“Pupillage on Trial: A Learning Experience or An Orgy Of Official Torture, Abuse And Neglect?” E.Z. Ongoya and Wetangula S.E. “It is 8.30 in the morning. The venue is the corridors at the Milimani commercial courts. Outside one of the magistrate’s chambers a shabbily dressed gentleman stretches his hand past the multitudes at the congested corridors and pats the shoulder of a fairly old man and then utters: “Counsel, please hold my brief. I am from the firm of XX”. “I don’t hold briefs for crooks,” retorts the old fellow.” “The process of pupilage has distinguished itself as a degrading and humiliating process where the least human of teaching tactics are meted out against the aspiring lawyer. The tasks assigned to the young member of the learned fraternity include: drafting pleadings, photocopying, mailing and related clerical functions, preparing tea for the office staff, attempting to figure the way out of the oldest mildew smelling and dusty files in the chambers, attending to the nudging and obnoxious clients and running private errands to the pupil master.” “And then the Lord looked down on my work and was very pleased with what he saw. Then he looked further and saw my salary, turned his face the other way and wept bitterly. The Lord in his magnanimity did not stop there. He visited the issue later and reminded me to work even harder. He told me that in the civil service we don’t earn salaries but only get a token for voluntary service rendered. He further told me that we shall be rewarded in the next world.”
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 05:32:40 +0000
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