Slaying Kingsfield: A blog entry by Atty. Teddy Te, professor at the UP College of Law (http://abogadoparasabayan.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_archive.html)
Slaying Kingsfield
(A sort-of welcome for the entering class at Malcolm Hall, 2000)
Each of you has come to law school, fueled by the desire to become a
lawyer. Most of you have been inspired by role models, culled from
your own experiences. Perhaps your parents or relatives who are
lawyers; or actual experience with real lawyers in actual cases; or
perhaps from conversations with graduates of the U.P. College of Law;
or even from fictional role models taken from such diverse fare as
The Practice, Ally McBeal, John Grisham's books or the real-life
stories of the lives of Clarence Darrow or Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Whatever or whoever has been your inspiration for taking this most
important step in your young lives, you are now faced with one
reality: you are now officially in law school; and one question: what
do I do next?
The answer to that question may be answered by a scene from the
prototypical film about law school, The Paper Chase (1973). This
scene demonstrates how it is to study law.
In this scene, the antagonist of the film, the despotic Professor in
Contracts, Mr. Kingsfield, is concluding his exercise of humiliating
the law students in his class; on deck is the hero of the film, Mr.
Hart, a first year law student at Harvard, who has failed to answer
his questions. In a dull, flat monotone dripping with sarcasm,
Kingsfield intones, "Mr. Hart, here is a penny, call your mother and
tell her that her son will not become a lawyer." Hart, who was just
about to bolt the room and quit law school after being humiliated so
publicly by Kingsfield, turns around, stares Kingsfield in the eye,
and, in emphatic and plain language, tells Kingsfield, "You,
Kingsfield, are a son of a bitch." In the stunned silence that
follows, Kingsfield very calmly tells Hart, "That, Mr. Hart, is the
most intelligent thing you have ever said in this class. Sit down."
During your first weeks in law school, you will find yourself, like
the hapless Hart, confronting Kingsfield, in various guises, shapes
and sizes. The challenge for you is to overcome your own Kingsfields
for unless you do so, then you will just have to tell your father or
mother that you will not become a lawyer. This early in your life as
a law student, when you have yet to open your first case report or
law book, you must ask yourself if, like Hart, you have–or are
capable of obtaining–the values, skills, traits and character to slay
the Kingsfields you will meet in law school. (Hart's emphatic
language to Kingsfield is not encouraged though, for all that it will
most certainly get you are either : [1] a 5.0, [2] kicked out of the
class and law school, [3] sued for libel and defamation or [4]
possibly all three, in that order). Slaying your own Kingsfields will
be the first skill you need to survive law school and become a lawyer.
To slay your own Kingsfields and become a lawyer will demand of you a
great deal of sacrifice, commitment, skill and character; there is a
need for a genuine self-appraisal on your part. It is easiest to
judge others but most difficult to evaluate oneself. To help you in
your self-appraisal, before you meet your Kingsfields, draw from the
thoughts of one of the foremost criminal lawyers of his time, the
late Senator Jose W. Diokno, the beloved Ka Pepe.
Answering Popoy, his eldest son who asked him whether he (Popoy)
should study law, Ka Pepe wrote a deeply insightful, compelling,
descriptive, and very moving letter; in his letter, he bares to Popoy
his unique insights on what a lawyer is, how it is to study law and
what kind of person you have to be or may have to become in order to
be a great lawyer. It is an eloquent and inspiring testimonial to one
man's love for country, people, profession and family written in
detention during the darkest days of martial law.
Allow me to share his letter with you:
Dear Popoy,
When you asked me about a month ago, for a list of books that you
could read to start studying law, I was loathe to prepare the list
because I felt that you would be wasting your time studying law in
this "new society."
I am still not sure that it would be worth your while to do so.
A few days ago, while chatting with a soldier, he asked, in all
seriousness and sincerity, "Pero sir, kailangan pa ba ang mga abogado
ngayon?" And in a way that perhaps he did not intend, he raised a
perfectly valid question.
A lawyer lives in and by the law; and there is no law when society is
ruled, not by reason, but by will–worse, by the will of one man.
A lawyer strives for justice; and there is no justice when men and
women are imprisoned not only without guilt, but without trial.
A lawyer must work in freedom; and there is no freedom when
conformity is extracted by fear and criticism silenced by force.
A lawyer builds on facts. He must seek truth; and there is no truth
when facts are suppressed, news is manipulated and charges are
fabricated.
Worse, when the Constitution is invoked to justify outrages against
freedom, truth and justice, when democracy is destroyed under the
pretext of saving it, law is not only denied–it is perverted.
And what need do our people have for men and women who would practice
perversion?
Yet the truth remains true that never have our people had greater
need than today for great lawyers, and for young men and women
determined to be great lawyers.
Great lawyers–not brilliant lawyers. A scoundrel may be, and often
is, brilliant; and the greater the scoundrel, the more brilliant the
lawyer. But only a good man can become a great lawyer: for only a man
who understands the weaknesses of men because he has conquered them
in himself; who has the courage to pursue his ideals though he knows
them to be unattainable; who tempers his conviction with respect for
those of others because he realizes he may be mistaken; who deals
honorably and fairly with all, because to do otherwise would diminish
him as well as them–only such a man would so command respect that he
could persuade and need never resort to force. Only such a man could
become a great lawyer. Otherwise, "what you are speaks so loudly,
cannot hear what you say."
For men and women of this kind, our country will always have need–and
now more than ever. True, there is little that men of goodwill can do
now to end the madness that holds our nation in its grip. But we
can,even now, scrutinize our past; try to pinpoint where we went
wrong; determine what led to this madness and what nurtured it; and
how, when it ends, we can make sure that it need never happen again.
For this madness must end–if not in my lifetime, at least in yours.
We Filipinos are proverbially patient, but we are also infinitely
tough and ingeniously resourceful. Our entire history as a people has
been a quest for freedom and dignity; and we will not be denied our
dreams.
So this madness will end; the rule of force will yield to the rule of
law. Then the country will need its great lawyers, its great
engineers,its great economists and managers, the best of its men and
women to clear the shambles and restore the foundations of that noble
and truly Filipino society for which our forefathers fought, bled and
died.
So, there are two sides to the question of whether it is worth your
while to study law; and, in the end, it is a question that only you
can answer.
Just be sure, that, whatever be your decision, it is truly yours,
that it is truly what you want, not a choice dictated by a sense of
duty to follow in my footsteps.
To help you decide, I suggest that you read:
(a) The Attorney's Oath, Form No, 28 appended to our Rules of Court;
and the duties of an attorney, Rule 138, sec. 20 of the Rules of
Court, which you can ask from my office;
(b) "The Five Functions of a Lawyer" in Arthur T. Vandervilt's "Cases
and Materials on Modern Procedure."
(c) "The Chicago Lawyer's Pledge" on p. 395, and "The Crafts of Law
Re-valued" on pp. 316-322 of Karl Llewellyn's "Jurisprudence."
(d) "The Lawyer from Antiquity to Modern Times" by Roscoe Pound.
(e) "Men of Law" by William Seagle.
These should give you an idea of what a lawyer should be and what he
has been in the past. What he is in our country, you have an idea;
(f) Martin Mayer's "The Lawyers", tells you what he is in the United
States; and
(g) Brian Abel-Smith's "Lawyers and Courts", what he is in England.
Read either and compare with our practice. And for a critique of
lawyers, of courts, and even of law, read,
(h) "Law against the People," by Robert Lefcourt.
As you read, cultivate the habit I have never been able to school
myself to do of taking notes of your reading–not only of the gist of
what the author says, or quotations of thoughts he felicitously
expresses, but also of your reactions to his work (where you agree or
disagree or suspend judgment, and why) and of the thoughts he arouses
in you. File your notes in orderly fashion. They will become
invaluable to you as you mature.
After you have read enough to give you an idea of what a lawyer is
and does, but before you firmly commit yourself, one way or the
other, discuss the matter with your wife and your friends, always
bearing these things in mind:
– That the law is a demanding profession, exacting a constant and
unswerving devotion that is always a thinking obedience to its
ideals, and that is much harder to give than blind obedience;
– That the rewards of the law as a profession are not in wealth or
even in fame, but in the respect of your peers, in the excitement of
the chase after justice, and in the satisfaction not only of service
to your clients but of having somehow shaped the future by molding
the law of today.
This has been a long letter on a short question–whether to study law–
and is not an example to be emulated should you decide in favor of
law. My excuse is that time lies heavy on my hands in these days of
detention, and since we can talk only in snatches when you visit, I
have written at length in the hope of anticipating some of your
questions.
You may suspect that, by stressing the difficulties of the law
profession and by suggesting that you read some eight books before
making up your mind, I am trying to discourage you from studying law.
I am not. In a rather heavy-handed way, I am trying to paint the
lawyer's role as accurately as I can and show you that, if you do
decide to become a lawyer, you must prepare yourself for a lifetime
of study,reading, weighing and deciding, while at the same time
acting and doing. It sounds impossible–but every day it has been and
is being done.
I have loved the law; and I have always been proud of being a lawyer.
But I have never been prouder than the day, five Sundays ago, that
you told me that you wanted to study law. Regardless of what you may
finally decide, the fact that you even thought of becoming a lawyer,
despite my arrest and detention, allows me to hope that I have not
failed as a lawyer and as a father.
For that, son, thanks.
Your father,
PEPE
This was written in detention by Sen. Jose W. Diokno to his eldest
son, Jose Ramon I. Diokno on 23 October 1972 almost one month after
martial law was declared in the country.
Ka Pepe spoke of several things in his letter to Popoy that may prove
valuable to your stay in the college of law.
First, he tells his son that "there are two sides to the question of
whether it is worth your while to study law; and, in the end, it is a
question that only you can answer. Just be sure, that, whatever be
your decision, it is truly yours, that it is truly what you want, not
a choice dictated by a sense of duty to follow in my footsteps." This
is especially important for those of you, in this room, who are here
simply because you feel that it is your duty to continue a family
tradition of producing lawyers. The study of law is such an exacting
discipline that coming into the College half-heartedly will most
certainly ensure that you will eventually leave the College without a
degree. As he reminds Popoy in another part of his letter, "the law
is a demanding profession, exacting a constant and unswerving
devotion that is always a thinking obedience to its ideals, and that
is much harder to give than blind obedience." You have made a
decision to study law; in order for you to succeed, you must ensure
that it is a decision that is completely yours. Anything less than
that will mean that you may not gather enough resolve to slay
Kingsfield and will simply phone home to tell your parents that their
son or daughter will not become a lawyer.
Second, Ka Pepe tells us what kind of a person would make a great
lawyer:
"A scoundrel may be, and often is, brilliant; and the greater the
scoundrel,the more brilliant the lawyer. But only a good man can
become a great lawyer: for only a man who understands the weaknesses
of men because he has conquered them in himself; who has the courage
to pursue his ideals though he knows them to be unattainable; who
tempers his conviction with respect for those of others because he
realizes he may be mistaken; who deals honorably and fairly with all,
because to do otherwise would diminish him as well as them–only such
a man would so command respect that he could persuade and need never
resort to force. Only such a man could become a great lawyer.
Otherwise, 'what you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you
say.'"
Now that you have made your decision to study law, you must know
yourself. Know your weaknesses and your strengths; work on your
weaknesses as well as your strengths. Do not forsake or abandon your
other interests–your life is not and should not only be the college
of law (although, it will certainly feel like that)--read, dance,
sing, watch movies, play Tekken, work out, play a sport, climb a
rock, join a rally, march to Mendiola, raise your fist in protest,
lift your hands in praise, join your hands in prayer. As in
everything, there must be a balance in our life. The challenge for
you is to try to incorporate all of these things that are integral
and important to your life within your new chosen life as a law
student. It is these traits and values that you develop from all the
varied fields of interest that make you a complete and multi-
dimensional person and will ensure that you become a great lawyer.
Third, Ka Pepe speaks of developing very good study habits and being
organized. In his words,
"As you read, cultivate the habit . . .of taking notes of your
reading–not only of the gist of what the author says, or quotations
of thoughts he felicitously expresses, but also of your reactions to
his work (where you agree or disagree or suspend judgment, and why)
and of the thoughts he arouses in you. File your notes in orderly
fashion. They will become invaluable to you as you mature."
Indeed, those who have passed through the portals of the College of
Law and those who are still within its portals will tell you that the
most important weapon you have in the College of Law is not your raw
intelligence (because you are all disputably presumed to have that in
abundance or you would not be here listening to me) but how you
develop, hone, challenge and transform that intelligence into a
discipline of critical, analytical, logical, organized and coherent
thought. And without study habits–of any form–all your native
intelligence will be for naught. Ka Pepe presents you with a way of
studying law which is healthy to cultivate: not only should you read,
with a view to reciting the cases or the law verbatim, but you should
read with a view to understanding and thinking about what you read.
It is in this context that Ka Pepe speaks of the study and the
practice of law as being "demanding"; and, indeed, the discipline is
demanding. For it is not enough that you should know the law and
practice it well but that you should also know why the law is what it
is, how to question the law, if necessary, and to move for changes in
the law to make the law what it should be. Thus, your study of the
law should not only be rote learning but critical learning. As he
reminded Popoy, "the law is a demanding profession, exacting a
constant and unswerving devotion that is always a thinking obedience
to its ideals, and that is much harder to give than blind obedience."
It takes courage to stand and remain as a majority of one and there
will be times when that is what the study of law will ask you to do–
to maintain a critical and thinking obedience to its ideals and
challenge the law as it is written with the hope it may be
transformed into the law that it ought to be.
Finally, Ka Pepe speaks of the rewards of studying law : "the rewards
of the law as a profession are not in wealth or even in fame, but in
the respect of your peers, in the excitement of the chase after
justice, and in the satisfaction not only of service to your clients
but of having somehow shaped the future by molding the law of today."
These are not only beautiful words and ideals but are also stirring
realities. And, if there is any inspiration that may be drawn from Ka
Pepe's words, it is the knowledge that by studying law, and by
studying law in the U.P. College of Law, you will play a part in
shaping the future by molding the law of today.
You have entered a public law school–one that is steeped in the
highest traditions of excellence in all fields of the law. The U.P.
College of Law has produced the finest lawyers engaged in advocacy
for various interests, private and public. The College has also
produced Presidents of the Philippines (the first President of the
Republic was also the President of the first law class; the last
President produced by the College was also the first dictator the
country has officially produced), Chief Justices (of course, the
present Chief Justice is a U.P. graduate), Senate Presidents (the
present Senate President is also a U.P. graduate), Speakers of the
House; the College has also produced scholars, academics and
intellectuals who have contributed directly to the country–for good
or worse–through their research and writings; and finally, the
College has also produced lawyers for the People who have committed
their life to working for the rights of those among our people who
are on the shorter end of the stick–the laborers, the urban poor, the
peasants and farmers, the indigenous peoples, the poor and
defenseless accused; you have but to look at a list of non-
governmental organizations and people's organizations engaged in
various advocacies to see a list of U.P. lawyers who have committed
their lives to the people.
With this tradition comes a great deal of responsibility. The
responsibility is not only to live up to the tradition but to surpass
it. There is a saying oft-quoted by the Supreme Court, "the spring
cannot rise higher than its source." I refuse to accept that when it
comes to legal education. The spring must rise higher than the source
for it is only in doing so that we ensure that the traditions of
excellence are not only maintained but surpassed. I do not consider
it a failing on my part if my students become better than I; on the
contrary, I consider it a source of great fulfilment and unending
inspiration that I have contributed to the shaping of the future by
molding the lawyers of today.
It was Ka Pepe's letter–alternately an answer to his son's question,
treatise on the legal profession, discourse on the national situation
prevailing at that time, and a showcase of a lifetime of insights on
how to study law–that gave a young and idealistic activist, unsure of
his decision to pursue law, the first insight that law and activism,
law and advocacy, law and social change, law and a lifetime of
meaningful service could co-exist. Fourteen years later, that
slightly older but still idealistic activist is now a lawyer actively
engaged in human rights practice and the teaching of law in what
Holmes calls "the grand manner."
In the same manner that his letter challenged me, I would ask you,
after hearing Ka Pepe's letter to Popoy, to ask yourself if you are
the person he describes; ask yourself if you want to become the
lawyer he describes; ask yourself if you are capable of becoming the
lawyer and the person he describes.
If, after asking yourself all these, you decide that you are not the
person he describes: Good luck and Godspeed then, in whatever you may
decide to do with your life.
But if, after reading his letter, you decide to continue with law
school and bid to slay your own Kingsfields, then, WELCOME TO THE
U.P. COLLEGE OF LAW, MR./MS. HART !
