PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
AND
PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTING SYSTEM
, ADVOCATES AS PROFESSIONALS
The profession of law is a great profession, the most brilliant and attractive of the
peaceful professions, with responsibilities, both inside and outside it, which no person carrying
on any other profession has to shoulder.
Importance of legal profession:
1. It is a learned profession: not merely in the sense that learning is displayed in the
practice of it, but that it calls for the high and noble conduct which is a corollary and
consequence of all true learning.
2. Lawyer has to deal with greatest possible variety of human relations: this profession
gives special opportunities to a lawyer to equip himself with those qualities which count
for pre-eminence in the society.
3. Independent profession: its independence which can never be lost sight of, is the bed
rock upon which its claims to lead the country are based. No member of the legal
profession ever hesitates to condemn injustice or tyranny.
LAMPS OF ADVOCACY:
Justice Abbot Parry, in an admirable book entitled ‘the seven lamps of advocacy’ refers to the
qualities that make for success at the bar.
1. Honesty: the best advocates of all generations have been devotees of honesty. Abbot
Parry cites the case of Abraham Lincoln ‘who founded his fame and success on what
some called perverse honesty’.
2. Courage: advocacy is a form of combat where courage in danger is half the battle.
Courage is a good weapon in the forum as in the camp. The three chief qualifications of
a lawyer is boldness, boldness, boldness.
3. Industry: advocacy is indeed a life of industry and an advocate must study his brief in
the same way that an actor studies his part. Success in advocacy is not arrived at by
intuition.
, 4. Wit: wit is needed to lighten the darkness of advocacy. Often the wit of an advocate will
turn a judge from an unwise course, where judgment or rhetoric would certainly fail.
5. Eloquence: eloquence of manner is real eloquence. There is a physical as well as
psychological side to advocacy.
6. Judgement: in nothing does the advocate more openly exhibit want of judgment than in
prolixity (unnecessary length)
7. Fellowship: there is rough familiarity, the general ardour of character, the same kind of
unwritten code of morals and manners, the same kind of public opinion between the
lawyers. By keeping the lamp of fellowship burning, we encourage each other to walk
in the light of the seven lamps of advocacy.
8. Tact (added by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer): it is not easy to describe tact but its absence is
easily noticed. Men of unquestioned ability have suffered for quarrelling with the
tribunal or for standing on their dignity over trifles, forgetting their clients, or for losing
their tempers; they are men of parts but without tact.
ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF ADVOCACY:
1. Acceptance of brief
2. Filing the case
3. Examination of client
4. Arguments
5. Judgement
TEN COMMANDMENTS IN DRAFTING PLEADINGS (A. A. EUSTACE “PRACTICAL HINTS ON
PLEADING”)
1. Be brief: you should avoid lengthy pleadings (order VI, Rule I CPC says the same)
2. Be positive: don’t leave any fact in doubt or to be inferred.
3. Be precise: one should be accurate and not vague.
4. Be relevant: avoid unnecessary statement of facts.
5. Plead fact not evidence: you must state conclusions and not the process by which you
reached them or the bases you had for doing so.
, 6. Plead fact not law
7. Don’t plead what law or the court takes for granted or what the other side has to prove
8. Give particulars of fraud etc.: the same is contained in Order VI, Rule 4 CPC.
9. Don’t change your terminology and don’t use fine language or words that you don’t
understand
10. Don’t use passive voice, pronouns or any sort of ambiguity.
MEETING CLIENTS:
Receive a client with kindness and listen with sympathy to all that he has to say. He may
repeat himself, but do not snub him. Allow him to have his stay in full. It is desirable that you
should not miss even one relevant fact though you may have to get it by a process of sifting
many irrelevant ones. It is less inconvenient to listen to superfluous facts than to stand the
chance of missing what may be essential. Do not interrupt your client in his narration, but
reserve your questions to the end, when he makes a pause. Pursue your inquiry, examine the
facts and then come to your own conclusion.
Do not be misled by the documents given by the client. If the client produces
documents, examine them carefully and read them from beginning to end. Do not rely upon
the client’s statements of their contents. You should not avoid discussion with the client.
Though clients may have no knowledge of the law, yet it is always wise, if the client be a person
of intelligence, to get his theory of the justice of his case. It is well that you take written notes,
in all cases, of the instructions which the client may give. It is not safe to rely wholly on your
memory. Your conduct in every respect should infuse confidence and attract the client to you.
SETTLEMENT OF FEE:
Collect relevant information by putting general questions as to whether he is well-to-do
and can afford to pay a decent fee. By all means ask for a heavy fee; but accept whatever the
client is willing to pay. Let not a client who enters your office go to another on the question of
the fee.
AND
PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTING SYSTEM
, ADVOCATES AS PROFESSIONALS
The profession of law is a great profession, the most brilliant and attractive of the
peaceful professions, with responsibilities, both inside and outside it, which no person carrying
on any other profession has to shoulder.
Importance of legal profession:
1. It is a learned profession: not merely in the sense that learning is displayed in the
practice of it, but that it calls for the high and noble conduct which is a corollary and
consequence of all true learning.
2. Lawyer has to deal with greatest possible variety of human relations: this profession
gives special opportunities to a lawyer to equip himself with those qualities which count
for pre-eminence in the society.
3. Independent profession: its independence which can never be lost sight of, is the bed
rock upon which its claims to lead the country are based. No member of the legal
profession ever hesitates to condemn injustice or tyranny.
LAMPS OF ADVOCACY:
Justice Abbot Parry, in an admirable book entitled ‘the seven lamps of advocacy’ refers to the
qualities that make for success at the bar.
1. Honesty: the best advocates of all generations have been devotees of honesty. Abbot
Parry cites the case of Abraham Lincoln ‘who founded his fame and success on what
some called perverse honesty’.
2. Courage: advocacy is a form of combat where courage in danger is half the battle.
Courage is a good weapon in the forum as in the camp. The three chief qualifications of
a lawyer is boldness, boldness, boldness.
3. Industry: advocacy is indeed a life of industry and an advocate must study his brief in
the same way that an actor studies his part. Success in advocacy is not arrived at by
intuition.
, 4. Wit: wit is needed to lighten the darkness of advocacy. Often the wit of an advocate will
turn a judge from an unwise course, where judgment or rhetoric would certainly fail.
5. Eloquence: eloquence of manner is real eloquence. There is a physical as well as
psychological side to advocacy.
6. Judgement: in nothing does the advocate more openly exhibit want of judgment than in
prolixity (unnecessary length)
7. Fellowship: there is rough familiarity, the general ardour of character, the same kind of
unwritten code of morals and manners, the same kind of public opinion between the
lawyers. By keeping the lamp of fellowship burning, we encourage each other to walk
in the light of the seven lamps of advocacy.
8. Tact (added by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer): it is not easy to describe tact but its absence is
easily noticed. Men of unquestioned ability have suffered for quarrelling with the
tribunal or for standing on their dignity over trifles, forgetting their clients, or for losing
their tempers; they are men of parts but without tact.
ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF ADVOCACY:
1. Acceptance of brief
2. Filing the case
3. Examination of client
4. Arguments
5. Judgement
TEN COMMANDMENTS IN DRAFTING PLEADINGS (A. A. EUSTACE “PRACTICAL HINTS ON
PLEADING”)
1. Be brief: you should avoid lengthy pleadings (order VI, Rule I CPC says the same)
2. Be positive: don’t leave any fact in doubt or to be inferred.
3. Be precise: one should be accurate and not vague.
4. Be relevant: avoid unnecessary statement of facts.
5. Plead fact not evidence: you must state conclusions and not the process by which you
reached them or the bases you had for doing so.
, 6. Plead fact not law
7. Don’t plead what law or the court takes for granted or what the other side has to prove
8. Give particulars of fraud etc.: the same is contained in Order VI, Rule 4 CPC.
9. Don’t change your terminology and don’t use fine language or words that you don’t
understand
10. Don’t use passive voice, pronouns or any sort of ambiguity.
MEETING CLIENTS:
Receive a client with kindness and listen with sympathy to all that he has to say. He may
repeat himself, but do not snub him. Allow him to have his stay in full. It is desirable that you
should not miss even one relevant fact though you may have to get it by a process of sifting
many irrelevant ones. It is less inconvenient to listen to superfluous facts than to stand the
chance of missing what may be essential. Do not interrupt your client in his narration, but
reserve your questions to the end, when he makes a pause. Pursue your inquiry, examine the
facts and then come to your own conclusion.
Do not be misled by the documents given by the client. If the client produces
documents, examine them carefully and read them from beginning to end. Do not rely upon
the client’s statements of their contents. You should not avoid discussion with the client.
Though clients may have no knowledge of the law, yet it is always wise, if the client be a person
of intelligence, to get his theory of the justice of his case. It is well that you take written notes,
in all cases, of the instructions which the client may give. It is not safe to rely wholly on your
memory. Your conduct in every respect should infuse confidence and attract the client to you.
SETTLEMENT OF FEE:
Collect relevant information by putting general questions as to whether he is well-to-do
and can afford to pay a decent fee. By all means ask for a heavy fee; but accept whatever the
client is willing to pay. Let not a client who enters your office go to another on the question of
the fee.
