They say if you want to die of poverty, struggling to make ends meet, with no money and even less of a reputation, then choose your profession wisely because there are very few professions which can make you into an irritating, socially ridiculed, annoying destitute as law. Of course things have changed much for the class of lawyers, there are those that daily earn in the range which CEOs make in a year, they are the quintessential movers and shakers of the power circuit in Delhi. Yet there exists the old between the new.

Whilst the word lawyer today is instantly recognized as a clean shaven, suit donning, impeccable English speaking corporate lawyer who you would be hard-pressed to differentiate from a MBA or banker. Yet there still exists the kind of practice that started in pre-colonial India- The Chamber practice is quite unique.

It is an anglo-saxon model of practice where the practice area is litigation only, and is centered around a Senior Advocate (Barrister) who has the task to prepare and argue cases in courts of record (High Courts and Supreme Court of India). This practice is particularly unique in Delhi. If you are in the chamber of a Senior Advocate, by no means a reflection on his age, experience or intelligence, then you are in that rarefied atmosphere where there is little oxygen to breathe. I present to the uninitiated, the anatomy of a Senior Advocate's Chamber:

1. The Chamber itself- This is the den where the lion roars. The Chamber is a hallowed place where the worshippers (aka clients) throng for one glimpse of the deity (Senior, of course). When I say glimpse, I mean glimpse, because the time given to a conference is indirectly proportional to the power and prestige of the Senior. So the logic goes that a Top Tier Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court usually finishes his conference en route to the airport at 11.00 pm, while going to play tennis in the morning, as he enters the Supreme Court and before he reaches the courtroom, and most definitely within 15 minutes of the entry of the last lawyer in. The logic is summed up for the client as follows: he is all knowing, all pervading, all encompassing, and hence he doesn't need to know much. So long as he knows the bank balance of the client, and where his next 5 appearances are coming from, the Senior doesn't care much. However, it is a known and admitted fact that Seniors are usually not well acquainted with the brief, they don't read, forget about making notes or applying their mind. They are sometimes just mouth piece of the briefing counsel who keeps talking into his ear, and the Senior keeps There have been cases when Senior Counsels have not known the names of their clients, have stood on the wrong side of podium to address the court (because they did not know the name of their client- and whether they are petitioner or respondent), have been thoroughly humiliated by very young fresh off the boat lawyers simply because they knew the facts of the case and the stage at which the case is. It is an acknowledged fact that Senior is the master of his field of law, be it civil, criminal, corporate, tax, service, administrative, but his knowledge of the facts is only as good as his patience and his briefing counsel or junior. So if the Senior charges Rs. 15 lakhs per appearance and inadvertently forgets to read the file because of the many social commitments he has to honour everyday or his session of bridge/rummy/tennis/squash stretches over and he is exhausted thereafter, then the client is poorer for that amount with the next date set for 4-5 months later and his fate hanging in the balance. It is particularly sordid for criminal practice, where there are few second chances, the Senior stands between the client and jail, very often, and his inability to read the file, get briefed on the way to court, immersion is his laterst ipad/iphone, or gossip at Supreme Court could cost the client a few lakhs and a trip to jail. To the Senior, it is one in the hit-and-miss of daily Supreme Court work, something he will shrug off as the fault of the Judge, “the judge just did not understand”, “the judge is an idiot”or simply bad luck of the client “I tried my best but I am no magician”. The idea of the Chamber itself is to impress the client into believing that the Senior is very well to do and therefore convincing him to part with more fee. Most Senior Advocates in Delhi have large, lavish offices overflowing with rows of cubicles for junior lawyers, fancy rest area/ reception for clients to sit and admire the largess of the Senior while remembering why he is paying so much for his services. Tea and coffee is served with generosity although there are a few exceptions to this rule, where Senior's staff is so stingy with tea that you would think they were serving it with a drop of gold. The Senior's chamber is well decorated, with his achievements- medals, certificates of foreign universities, photos of him shaking hands with ministers/foreign dignitaries or photos of him skiing in the mountains are strategically placed- to further impress upon the client on why the great Senior is so great and why he is paying so much. There will always be a rush of people coming in and going out, with a dozen or so interns tagging along for each conference alongwith the juniors and the briefing counsel and the client. It is nothing less than a full fair inside the Senior's den.