How to survive, thrive and enjoy legal practice, even after 25 years

Look for that “aha” moment

Last Thursday I attended, my colleague, Sadia Rizvi’s admission as an attorney of the High Court of South Africa.?It was a happy occasion for me and I shed a tear or two.?It was four days before today, the 25th anniversary of my own admission.?

It got me thinking about why I still enjoy what I do.?Part of why I still practise law is influenced by what would otherwise have been an arbitrary scene.?I was at a bus stop, on a dreary, overcast afternoon, outside Cable & Wireless Communications’ London head office in 1999, where I was working at the time. ?

I was standing there waiting for the bus when a woman, perhaps 20 years older than me, in a beautiful, long, black coat, wearing a perfectly tailored, dark business suit, walked out of the main entrance, hailed a black cab and was never to be seen again.?She looked like a woman who was clearly in charge of her own destiny.?This short scene had a profound impact on me. But, more about the lady in black later.

Like many high school graduates, I was not sure what I wanted to do after school.?I had an interest in engineering but, because I was still uncertain, I applied to three different universities: the first to study medicine, the second to study engineering and the third to study law.?I’m not sure whether I had expected a miracle for the first two applications because, my mathematics marks were atrocious and my science marks simply mediocre.

The University of Durban-Westville was the first to respond to my applications and accepted me to study a BComm (Law) degree.?I was not enthusiastic about studying law.?My father’s enthusiasm was the exact opposite: nobody else in our family had every made it to university so he was thrilled.?He personally drove me from Eswatini (Swaziland) to Durban, in South Africa, and dropped me off at the student residence, almost two weeks before law students were due to register.?

I did not enjoy studying law.?I bumbled along through my BComm (even failing a year) and went through the motions with my LLB degree.?I had regularly asked my father if I could change to engineering but, being the type of person he was, his attitude was simply that “you do everything properly and always finish what you start”.

I applied for articles (a training contract) and struggled to get in to any firm.?In March 1996, I eventually got into a firm that did, almost exclusively, Legal Aid work.?The firm mainly represented people who had been subjected to assault, unlawful arrest and other illegal behaviour at the time, by the South African Police (“SAP”) and the South African Defence Force (“SADF”).?Many of the cases I was tasked with handling had occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s during the political violence in KwaZulu-Natal.?

One of the first cases I was tasked with handling was for an elderly gentleman.?His name was Jimmy Mthembu.?He had been assaulted by SADF members and lost the use of a few fingers on his hand.?I argued Jimmy Mthembu’s case in court.?I lost.

I remember having to meet with Jimmy Mthembu and explain why we had lost.?I knew that, with a little more effort and dedication, the outcome could have been different.?I, to this day, remember the look on his face: he was devastated.?It dawned on me that I could not just go through the motions and that how I practised law, could make a huge difference in people’s lives.

The next case I argued was for three men who had also been assaulted and unlawfully detained by SADF members.?They had been severely beaten and kept out in the open and exposed to the elements for three days.?With Jimmy Mthembu’s outcome fresh in my memory, mediocrity was no longer an option.?I remember Magistrate Shepstone handing down judgment in my clients’ favour and complimenting me on how the case had been presented.

So, what is the point of this long introduction??The point is: if you’re not enjoying it at first, it may take you a while, but if you give practise a chance, you have better prospects of having that “aha” moment.

Find your niche

While working in London, I secured a very junior legal assistant position with a firm called Bird & Bird.?It was to provide support on a complex and very technical litigation matter involving a British telco and a lottery licensee.?I was in my element!?It involved networks, telecommunications and other information technology issues and I thoroughly enjoyed it.?

I knew that if I couldn’t be an engineer, then I was going to be a damned good information and communications technology lawyer.?I was so smitten by this area of the law, that I registered for a Master of Laws degree specialising in information technology law.?

If you find an area of the law that you are really interested in, you will become passionate about it and work hard at becoming even better at it.

Make your own destiny, but take calculated risks

I returned to South Africa in 2000 and secured a glamorous position in the coolest department – the media law department – of one of South Africa’s most prestigious commercial firms (the firm is listed in my profile if you’d like to know which it is).?I wore rose-tinted glasses for the first two years until the realities of practising in a commercial firm that was struggling to transform (whether it be its demographics or its “old boy” culture), hit me.?I observed certain types of “high-stakes” work almost always being given to lawyers of a certain demographic (usually white people) while lower risk work was given to other demographics (usually black people or women).?The defining moment for me was when I discovered a pay slip on a photocopy machine and saw that a newly admitted, literally and figuratively, “blue-eyed boy” was earning about ZAR800.00 less than me.?At that point, I had been admitted for over four years and our salaries should have been vastly different.

With the rose-tinted glasses well and truly off, I realised I could either grin and bear it and continue with the prestigious commercial law firm, earning a decent salary and have my career and, by extension, my entire life subjected to the whims of a governing clique (this was 18 years ago, I hope things have changed there) or take matters into my own hands. ?I decided that I would make my own destiny and practise law on my own terms: I resigned from the prestigious commercial law firm and, with two other attorneys, we started a commercial law firm of our own.

Importantly, the decision to leave and start a fledgling law practice was not taken on a whim.?It involved some planning and calculated risks.?For example, my partners and I, despite hoping against hope, knew that there was a low likelihood of getting finance for our new venture.?Not one of the commercial banks was willing to lend us money.?

None of us were from wealthy families, so there was no prospect of that sort of funding.?The other two had been working in the commercial sector for a year or two and had some savings.?I had an investment policy that had matured the year before (a R5,000.00 gift for my 21st birthday) which I used for my contribution.?Our joint contributions were enough to keep the firm going for three months.

In addition, I knew that, not only would I be unlikely to secure finance for my firm, but I would not be able to secure finance in my personal capacity.?Self-employed people who are starting out, are less likely to obtain asset finance, e.g., to buy a car or a house, than people who are employed by someone else. ??So, in the six months before leaving the prestigious commercial law firm, I bought a modest house and car.

So, you can either toe the line and be unhappy, or you can strike out and make your own destiny (To put it colloquially, you can either take someone else’s “k*k”, or you can “vat jou goed en trek”).

Have grit

Whether you are starting out, or a few years into practice: it is not going to be easy.?There are going to be some serious ups and downs.?

I remember being invited to a braai shortly after starting the firm.?It was silly of me to agree to attend, because my car's fuel tank was virtually empty, but I went anyway.?After standing around the braai, as one does, and hearing how well everyone was doing in full-time employment, I was too embarrassed to ask a friend for a loan for fuel.?The drive home was one the most stressful ever: I think it was only prayers and petrol fumes that got me back.?On another occasion, when the firm hit a bad patch a few years later, I had to borrow money just to buy my wife flowers on her birthday.?

You will need grit, because you will make huge mistakes and, if you want to continue practising in your firm, you will have no choice but to have courage and resolve.?At one point after my partners had returned to the commercial world and I continued practising on my own, I went on a hiring exercise in anticipation of getting lots of work.?The work didn’t transpire and a year or two after that the firm went through a very challenging financial patch.?

After throwing all my personal financial resources into the firm, I was forced to go through a painful, difficult, acrimonious and expensive retrenchment exercise.?The professionals who were retrenched treated it like a betrayal and, to this day, it is still a difficult topic.?

The firm’s financial difficulties will spill over into your personal life too.?If you have financial obligations at home, which most of us do, and if you have a spouse, there is a strong likelihood that your inability to contribute will cause serious acrimony.?Your spouse may not understand what it is that keeps you with a “sinking ship”, when you could be earning two or three times more if you left the sinking ship and took up employment in a prestigious commercial firm.?Your mental and physical health will take a knock, as mine did.

Having grit is important, but learning from the mistakes you make is just as important.?At the worst point of my and my firm’s financial woes the bank, which had financed my house, issued summons and threatened to sell it to pay off the debt I owed.?

I keep that summons in my desk drawer to remind me of the mistakes I made and the lessons I learned.?My firm had the best years in its history, in the years after I applied the lessons I had learned and, with the help of excellent colleagues, turned it around.

Remember, it’s not going to be easy.?It may have serious consequences for your personal life and relationships.?You will make mistakes, some of them really huge, such as neglecting your mental and physical health.?Learn from them and come back even stronger. ?

Know why you’re practising law

I am practising law in my own firm because I enjoy information and communications technology law, I enjoy being my own boss and I earn a decent income.[1]?

I am also practising law in my own firm because “the lady in black” was my mother’s doppelganger.?I see the Freudians sitting up with great interest: you can sit right down because it is not that controversial.?What, you may ask, do the lady in black and my mother have to do with my law practice??We will have to go on a history trip to explain this.

As I mentioned, I was raised in Eswatini.?In the late 1970s, my mother – Rosemary Pierce – worked for a logistics company called Bambi Stewart.?They were one of the first companies in Eswatini to use computers.?They had purchased one of those huge IBM computers and needed a person to operate part of it.?Management, because of her accounting skills, identified my mother as the ideal candidate to train for this role.?She would, however, have to travel to Johannesburg for the necessary training (this reminds me a little of the movie “Hidden Figures”).?When she asked my father (as many women would have been obliged to do in those days) if she could travel to Johannesburg for the training, he flatly refused.?The reason for such refusals would usually relate to not having anyone to cook his supper.?She was devastated.?

Many years later, despite enduring decades of serious mental and physical abuse, she tried to pursue a new-found passion and registered for a course in tourism and hospitality.?She would study very early in the morning, in the outbuilding, so as not to disturb my father.?When he found out that she was studying, he set all her course materials on fire and instructed her to stop studying.?As an aside, when she told the college – Intec – that she needed a new set of course materials, they initially wanted to charge her for the replacements.?But, when she told them how she had lost the materials, they sent the entire set to her for free: good on you Intec.?

Ever since setting up my firm, because of the disadvantage my mother and other women suffered, my policy has been to recruit candidate attorneys who are mostly women.?I am able to give my candidate attorneys more time and attention and I am not hindered by the constant pressure of having to focus on achieving targets and meeting ever increasing revenue requirements.?Spending time teaching candidate attorneys, nurturing them and building them to be confident lawyers takes time away from billing and revenue, the raison d'être for typical commercial law firms.?I would probably be turfed out of most big commercial firms for taking such a “namby-pamby” approach.?

I have seen how patriarchal, insecure men have deprived women of achieving their true potential.?I am particularly driven by the fact that, in a firm like mine, women are exposed to areas of law that are still difficult to break into.?No woman should ever be deprived of the opportunity to become “the woman in black”.?This is my “why”.

Law practice, especially when you run your own firm, is not easy.?But, if you find an area of law that you enjoy, ensure that you do not become someone else’s doormat, strive to make your own destiny and know why it is that you practise law, you’re probably going to be doing it for a while and you’ll probably enjoy it too.[2]?

[1] Read Simon Sinek’s book “Start with why – How great leaders inspire everyone to take action” for more on “why”. I, of course, found my why long before he published his book.

[2] P.s. Rosemary ended up working through her 60s, with her most impressive achievement being helping a global telecommunications company set up and maintain aspects of its operations in South Africa.?Something she is very proud of.?Her efforts, grit and perseverance are also reflected in the successes of her children. Her role now is: hipster Granny.