senior counsels - do we need them?

Every time there is an important hearing or a difficult case, a question that often pops up, is whether one should engage a senior counsel. Sometimes clients ask you, sometimes it is the advocate who has referred the matter to you or sometimes you think of it yourself. Earlier, clients would ask me to engage senior counsels for the main hearings in their cases and I would go by their instructions. Sometimes I would myself recommend engaging someone if I felt that the Bench would be difficult and maybe a senior counsel's appearance would help. But I have had such difficulty with senior counsels that by now I am of the firm view that I would not engage any senior counsels, unless the client was extremely insistent.

Today I was in the Madras High Court for a fairly important hearing in a company petition and my colleague in Chennai and me toyed with the idea of engaging someone from the Madras Bar who would be good and someone whom the judge would be familiar with. Finally, we rejected this plan as his fees were too high and we were unable to get the counsel we wanted - and I decided to argue the matter myself. Turned out that the Respondent had engaged a senior counsel, but that made no difference because when the matter was argued, it made no difference to the judge that I was not a senior or even that I was not from Madras and we got the order that we wanted!

I have come to the conclusion that its just too much effort to engage a senior counsel, as first of all most of the good ones are too busy and don't have enough time to go through your papers, have no idea of what the client really wants and don't know the facts as well as you do. And in court, while you may be ready with the answers to all the questions that the judge may pose to the senior counsel, you are left with only tugging at the senior counsel's gown (or "pulling someone's pallu" as Avi Singh said!) trying to tell him/her what to say!

And my positive Madras High Court experience today, gives me all the more reason to stick to my decision...