When the Supreme Court recently, while deciding whether Judicial Officers with 7 years of prior Law practice are eligible for appointment of District Judges under Bar quota remarked that the Judicial Officers possess greater experience than Advocates (REJANISH K.V. vs. K. DEEPA), 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 letters of 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.

An Advocate's World - A Dynamic Workshop of Law

The daily life of an advocate is one of constant movement - a junction where knowledge, personality, communication, intuition, foresight and endurance are tested at every moment possible. Every brief which crosses a lawyer's desk carries with itself an unsaid caveat of adaptability, starting from consulting with the clients to framing and delivering final arguments in the courts of law. Advocates therefore sustain not by following, reading or interpreting the letters of law but from living it with every second when their hearts beat. In the unpredictable beats of the courtroom, the dynamic human behaviour and the ever - changing norms of justice, a lawyer's most crucial weapon is his adaptability to adapt to the flowing and changing surroundings.

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 the matters and each

individual client's 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 without guaranteeing the outcome that might meet their case. 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 trials and errors, sometimes even at the cost of losing clients. The lessons of the practice of law therefore evolve not only through training or letters of law but through an oscillating series of victories, defeats, adjournments and the latent lessons that each brief carries with them.

As Justice Krishna Iyer once rightly observed, “The Bar is not a profession of convenience, but a calling of conscience”, the practice of law in the Bar not only teaches through experience that how the law is written but also how it is felt, experienced and lived - by litigants, Ld. Judicial Officers, fellow colleagues at the Bar and the society at large. It drives a lawyer to see the judicial infrastructure through varied lenses - from the vantage point of an anguished and anxious litigant, an overburdened clerk, Alhmad or Naib Court, the cautious and wise judge and even the bureaucracy. This experience cannot be equated by tenure - but can only be developed through struggle, persistence and patience.

The Judicial Officer's Position - A Realm of Adjudication

While the chaos of juggling between different roles is what lawyers thrive on, the experience of Judicial Officers is cultivated on the discipline of adjudicating diverse matters brought before them with balance by sitting through hours of arguments, cross examinations, appreciation of evidences and pronouncing judgments that may alter the course of the litigant's life. Their experience, though complementary yet different than advocates, is filled with profoundness, responsibility, wisdom and introspection.

As once rightly remarked by Justice R.V Raveendran, “A Judge's greatest virtue is not knowledge, but balance”, a Judicial officer is expected to maintain calmness and composure amidst conflict and not to just see the facts brought before them but to ensure fairness before appreciating the facts. The art and trained skill 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 a practitioner of law who derives his motivation from the results and recognition of his brief, the Judicial Officers are bound to operate within a judicial framework where their anonymity is both a burden and protection. As per the norms laid down for judicial officers and the matters instructed to be heard by their Chief Judicial Magistrates or District and Sessions Judges, 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, the judicial officers are governed by the Delhi Judicial Services Rules, 1970.

Comparing Apples with Oranges - Why this Analogy Fails?

In Arguendo, to say that one side - the Bar or the Bench possess a quantum of experience greater than the other counterpart 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 but the ability to adapt and align one's mind, soul and skills to the profession and practice of law. Both the Advocates and the Judicial Officers guard two different frontlines of justice, both with their own tactics, arms and ammunition. The Advocate's experience comes from living the law in reality through its application, while the Judicial Officers ensure its interpretation and appreciation. The Advocate is responsible for applying the law in such a manner that the judicial officer objectively appreciates it in order to secure relief for his client while the judge's duty is to rise above personal or individual perception of the situation in order to apply the law effectively and

adjudicate the lis competently. Therefore, one lives the law in fragments of reality while the other gathers those fragments in a single fabric and delivers the result.

The vulnerability surface for both the stakeholders is also poles apart. While 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. The accountability of a lawyer is also therefore dispersed - to their clients for obtaining relief, to their colleagues for ethical and an equitable behaviour, to the Bench for accuracy and to themselves for sustainability. Conversely, the 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. Yet is very often an advocate who knows the truth of their own case most intimately by breathing the facts, examining every clause and anticipating every possible objection or examination of their version of events, and sometimes even carrying the burden of their client's fate on their own shoulders.

A lawyer also carries the responsibility to exercise a strategic restraint where not every fact or argument is pressed or evidence advanced but only those curated versions of the events which support the client's case are presented which upholds his duty to represent and not to convict. Hence rhetorically, 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 often adjudicate on what is placed before them by the parties, yet 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, and its role in delivering justice.

The Shared Enterprise of the Bar and Bench - A Common Voice

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 romanticize 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 and a human face while the Bench's reflection lends it a moral core.

Both carry a burden that the other does not - the Advocates face an uncertainty of clients, professional vulnerability, lack of governmentary perks etc., while the 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 favours. To compare their essence is to diminish their co-ordination 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, co - ordination and admiration. Nearly every Judge of the High Courts and the Supreme Court was once a good advocate, and every Advocate learns through a prudent Bench. As Justice M.C Chagla once rightly 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 till eternity.

Author is Advocate practicing in Delhi High Court. Views Are Personal.