Future of the legal profession in Pakistan

Annual dinner at L'école gives law students a chance to meet future employers and other key industry figures

KARACHI: We are living in times when, luckily or otherwise, public euphoria over the 'black coat' protests has now receded and not many youth can even recall the name of the incumbent Chief Justice of Pakistan.

What will be the future of legal profession in Pakistan is the question that has been haunting many since the tumult of shouting and screaming began to wane.

"It is extremely bleak, unfortunately," was the immediate response of Zara Shaheen-Awan, barrister-at-law and undergrad programme director at L'école for Advanced Studies. "Until and unless we strive to reform the students of law, who will inherit the legal system, as well as the legal education that they receive."

The annual dinner at L'école or 'the school' last week was the venue where one would expect to have expert insight into the prospects. The school's courtyard was decorated gracefully with dim lights. But the event itself was dominated by the famous 'black coats', which were donned by most law students and faculty members. Apart from representatives of prestigious business firms, advocates from the Supreme Court, members of the bar councils, partners of law firms and senior legal associates were also in attendance.

"Our generation does not realise the amount of hard work that is required by this profession," continued Shaheen-Awan. "In Pakistan, the legal system is not very efficient so the law students not only need to be very academically strong, they also need to suffer for the cause."

The predicament of this cream of future professionals graduating from the posh law schools is altogether different from the ones being brought forth in hordes by the public-sector law colleges. A majority of the latter do not even have proper knowledge of English - the legal language. This restricts their ability to understand and apply the myriad concepts, laws and judgments available only in English, argued Syed Imadud Din Asad, founding director at the Centre for Law and Policy.

The former, on the other hand, are not used to bear the sufferings inflicted on practicing lawyers by the country's legal system, asserted Shaheen-Awan. "Just walk into any court in this city and you will find walls splattered with 'paan ki peek' and courtrooms with no air-conditioning or time schedule."

Once you reach the court for a hearing fixed at 9 o'clock, and that, too, after staying up till late to prepare the legal files, she added, you just keep waiting for the case to be called in the courtroom. Eventually, the lawyer returns back unfulfilled with date for the next hearing; this keeps on happening until years pass by and then the judgements are reserved.

"The legal system itself becomes a source to drain the motivation in lawyers," argued Shaheen-Awan. "A lot of people are stepping into the field of law because it is very easy to enter into, but it is very difficult to sustain yourself for long."

Perhaps, for this reason, many freshmen at the law school, such as Syed Ali Naqvi, have begun to attach the future of the profession with gaining expertise in corporate laws.

"The corporate sector of the legal profession has come up with new ways to meet the needs of their corporate clients," asserted Naqvi. "In return, the corporate lawyers, who can even work from home, get to earn a lot of money as compared to the tedious litigation side."

However, by the time they move to the sophomore year, the faculty members somehow succeed in inculcating the budding lawyers with a sense of moral responsibility: the legal profession, like the field of medicine, is not merely a profession.

"Choosing to become a practitioner of this profession places a great moral obligation on you," Shaheen-Awan advised a group of budding lawyers who huddled around her throughout the interview. "Once you graduate and enter into the profession, provide your pro bono legal service to at least one victim of injustice if you are taking 10 other paid cases a year."

Bright prospects: Seats of higher learning

From a school offering O' and A' level qualifications through the University of Cambridge since 1998, L'école found its niche in the provincial academic arena when it introduced the University of London's undergraduate law programme in 2000. This was followed by offering similar external programmes in economics, management, finance and the social sciences with academic direction by the London School of Economics and Political Science.



PHOTO: LECOLE SCHOOL FOR ADVANCED STUDIES

Prior to L'école, only a couple of institutions in the country's capital, such as the University College of Islamabad and the Islamabad School of Law, and one in Punjab's capital, University College Lahore, had been offering the University of London's international programmes since early 1990s.

"The L'école international programmes makes us more independent and confident while challenging us to consider issues in a wider international context," said Sheikh Zainab Amin, an accounting and finance major. "You need to work hard or you are not going to get anywhere."

While the concept of the five-year BA, LLB (Hons) degree offered by public colleges and universities has gained significant currency in Pakistan over the last decade, the foreign three-year alternative without leaving Pakistan, which is also recognised by the Pakistan Bar Council, is a distinguishing factor that Muhammad Asad Ashfaq, a final-year law student and president of the L'école's law society, talks proudly about.

All of this, however, comes with a pretty price tag. The total cost of the three-year degree is around Rs1.2 million - nearly Rs480,000 for the first year and then Rs365,000 for the next two years.