I try to remember as much of my early experience as a lawyer—what I did, what I thought, how I felt—as possible. I am confident of finding some thing entertaining or edifying when I reflect on it. There are other reasons, too. It keeps me close to my humble beginnings. It enables me to empathise with young lawyers. It gives me experiences to draw upon and share, like I do here.

When I started practice, I wondered: Why appoint a senior lawyer to do what I could do? If the law is simply a matter of research, comprehension and understanding, undoubtedly a freshly minted lawyer, legally educated, sensible and trained, could do the same? After all, we read the same statutes, cases, and practitioner texts.

Now that I am a senior lawyer, I better understand why.

Firstly, knowledge and understanding of law are not the same as the practice of law. Of course, we must know it to practice, but we need a whole lot more than that to go with it. Knowing and understanding the law is our starting point, not the end or the be all and end all.

Legal practice deals with the intersection between the order of law and the chaos and uniqueness of the human. Therefore, it necessitates an understanding of psychology, human relations, history, behavioural science, and politics, for example. It requires commitment, patience, creativity, tenacity, resilience, adaptability and empathy. It requires us to be therapists, historians, politicians, actors, detectives, guardians, accountants, athletes, entrepreneurs and novelists.

It requires all that, and more.

When we start out, we either lack all of this or have not developed these enough. These are skills, roles, and attitudes that take a career, if not a lifetime, to develop. We are not computers where these experiences, knowledge and understanding can be simply downloaded into us. We can only develop it moment by moment, case by case, interaction by interaction, and person by person. And such development takes time, effort and commitment. A senior lawyer in active, conscientious and meaningful practice should develop those skills, roles and attitudes to a mature stage.

Secondly, and generally, a senior lawyer would know (or is expected to) more compared to a fresh lawyer, or even one several years old. They know more simply because they have lived and practised longer. They would have read, thought, seen, heard, encountered, experienced and met more people than a young lawyer has. By virtue of that they can see further, deeper, wider and have a stronger sense of what should or could be.

I am now at the age where I have interns, pupils and lawyers telling me, ‘Mr Fahri, you have been in practise longer than I have been alive!’ I have tamed my wince when that is said to me. But that kind of statement reflects the gulf of experience and knowledge between a senior and a young lawyer. I should and am likelier to know more by virtue of living longer on this earth and experiencing more.

But a senior lawyer doesn’t know everything or every law or case. The law and life is too vast an ocean for us to know everything. If a lawyer says they know everything, they are deluded. A person may know a great many things, but never everything.

The value of a senior lawyer is that even when they don’t know something, they know how to get at it. We don’t have to know so long as we know where to go. They have sensible ideas what to look for, whom to speak to, where to look for it, what to focus on, what to avoid and how to approach it. They see further. They have a greater appreciation of nuances. They read situations and people better. They can draw on their deep experience and learning and transcend it. They have learned ways to do more with less. They are learned in the ways of the world and people. That is more important than knowing the law.

Thirdly, compared to a young lawyer, a senior one is generally, inevitably and comparatively more established in reputation, societal standing and presence. They have embedded themselves in society, communities and fraternities. Their existence has permeated into the societal consciousness and unconsciouness. They are a ‘known’ quantity as opposed to an ‘unknown’ young lawyer who has yet to establish himself.

Their establishment in society bestows them with a halo of credibility of existence and experience, sometimes undeserved. It is that credibility that all things being equal, people are inclined to take a senior lawyer more seriously compared to a young one. Someone with credibility cultivates a gravitas about their communications. There is a sense of solidity and the weight of experience behind what they say. That is why, it is not about what is said but equally important is how and who said it that is equally important. It is human relations.

Finally, a senior lawyer is expected to show discernment. That is the true value of a senior lawyer. That is what all their experience, education and expertise is supposed to accumulate to – good judgment, whatever it is they are dealing with. They are sensible, rational, sensitive, mindful, empathetic and able to find meaningful resolutions to a situation. Discernment lies not in the accent they use, the fancy word they spout or the clothes they wear, or the office they sit in, but lies in the value they add to a situation. A senior lawyer that lacks discernment is of no value.

I feel certain I need not caution that not all senior lawyers exhibit the competencies or values I describe above. Just because one is a senior lawyer does not mean one automatically possesses these competencies. It just makes it likelier they have them. I am aware of some disgraceful ones still in active practice. But clients will find the lawyers that best reflects them and their depravity. No good, without the bad.

Age and our years of practice is not just a number.

It is an indicator of our maturity and discernment.