The romance of law

Just days ago, he had the good fortune of being there, standing as he did inside the big crowd of people waiting for examinees to exit from their testing grounds. The place? The University of Santo Tomas.

The test? The Philippine bar exams.

Eight sets of tests are taken all in all. Two tests, one in the morning another in the afternoon, every Sunday for four Sundays. The experience, as one might expect, is grueling.

In a sense, it makes for a fitting climax to four years of pre-law, four years of law school, another year reviewing for the test, nine years total of listening to teachers, reading, memorizing, and mastering the craft of argumentation about what’s right or wrong in the sense not of reality in general but purely and only in the sense of the law.

Here too, there is a difference. And now finally, this! If one passes, one becomes eligible for the license to practice law. If not. Well, there is always next year.

There is no guarantee to pass. The tests are changed every year. And how would you consider this for a test pointer? This year, points will be given for “lawyerly” writing. Is there even such a word as “lawyerly”? This computer does not think so. It underscores it.

But if the Supreme Court says thus, then it must be there. If not in any dictionary, then somewhere inside those huge journals comprising the canons of the legal profession. But it is entirely up to us to interpret what the word might mean.

It is this ambiguity which is at the heart of the law profession, The whole point of it. Think of a game or a sport where the fundamental point, the crux, if you will, is to argue what the game rules truly are. How they should be interpreted. And how they may apply in a particular case.

How does that work?

It shouldn’t. And yet it does. And there seems even a “science” to it. Or at least, the Supreme Court must think so. Or why would this test even be possible? And why would so many take it? 6,400 something this year. Of which number over 300 did not finish.

The test begins at 8 am. But you have to be there by 7:30. The doors are closed as soon as they begin. If you are not in at that time, you would have been a year too early for next time. If you use the rest room, someone escorts you there. This year, one was caught cheating that way. People have been known to lose it in the course of the exam. To say the tests are hard is ludicrous.

This year, the buzz was that the justice in charge of the tests should be disbarred for making the exams “Inhumanly” difficult. This was of course said only half in jest. Easy to believe if one judged by the general countenance of those who exited from the testing grounds at the end of it.

They marched out haggard and tired like warriors from battle falling literally into the arms of a large crowd waiting for them on the streets outside. Fraternities and sororities waiting for their sis and brods who took the exams. They cheered loudly shouting out their bravos and mabuhays. There was going to be one big street party happening this night. You could feel it, the electricity in the air. The next day the radio reported a rumble

“Nagkasuntukan” despite the presence of police, some bearing long arms. The security was understandably tight. Once, many years ago, an alleged frat member threw a grenade into the crowd of test-takers as they exited the gate.

This tragedy, now becomes part of the annals of this historic tradition upon which is based the greater part of the political fabric.

The practice of law is dangerous here. But also highly rewarding. Even if we must wonder why we hold it with this much esteem.

Law is romantic practice. It is high drama getting and certainly deserving as much attention in media as sports and politics. Lawyers are rock stars.

We would hate them if only we did not love them just as much. And yes. Law is a language with its own coding system, its own words not ordinarily understood by others. It is a culture all its own, with its own secrets, its own visions and meanings for such things as love and hatred, fertility and morbidity.

Life and death, if you will, should you ever have the bad fortune of being in either of two inevitable sides constituting the regular court-room narrative. Lawyers and judges write their briefs.

They might not be high literature. But on any good day, the narratives are written as if someone’s life or fortune depended on it.

Lawyers are devils and tricksters when they are not angels. Some of the best and worst of us have been, were, or are lawyers. With that, let the case rest.