How low can you go?

Friday last week I went to KL Court with two ends in mind, getting the cd of court recording for an upcoming criminal appeal and to see how the touts ply their trade. Well, i went to court for the CRT. The tout-watching, that was my friend’s idea. This is an ongoing topic we had been discussing on and off again. From his pupillage until he has finally opened up his own law firm. On how a legal practitioner would get their files and how low some are willing to go to get them.

He was of the opinion that there is no bottom to it, no red line if one is to survive. I get it, I understood that. That was my position previously. In law school there was no class or course entitled Getting Your Files 101 or Marketing 302. There was no explanation given why the business aspect of the Law is not discussed. If it was given I probably slept in that class or it was grossly insufficient. Most of us would leave law school full of ideas and all that cal but with not a clue on how to generate fees to pay your bills.

So our education on getting bills paid via legal practice truly began during pupillage. If you are lucky you would end up with a pupil master who are not only concerned with your development of your legal muscle but also your appreciation of what exalted oddity the legal profession is. Neither a business nor a charity but a bit of both. The lessons would be on how not to get your files and how you ought to treat you clients. But that still does not answer wholly the question on how does one get all those juicy files.

Some prefer to unshackle themselves from questions of ethics and lived up to Nelson’s (Lord Horatio Nelson, the British naval hero. Not Nelson of the corn-in-cup variety) adage of going straight at them. Them in this sense does not refer to Spanish or French warship as per the original adage but refers to the pool of potential clients there in the courts. You can find these lawyers and their kakis roaming the corridors of KL Court, mostly where the Criminal Magistrate’s courts are situated.

When my partners and I first opened up our firm, my sole aim was to rack up as many MOB (Mention On Behalf) matters as possible while we crack our heads together to find the core files for the firm. This was years before E-Review system was in place. In the course of doing MOBs all over Klang Valley I was gradually exposed to these Nelsonian adherents. I began MOB-ing for some of them, beginning from standing down their matters while they run off to other Magistrate Courts or to other court complexes for other cases to doing the actual plea of mitigation for cases they could not attend as their trust in me grew. I polished my mitigating chops by observing these fellows in action.

To be clear (this is for you DB people), I am not a corridor roamer. Never was, never will be. I am an MOB lawyer. Fellow lawyers ask me to appear at so and so court on so and so date, I would be there, i get paid. End of story.

Anyway,

So there I was on a Friday morning with my friend at KL Court. We started by roaming level 3 of the complex, left wing. Maybe our slow stroll down the corridor could be mistaken for a lost civilian looking for a particular court room because in no time we were approached by two civilian kaki (I call them kaki) Each one enquiring with expectant looks which court are we looking for.

I forgot how powerful a black and white suit can be. I’ve seen these fellas around and never once did they approach me. They know I am not a corridor kind of guy. Then again the haircut, face mask and street clothes might have confused them. Usually, it would be the other way around, in a suit, civilians would ask me where so and so courts are. Little did they know that most of the time I myself would rely on the big colourful map they have at the main lobby for the court designation would change from time to time due to renovations and such. So being taken for an easy mark by kakis was an entirely new experience for me and my friend.

Me and my friend went into each Magistrate’s court to see lawyers mitigating sentences. After a while we went to Level 4 where I met an old timer whom which we shall call Brader. Brader had been doing roaming the corridors bit for quite a while. He stopped a few years back but came back into the game after MCO. He was sitting on one of the benches outside one of the Magistrate’s Court waiting for fresh cases to be called. Naturally we got down to talk about the old days, old kakis and how some of them had gone on to greener pastures and how he is taking in YBGK files to slowly wean himself off the kakis and corridor roaming. A bench away, an Indian lawyer whom I’ve seen around was busy plying his trade to a worried looking old Malay lady. No doubt emphasizing the need for a lawyer to get a reduced sentence for whomever is inside the court lockup. After sufficiently long conversation my friend and I said our goodbyes to Brader. We then went to one of the magistrate courts there to continue our observation of criminal lawyers plying their trade. We saw one successfully pleading for a binding over order for a wife of an addict who was caught with the husbands small stash.

Nothing much was going on at Level 4. We went to Level 1, I thought we might observe the goings on at the traffic courts and other. Brader had warned us that a particularly bold group of lawyers held sway over the traffic court and urged caution on our part for they jealously guard their realm. This we could not confirm. We found our way barred by a pair of RELA guys. Judging from their extra inquisitive questions of our reason for being there, there must be a particularly juicy case going on in there. But not wanting to court trouble, we made a u-turn and went back to Level 4 to one of the magistrate’s court where the lady magistrate is particularly cute and gave sensible compounds to minor drug offences.

As we opened the wooden doors from the elevator leading to the corridor outside, there was a sharply dressed young man with his back to us, typing something on his smartphone. A lawyer from the looks of it. He turned to face us having heard the wooden doors open. As he saw us I can see the split-second calculation as his eyes took our street clothes into consideration before he greeted us with a wide smile and querying where are we heading. His eyes now shone with the predatory gleam of a shark sensing a prospective lunch. Being a smartass, i simply pointed to my right and said, going that way and left him hungry.

Me and my friend took to the cafe after it was clear that no more cases will be heard at the cute lady magistrate’s court. Over lunch my friend broached the subject again, about being approached by the kakis and the young male lawyer at Level 4. He said ‘’Takde class langsung bang diorang ni’’. I have no objections there. They reminded me of the kind people who would crowd the jetties and airport lobbies of local holiday destinations hollering that they can get you rented car or van or motorcyle and whatnot. The only difference here is that it is done outside the court rooms and some of them are in suits and in possession of practicing certificates.

‘’But good money bro’’, I said to tempt him. From our conversation with Brader the rates for Plea in Mitigation has fallen a bit but if one were to secure at least three cases a day, in a week one could make what a fresh LA makes in a month, more or less. My young friend’s face curled in distaste and he repeated the same line: ‘’Takde class Bang’’.

So I guess there is a bottom for him after all and I am reminded of mine. We all want to survive, sure. Times are always hard and that sometimes a firm is just propped up by hopes of payment and prayers alone. But money is not everything. It cannot be everything. There has to be something greater and more fulfilling than having your bills paid (Like a big bowl of Beehun Soto with generous amount of shredded chicken and begedil). We ought to have some dignity in us. We need a daily reminder to us that we are in a profession that goes beyond money and what comes with it. Maybe that is an idealistic and quaint thing to say but if we do not stand for something we stand for nothing. If we stand for nothing, we are nothing.

These corridor roamers are small fries which often lead to more morally reprehensible practice, palm greasing being one of it and it is not confined to the Criminal Law practice alone. Some half-hearted poster and banner placement in court is not going to work. An active measure is needed. I was shocked when I was told that Bar Council had no enforcement or investigative department. And yet they want to eradicate touting. As the common parlance goes: Sembang la weh.

At the same time, I get it why these people do what they do. The lure of easy money, survival. The former is up to the lawyers but something can be done for the latter. You can call it excuses sure but those are the underlying causes. The sad thing is that there is a platform for lawyers to do criminal case and get paid without having to roam the corridors. There’s Yayasan Bantuan Guaman Kebangsaaan (YBGK) where you can represent an accused for remand, bail, mitigation, trial and even up to appeals and get paid for it. But the pay rate is crap and payment is made once every 4 months. Not really helpful considering bills are due every month. Now, there are complaints from some YBGK lawyers about claims being denied or halved for flimsy reasons and more ridiculous requirements before any claims are processed, as if filling in claim forms by hand is not time-consuming enough. Sure there are some lowlifes falsifying claims and whatnot but to tar the rest of us with the same brush is just unfair. Make YBGK an attractive alternative to corridor roaming and you can reduce the number of corridor roamers. I say reduce because to totally eradicate is an unrealistic metric to be achieved. The lure of easy money is always there. All than can be done is to remind lawyers to not give in to the temptation.

Deliver us from unpaid bills and lead us not into solicitation, that kind of thing.

At the end of the day the question of how does a practitioner find them files while remaining principled and unstained by the dust of earthly existence, remains mostly a mystery to me. How low am I willing to go? I do not know. I hope to stay straight and true as we all should be. I pray that I do. One thing I do know for sure is that I'm not roaming no corridors. No sir.

Not that low.