Yes and No, A Lawyer's Tool of Trade

Day one at KSL. What a crowd! I mean, 876 or something KSLees to undergo the Advocates Training Programme (ATP). I, Lorot Son of the Hills, is lost in the lecture hall.

Lawyers will always be lawyers. I mean, I noted the clever use of the words 'Yes and No' employed by the Director of the CLE Prof. W. Kulundu-Bitonye in our orientation as KSLees. The question was on whether the 'astronomical fees' were used as a deterrent, something akin to cut on the number of KSLees. And the answer he gives is Yes and No. I won't go into the polemics of that, the whys and wherefores of the 'astronomical fees'.

Forthwith, hot on the lips of the good professor Kulundu-Bitonye, I will add the words 'Yes and No' as answers to questions shot at me in class, firm meetings, KSL precincts or anywhere else.

Similarly, I will also adopt the words 'It depends' as one of my answers to questions directed to me.

For instance, if I was to be asked why I came to the law school like they did to one of my colleagues, I would not worry about the legal mandate that is bestowed upon the Council for Legal Education or trace the history of the legal profession in Kenya or some philosophical underpinnings to legal knowledge, articled clerkships or the practical aspects that the school imbues on the future advocates. No, I will not bother on that.

Instead, I will assume a contemplative face of a philosopher who has seen-it-all-done-it-all. If I wear a pair of glasses, the better. I will look into space as if some legal theory is escaping my attention, look around and with a slow voice say:

"Sir, uuhhhhm. It depends"

Of course my good course instructor would want to know more. Half of the class, realizing my mischief, would laugh. But I will not be deterred. Then, (Well, honestly, a question like why I came to law school is so much pointed that it requires some careful thought. How do you say that you came to 'test the waters' for instance and see how long it takes before you request for an academic leave?). Ok. I was at the point where I was saying that I will not be deterred. Thus after saying 'it depends', I will immediately assume the position of my course tutor, that of being the questioner, the interrogator. So I will launch my barrage of questions:

"I have been asked why I came to law school. That question also invites us to ponder on other questions  which I deem fundamental. What is my drive, my impetus, my motivation in submitting myself to a rigorous process of the ATP? Is my drive genuine or false? If the former holds, will it be right to say that my reasons are valid? And if they are valid are they in tandem with the ethos and aspiration of the legal profession? And if the latter holds, will we then say that I am in the wrong place? Well, what if my aspirations and expectations would have been false but true in the eyes of the legal profession? Will these be valid or invalid?"

By this time, I have lost my listeners and my tutor is trying to trace where I am headed to. But the intention is to sound clever and to confuse. To have no logical basis is the golden rule and it has to work out. So I plow on:

"Let me put it this way ( Apparently to make things easier but in reality not to), ceteris paribus ( I heard that term from an advocate coming out of court. My sharp colleague said that that is a Latin term for 'if things are held constant' so why not put them to proper use?) the crux of your question befits this analogy. If a man boarded the famed Clapham Omnibus on the mistaken belief that it would take him to  end A of London and it turns out that erroneously it actually drives him to end A, what shall we speak of his reasons and justifications? What if upon boarding the Clapham Omnibus, he jolts to the reality that it is not headed where he supposedly thought? In other words, reasons are many and varied, some are fleeting and changing, others are fixed and permanent? The question really is: Where do we find the nexus in all these? ( While pronouncing the word 'nexus' I would have gesticulated with both of my palms and roll over nexus in the typical fashion of  a man who knows what he is talking about.


But I would not be. My mind would be a mish-mash, a disarray of scattered thoughts.

Of course, the next question the tutor will ask will be:

"Lorot Son of the Hills, is this nexus possible to be found?"

And like Professor Kulundu-Bitonye, I will pause for some seconds ( for academic commercial break) and finding that saying either Yes or No will put me between a rock and a hard place, I will conveniently say:

"Yes and No." To save myself from other piercing questions, I will quip quickly, "For the sake of time, my colleagues and clarity, the reasons as to why I say yes and no should be a topic for another day. Ceteris paribus, I can talk about these things the whole day."