Monday, June 29, 2009

What Not to Ask a Fledgling Lawyer?

1. So you drive a car now? Where’s your car? – You don’t win the lottery by passing the bar. In most cases you end up drowned in debt and utang na loob. The review created a hole in your pocket, the aftermath of passing the bar will create a debt bubble ready to burst and surpass statistics reached by the global economic recession. We don’t get a car instantly lest you forget not all of us know how to drive that wheels.

2. More admirers? More girls? Are you married yet? You don’t develop potion by being a lawyer. In most cases, as my companeros will later discover, being a lawyer will earn you much disgust less adoration. For girls, they prefer non-lawyers I think. For those who claim that they have magnet out of being a lawyer, it goes without saying that repulsive they may look but money matters. Hehe

3. Do you raise your voice in court? I want to see you in action mode and how you burst into anger. Maybe the one who asked you this is a legal drama fanatic. (but even in my favorite The Practice? Are there scenes like this?) There’s no such thing as courtroom drama in the Philippines for if that’s the case there should be a series now to capture that beautiful and captivating moment. Being the court is darn BORING. Scenes you see in the movies are exaggerated, overly done, over rated, over stated, oxymoron. . .check Encarta’s thesaurus to continue this harangue! You don’t shout in court although most of the time you are on the verge of shouting you just can’t. The courtroom is not the usual marketplace you think.

4. Oh, so I can kill a person now because I have a lawyer to defend me. By the way who’s sane lawyer would like to defend you? Go kill somebody and rut in jail!

Friday, June 26, 2009

The Walking Lawyer

I have second thoughts about calling myself the fledgling lawyer. Oh, I know I am having slain the dragon just months ago but I just figured out today having walked for maybe miles under the heat of the sun that I may be just called the walking lawyer.

I have to tell you this but it dawned on me that I can’t divulge so much details about my transactions here in fairness to my clients not so much of the attorney-client privilege rule because I know no one could get me wrong here (or does anybody ever read this crap). With that in mind, I will tell you stories that happened today.

Oh well, I was caught up yet again in dealing with these bureaucrats (am I giving them dignity by throwing at them this infamous but classy name?) or I may just call them lowly staff. I am handling a land titles case and for this I have dug up available evidence to prove it in court. Anyway, to cut the long story short, I was passed on from one person from another like a ball used up in some kind of children’s play. In an office along Roxas Blvd., a staff in the records section told me, “can’t you read that sign on the front door? We are not accepting requests during Fridays?”, I answered: “Oh well, that’s the least thing I could notice when I am in the rush getting these important documents.” I flustered in burning glory. That darn guy. And so what can I do if the hard law (one of the realities you may want to puke about considering that this is only a memo which I later learned of to be patently misinterpreted) is so engraved in the tablet and has been stuck in the minds of birdbrains.

Anyway, because of my pure insistence I was able to facilitate my own request. Thankful to myself that I am a lawyer for this particular incident. It’s like this here in this very assuming government agency pretending to abide by their own rules to the point of defeating their own mandate and obligations to the public. So there, here it is, oh finally I had a glance of the original document. Here it is, here it is. . .only to be downed: “you have to secure this certification first there at Binondo.” Whoa! Don’t you realize that it really pays to deal with the government, in particular, to get a public document you just can’t get enough to hold in your bare hands, and to see in your own eyes?

I hope I win my case with this document which I will only be able to secure next week or I have to personally defend myself in court in the future for being a felon.

If there’s one thing I learned in my few weeks of practice. Fledgling lawyers like me needs to learn how to be patient because there will be many occasions that you will find yourself sitting in steel benches for hours. My advice: Get a good book to read!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

I am the Fledgling Lawyer

I am the fledgling lawyer. You, who’s reading this will meet me halfway through the tabernacles of boredom and promises like any human being I think. We will go about the same conundrums of this thing called life only that I am a lawyer, unfortunately, and you’re probably not. I belong to the forsaken legion of heroines and villains living in this side of the globe trotting the pathways which old ones once traversed and which has for its end the labyrinths of hell. I absolutely don’t want to join them and I will try by all means to redirect the path. How sure I am to get things in place, I don’t know myself. I would just like to anchor myself now or perish later.

I am the fledgling lawyer, now suffering the apathy that most people I deal now have against me. I try with all my might to convince them and to probably deconstruct their preconceptions about me but what I get now is a simple stare, gloating eyes, and rabid visions. I may be dwelling on this too much but sad to say according to the oracle this is the only way to get in. I must squeeze whatever charm I have to lure that secretary to give me that golden document to win a case. Whatever idea I have of the theoretical maxims I learned is being stripped off. And I must.

I am the fledgling lawyer, trying to get busy of what it is to be a Harrish character. I wake up in the morning. Stare myself at the mirror and look deep at my eyes and oh what are those dark circles! Mastering the four-in-hand knot until I choke. Try to look as suave as possible. Get in the way of people and kick the filth that gets in my way. It’s equity. Possibilities are a lot.

I am the fledgling lawyer, now signing in.