Please Don’t Insult My Profession!

I have pretended to be even with you

Even as you call me “a defender of thieves and murderers”

I have smiled even as you joked that all lawyers will go to hell

Matter of fact, I have been seething, boiling within me

For apart from saying them

You have had to laugh sarcastically and held your sides

As if you had just revealed the most hidden truth to man

But I have been quiet.

Friend, for your sweeping statements

I have shared with them with pain

But had no nerve to counter you

All the while hoping that you will tone it down

But to no avail.

For seven years, friend

I have trawled through legal textbooks

Thumbed finest Judgments from Lord Denning to Madan

Sieved through Journals and articles

For this profession

I have read through Philosophy and Psychology

And various legal systems

Just for this profession

And in all this time, friend

I have captured themes of justice, of fairness,

Of rights known to men, of court structures

Of sentencing, of what underlies defence

For instance, friend, did you know that

I am the mouthpiece of my client but still an officer of court?

Did you know that if a man “kills” as you say,

I would want to aid the court to leave no doubt about the propriety of his actions?

Did you know that if the court finds him at fault I should

Be thanked for leaving no doubt as to my client’s guilt?

But I have chosen to keep quiet

For all this you will never understand—

After all it took me seven years to decipher them

All that I ask is to exercise restraint before firing your salvos

C) Lorot Salem 2010