SC on Legal Profession

What is the lowest standard that would be regarded as acceptable for Advocates.?

The test is the standard of the ordinary skilled man exercising and professing to have that special skill .
      . . A man need not possess the highest expert skill; it is well established law that it is sufficient if he
      exercises the ordinary skill of an ordinary  competent man exercising that particular art."

71.   In Eckersley v. Binnie, Bingham, L.J. summarized the Bolam test in the following words :-

      "From these general statements it follows that a  professional man should command the corpus of
      knowledge which forms part of the professional  equipment of the ordinary member of his profession.
      He should not lag behind other ordinary assiduous  and intelligent members of his profession in       knowledge of new advances, discoveries and  developments in his field. He should have such an       awareness as an ordinarily competent practitioner  would have of the deficiencies in his knowledge and       the limitations on his skill. He should be alert to the hazards and risks in any professional task he       undertakes to the extent that other ordinarily  competent members of the profession would be  alert. He must bring to any professional task he undertakes no less expertise, skill and care than other ordinarily competent members of his  profession would bring, but need bring no more. The standard is that of the reasonable average. The  law does not require of a professional man that he   be a paragon combining the qualities of polymath and prophet." (Charles worth & Percy, ibid, Para
      8.04)

Dear Rajan, in matter of professional skill.. A man need not possess the highest expert skill; it is well established law that it is suficient if he exercises the ordinary skill of an ordinary competent  man exercising that particular art as quoted in Bolam case and the water of Boalm test has ever since flown and passed under several bridges, having cited and dealt with in judicial pronouncement and well received in every shore it has touched. But as far as legal profession is concerned, counsels does not stand alone and despite the best efforts made by the Counsel it is the Judge that decides the matters with so much discreations vested with the judge, and I am of the view that distinctions with legal professions has to be made with other professions.

You are right, Sir. Indeed inspite of putting all efforts some times we do come across Judges who do not appreciate our point of view. Apart from the efforts of the Advocate, many things go into delivering of a judgment. Much depends on the temperament, education, reading habit, personal experiences, prejudices [ of all sizes and shapes] mood, age of the judge. The fact that he his usually overburdened with work also go into it.

SOME OF THE MANYTHINGS REFERRED BY YOU SIR,
TO WIN A CASE

FIRST, YOU NEED A GOOD CASE,

THEN YOU NEED GOOD EVIDENCE,

THEN YOU NEED A GOOD JUDGE,

THEN YOU NEED A GOOD LAWYER

AND THEN YOU NEED GOOD LUCK

good one, Mr Menon

 

There is no good or bad case.

Evidence is normally cooked/manufactured.

With CJI and Law Minister openly admitting existence of corruption in judiciary, where does one find a good Judge?

Only one lawyer will win the case for his client. Therefore, the other lawyer can't be called bad. {There have been cases where lawyers have been bought over].

There is no such thing as LUCK when battling a court case. It starts running out right from a magistrate's court to that of Supreme Court.

If a poor man has no means to appeal, will he not be condemned to spend his life in jail? When will the LUCK smile on him? 

Read this:

A North Carolina man who insisted he was innocent of murder through more than 16 years in prison was declared a free man after a groundbreaking exoneration pressed by the nation’s only statewide innocence panel. 

Sorrry missed out on "Evidence" earier

Evidence - Whether cooked or manufactured.  It has to be good - to win a case.  A badly cooked or manufactured evidence will not win a case.

Please don't try to put words in my mouth. I never said "entire". You are imagining things.

I still maintain that no case is good or bad, including that of Kasab. If it is bad, why he is being defended by a lawyer despite vociferous opposition by Shiv Sena and the like?

Ram Jethmalani took the defence of accused in Indira Gandhi's assassination case. Two men were condemned to death by the High Court. One of them was acquitted by the Supreme Court finally. Was it a bad case?

The law of the land was used to put INA men on trial. They were patriots. So what? Legal luminaries of that time defended them. Was it a good case? Should the law be buried for their cause?

Neither you nor I can decide a case nor it is decided by luck or chance.

What about the famous phrases  "Cash Value and Face Value" doing the rounds in the legal parlance. This speaks a lot about evidence, facts, good lawyers, good case and bad case. Most of the cases are pre-determined based on the VP.