While deciding whether judicial officers with seven years of prior law practice are eligible for appointment as district judges under the Bar quota, the Supreme Court recently remarked that judicial officers possess greater experience than advocates.

In doing so, it has raised a subtle yet intriguing question - what does being “experienced” in law truly mean? 

The courtroom is where two worlds meet - the relentless dynamism of the Bar and the anchored steadiness of the Bench. Each world shapes its own kind of experience. Each advocate learns the letter of the law in chaos, a judge applies it in order. To say that one is more experienced than the other is to incorrectly interpret what experience truly is. 

The daily life of an advocate is one of constant movement, where knowledge, personality, communication, intuition, foresight and endurance are tested at every moment possible. Every brief requires a lawyer to adapt, starting from consulting with the clients to framing and delivering final arguments in the courts of law. Advocates sustain not by following, reading or interpreting the letters of law, but from living it at every second.

Contrary to the life of a judicial officer, who is instructed to operate within a certain parameter of cases for a particular tenure, an advocate has to traverse through a vast sea of briefs, where he may argue an anticipatory bail application in the morning, a liquidation application by lunch and a mutual consent divorce petition by evening. Each forum carries with itself its own rules of procedures and regulations, its own perspective of looking at matters. Each individual client has their own version of events and demands. An advocate’s experience is, therefore, not confined to the knowledge of laws and regulations, but penetrates deep into the diversity of human personality, institutional interactions and demands of each stakeholder.

Every brief that crosses a lawyer’s desk comes with an unwritten commitment for patience, persuasion and commitment. An advocate shoulders the responsibility of persuading the judges without crossing the contours of mutual respect between the Bar and the Bench, advising clients without misleading them about the law and managing their personal expectations from the judicial forums. Therefore, a sense of diplomacy is inculcated in the lawyer’s personality, not learnt through books but in the ‘school of hard knocks’, through repeated trial and error, sometimes even at the cost of losing clients. The lessons of the practice of law evolve through a series of victories, defeats, adjournments and the latent lessons that each brief carries with it.

As Justice Krishna Iyer once rightly observed,

“The Bar is not a profession of convenience, but a calling of conscience."

Lawyers are driven to see the judicial infrastructure through varied lenses - from the vantage point of an anguished and anxious litigant, an overburdened clerk, an ahlmad or naib court, the cautious and wise judge and even the bureaucracy. This experience cannot be gauged by tenure, but can only be developed through struggle, persistence and patience.

While the chaos of juggling between different roles is what lawyers thrive on, the experience of judicial officers is cultivated through the discipline of adjudicating diverse matters brought before them Their experience is complementary yet different to that of advocates, and is filled with profoundness, responsibility, wisdom and introspection. 

As once remarked by Justice RV Raveendran,

“A judge’s greatest virtue is not knowledge, but balance.”

A judicial officer is expected to maintain composure amidst conflict and to ensure fairness after appreciating the facts of a case. The art of converting arguments into judgments, evidence into reasoned basis and temperament that rejects any bias is developed through years of training and experience at the dais. Unlike practitioners of law, who derive their motivation from results, judicial officers are bound to operate within a framework where their anonymity is both a burden and a protection. As per the norms laid down for judicial officers, they have little or no discretion to hear matters lying outside their vires as per their roster. Additionally, the service rules lay down a strict hierarchy inside their cadre. For instance, in Delhi, they are governed by the Delhi Judicial Services Rules, 1970

To say that either side - the Bar or the Bench - possesses a quantum of experience greater than the other is to misinterpret what experience truly is. In the legal profession, the true scale of measuring experience is not the number of cases argued or disposed of, number of years in service, or the prestige of the chair one occupies. It the ability to adapt and align one’s mind, soul and skills to the profession and practice of law. Both advocates and judicial officers guard two different frontlines of justice. The advocate’s experience comes from living the law in reality through its application, while judicial officers ensure its interpretation and appreciation. Therefore, one lives the law in fragments of reality while the other gathers those fragments in a single fabric and delivers the result.

An average lawyer works without any institutional security or safety net - often where every brief, every client and every situation becomes a test of his credibility and ability. Conversely, judicial officers enjoy a security of tenure where their continuity of service provides them a safety net, their words become precedents and their judgments become a shaping stone for future arguments in upcoming cases.

The judicial officer becomes the “digestive system of justice” which absorbs the arguments and facts presented before it, separates the necessary from the rhetoric and delivers the essence of law into a balanced and aligned judgment. Judicial officers are expected to adjudicate on what is placed before them by the parties, and also carry the responsibility of reading between the lines, separating the grain from the chaff and grasping what the parties may have deliberately or unintentionally omitted.

The Bar and the Bench are not adversaries in the system of justice, but allies sharing a common objective - dispensation of justice - where one represents the pulse of justice while the other represents its conscience. It may be convenient to romanticise one over another, but the reality lies in their own independence and the strength of the judicial system lies in their mutual alliance. The role of the Bar is to ensure that the voiceless find a voice, while the Bench’s reflection lends it a moral core.

Both carry a burden that the other does not - the advocates face the uncertainty of clients, professional vulnerability, lack of perks etc. Judicial officers face a mixture of solitude, departmental deadlines, moral code of conduct and weight of expectations. Yet, both of them are bound to uphold the Constitutional oath of upholding justice without fear or favour. To compare their essence is to diminish their coordination and partnership, both being halves of the same whole. 

Rather than comparing which half is more shiny than the other, it is necessary to understand that both the parts are tied together with the string of mutual respect, coordination and admiration. Nearly every Supreme Court and High Court judge was once a good advocate, and every advocate learns through a prudent Bench.

As Justice MC Chagla once remarked,

“The Bar is the nursery of the Bench."

The uncompromisable beauty of this noble profession of law is that both the artists should play their part in the duet in harmony so that the sweet sound of justice plays for eternity.

Akash Sharma is the Founder of Law Offices of Advocate Akash Sharma.