Raising the Bar

By Tamarra Sequeira

I was seven years old the first time I heard the word ‘advocate’. It was spoken in the context of my constant need to be the voice of the entire group’s grievances and demands. I did not realise that a short ten years later I would enter law school with the renewed interest in advocating. Now a few months shy of ten years of practice and I’m sure that I’m doing exactly what I am meant to.

The fluttery feel of butterflies in my stomach before a big hearing replaced by pumping adrenaline as a matter picks up pace are feelings I would not give up for anything in the world. The joy of a win is inexplicable, often equal to the pain of a loss. But one learns to take losses in their stride, for one would not be human if they had a 100% win rate.

While I can’t think of being anything other than a practicing lawyer, even in this day and age, I have on occasion found my gender to be a disadvantage. The stark contrast between treatment of male and “lady advocates” on many occasions is often blatant yet accepted. I’ve often found myself not referred to as “my learned friend”, though used for male counterparts, but casually “she” or the many times I’ve been told “lady advocates always create more trouble” for saying much the same things as other members of the ‘fraternity’. Maybe the fact that it remains “the fraternity” is an ominous sign.

With time, I’ve found ways to take this in my stride and hope that every slight I brush off adds a tiny crack in the glass ceiling we are working to break. On particularly hard days, I think of all the ‘lady advocates’ who have fought the good fight before me, specially my senior Mrs. Gayathri Balu, to whom I owe so much, and the many young ‘lady advocates’ like myself who continue to fight for our place in the system, balancing family and home, with the belief that someday the ‘Bar’ for women and men will be the same.