In the fullness of time, this will inspire your seniors in the profession and clients to respect, admire and have confidence in you.

My Pupil Master recounted a childhood experience (in 1993) in which his grade school tutors bypassed him and chose a different learner to represent the school in a memory verse speaking competition despite agreeing that he could recite the text of the relevant poem more accurately. His epiphany came about when he overheard a conversation among the tutors, who cited his docility, anxiety, and lack of confidence as the reason for bypassing him despite his better capacity to recite the poem in question. Eavesdropping that “adult” conversation from his grade school tutors, my Pupil Master revealed, inspired him to permanently adopt the poise of an audible, eloquent, assertive and confident public speaker. It was a good resolution, especially seeing how things turned out for him many years later. He is now an acclaimed courtroom lawyer and law lecturer.

My Pupil Master thus challenged me to shed off the demeanour of docility, submission and vulnerability. He urged me to embrace a persona defined by assertiveness, aggression (where circumstances so require) and an unwavering confidence in myself. Further, my Pupil Master told me that there is a coward inside most people and that anxiety and stage fright bog down many lawyers, especially in the early years of their careers. The lawyers that eventually turn out well, he said, are those who do not allow stage fright, doubt, anxiety and lack of confidence to overwhelm them. The point, he said, is that we live in a world in which anxiety and lack of confidence are often mistaken for poor preparation and incompetence, with the consequence that a client or a partner may not trust an anxious and insecure rookie with a high-stakes or high-value brief.

My Pupil Master also advised against losing sight of the essential ingredients in the recipe for success: a staunch belief in hard work and diligence. Both of these values, in his view, are pretty elusive in my generation, especially those with a “lastborn syndrome.” Amidst the weighty tomes of legal doctrine and the labyrinthine corridors of courtrooms, hard work and diligence are a sine qua non for success. The seniors in the profession and clients are often interested in efficiency, including the execution of assignments in reasonable turnaround times without losing sight of fine and essential details. Effectively, the Young Bar must be ready to work hard and dive deep rather than take solace in the illusion of ‘working smart.’ It is only this way that a young lawyer can stand out from their peers.

If there is anything I took from the lunch date tete-a-tete with my Pupil Master, it was the need to be exceptional as a means of standing out from the “crowd” of my peers. My pupil master pointed out that the Kenyan legal profession will have more than thirty thousand members by the time I reach my prime. The probability of a client giving a brief to any one of those lawyers at random, ceteris paribus, my Pupil Master said, would be ¹/_30,000 (I must confess it sounded depressing). An ambitious young lawyer must thus work towards becoming a first among equals (prima inter pares).

In sum, the takeaway from the lunch date tete-a-tete with my Pupil Master is that members of the Young Bar must shed off the demeanour of laidback, vulnerable, anxious and docile greenhorns. As Shakespeare said in Julius Ceasar:

Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

In the grand theatre of legal practice, we, the Young Bar, are the playwrights of our destiny and the architects of our legacy. Let us endeavour to overcome laid-backness, timidity, docility, shyness, lack of confidence, and other traits that cause the Senior Bar to bypass us when assigning high-stakes and high-value briefs. Let us eschew the shrinking violets and wallflowers and make bold and audacious strides. At the moment, our professional lives are blank canvases, and it is up to us to paint them the way we want.

© Dunstan Ondieki.
(Pupil, Muthomi & Karanja Advocates).