Many years ago I kept statistics of the race of legal practitioners, their income and the number of partners comprising their practices. This predated POPI.. One statistic, that defied pigeonholing, was why they were so many practitioners in small or one-man practices. The reasons given by them for such choices were multifarious but, at the time, I was more interested in the economic reasons and consequences for their choices. I have, of late, wondered why practitioners group together in especially large practices. Sure, there are the obvious reasons, efficiency brought about by specialisation, and obviously one cannot specialise beyond a certain point as a solo practitioner: who, after all, will give really big work to a guy working from his garage? The unpleasant truth about big practices is that such practices are unkind places. In a small firm one tends to practice with a friend, in a large practice the only glue holding oft opinionated and strong willed persons together, is money, recognition (which probably follows money) and convenience. A tenuous bond; loyalty, that follows money, is fickle.
Hakuna Motata, a much loved children’s song from The Lion King, was used this week by Zapiro to parody Judges Nkola Motata & Hlope after the former had been described as a racist by the tribunal which eventually heard his case. Not immediately noticeable in the cartoon, our the dates on which the respective complaints against them originated, i.e. respectively 2007 and 2006. We often complain that justice is slow but justify this by suggesting an inexorable but fine sifting. In the case of these two gentlemen, the constipation in our system of justice in acting against its own errant representatives, is nothing less than reprehensible.
Home: the term home is an evocative one; it unleashes a visceral connect, saturated with emotion: a place of safety, a fortress, a prison, a final destination. Most of us would know the haunting melody of Going Home but probably not the lyrics: if you cannot recall this, Click Here, in this case sung by Sissel Kyrkjebø, a Norwegian crossover soprano that I would seriously consider running away with. Go home, take a few minutes and listen to one of the finest voices gracing our planet. Her Pie Jesu and Summertime are fine examples.
