A very senior advocate at lunchtime had once told me about the adjournment window. The venerated senior defined it, while sanguinely chewing on a spoonful of rajma rice and fresh onion, as the window that opens up ten minutes before a judge is likely to rise for lunch and also before such judge rises for the day. Never argue finally a case that comes up in the adjournment window he said – it’s better to get a date than to make a judge apply their mind when their stomachs rumble, or when the pressure of nature has built up over the afternoon. His advice came with wafts of onion, and also from immense personal experience, it seemed.

Contrary to such astute advice, last week, instead of taking time, I proceeded to argue a fairly sensitive case before a bench in the Honourable Supreme Court during the adjournment window. I had never appeared before this bench myself, but I had seen them being gracious with younger counsel. However, precisely as the Senior had predicted, the bench refused to listen to my entreaties, and dismissed the case then and there. As a last resort after hearing “dismissed”, I sought to make an argument that I thought would change their mind(s), but I was asked tersely – “Do you understand English?”

Walking out, my colleagues mentioned that this was unusually rude (of the Bench – not of me to bother their Lordships with issues on police excesses at such hour). My colleagues however wouldn’t have thought it rude had it happened to someone younger, but given that I was significantly older – sixteen years at the bar, they thought that it was odd. But then, more of those years were spent as arguing counsel in the Delhi High Court (<3) and Trial Courts across Delhi, than at the Supreme Court. Consequently - while it was par for course to be recognized – sometimes by face, sometimes by name, in the Delhi High Court, it would have been odd to expect such recognition from their Lordships given minimal facetime in the Supreme Court. Consequently, the perceived rudeness could be attributed to lack of recognition, which in the legal profession can be synonymous with being an amateur. 

When the Bench recognizes counsel, it’s not necessarily a great thing. One might be recognized as a regular waster of time by making irrelevant submissions, or as counsel who overstates case and is underprepared when it comes to showing page numbers. Recognition of the positive kind however makes the process relatively easier – it’s easier to get a date of convenience, it’s easier to get cases heard on priority, one gets a longer rope with time to make good submissions, and most importantly, the Bench is mostly of pleasant demeanour. Clearly, my colleagues were used to Benches of pleasant demeanour. As was I.

Which is what got me thinking – one hits this spot of 38-44 in life, which isn’t quite young, and isn’t quite middle-age yet. One basically middles.

One expects their word and advice to be taken as gospel by clients, but clients still want an opinion from a senior advocate. The words “in my 15 years at the bar…”, don’t quite hit when people are batting successfully into their 50 years at the bar. But then, one also isn’t young, because one hears words like “surely with your experience, you know better than to make this argument in my court." 

Middling isn’t fun because you’re not main counsel – not even second counsel at times, and you’re also not the briefing counsel. So clients come to you with their solicitor and a modicum of a gameplan for advice, and clients then take forward your advice to the senior advocate for confirmation on its sagacity.

Middling also gives one the feeling of being important in the scheme of things, but not important enough. One is recognized by judges and accommodated, but not accommodated as one would optimistically hope for. Cases aren’t adjourned easily to be taken up at a fixed time on a short date – unlike they would have been for a busy senior advocate. One can’t and shouldn’t complain of course - you’re not a junior who doesn’t know the system by now!

Being busy – yes that comes if you’re middling well, but the problem with taking too many briefs in courts that are physically far apart is far more cumbersome when you’re middling. For Senior Counsel, juggling cases across court rooms is easy –VC appearances here and there are par for course. Clients also don’t take it to heart when their lawyers tell them that the senior advocate that they’ve engaged isn’t going to appear physically. But god forbid the middling advocate chooses to appear virtually – that’s a straight divorce with the client, and some degree of making-up is needed with briefing counsel. Let’s not even go down the road of missing matters since one had been held up in another court.

Middling is also when the body starts to act like the term. The middle starts getting attention, and if one isn’t careful, diameters can increase significantly. The body needs some TLC every morning, and heading to court right after a long badminton session can induce sudden pain or paralysis when bending down to tie shoelaces. Suddenly necks are sore after sleeping wrong, noises are unwittingly let out while sitting or changing position, and cooling-down is needed after climbing stairs to reach the sixth floor of Rouse District Avenue Courts.

Middling is irritating because you’re not quite on top of your game, but you feel like you are. The family at home also believe you’re top of your game. The family expects that your bank account should balloon, given that slightly senior members of the profession who were your peers only half a decade ago, are now senior advocates. They talk of a dozen lakh here and there as daily bread. Sadly - the bank account, like the 38–44-year-old, is also middling.

Middling tends to take the mind to uncomfortable thoughts. Years have been spent attempting to be good at one thing (the law hopefully), and bad at everything else. The list of things ignored is long - family-time, home management, sport, and keeping in touch with friends. Suddenly, dark thoughts of what-ifs start hitting the mind. There’s no Human Resources team in Court who takes you aside and talks about your misadventures through the past year. An exuberant set of arguments during a hearing may have alienated a judge forever. Ossification in one’s belief about a particular course of action as advice to a client may have led to an unwholesome end. Questions that no one can answer begin to form. What next? Should one attempt to do what they do to become senior counsel? If yes – when? If now, how? How does one move to showing their intention to be bench and not bar?

Whoever said that forties are the new twenties may have been smoking the good stuff. Sixties might surely be the new forties, but the middling forties that are looming feel like the awkward teens. Hopefully, like the pimples wear out and the voice cracks itself out, the late forties would make one look back at this time, and laugh at one’s inexperience [What inexperience are you talking about? Surely with your level of experience, you can’t say that].

Adit Subramaniam Pujari is a Delhi-based advocate.