Picture her again — the young woman in the gown that does not yet fit.

Last time, we left her on her first morning, full of hope. This morning she is in the Magistrates’ Court. And she is about to stand and speak.

She is a pupil. She has passed every examination. She has not yet been called to the Bar.

The clerk calls the case. Her master is three floors up, in the High Court, on a heavier matter. The magistrate looks up and waits. She rises. May she?

It is a small question with a long shadow. It runs to the heart of an old rule: who may speak for another in a court of law.

The wall, and the small door in it

Begin with the wall.

The Legal Profession Act 1976 builds a wall around the courts. No person may practise as an advocate and solicitor unless his name is on the Roll and he holds a valid practising certificate.¹Legal Profession Act 1976 (Act 166), s 36(1). Everyone else is, in the Act’s blunt word, an unauthorized person.

This is not guild jealousy. It is protection. A man in trouble — his liberty, his livelihood, his good name placed in another’s hands — deserves a representative who is trained, examined, insured, and answerable. The wall keeps the untrained out. That is its whole purpose.

But the wall has one small door. And the pupil is the single person the law lets through it.

Short call: the door opens an inch

A pupil stands in between. She has passed the papers. She has begun the nine months of pupillage under a master.²Legal Profession Act 1976, s 12(2) — the prescribed period of pupillage is nine months. She is no longer a layman. She is not yet an advocate. She is becoming one.

The law gives her a narrow, supervised right to speak. The profession calls it the short call. By the way, there is no such thing as a ‘long call’ — and the reason is worth knowing.³There is only one Call: the admission and enrolment of an advocate and solicitor. ‘Short call’ is loose shorthand for the restricted right of audience under s 36(2); ‘long call’ was coined by false symmetry with it. The admission is the Call — not a long one. See the author’s own essay, ‘What do the Traditions of the Malaysian Bar Stand For?’ (gkg.legal).

At the start of pupillage, the master applies to a judge in chambers. The judge may order that the pupil appear — but only on behalf of the master, or the master’s firm.⁴Legal Profession Act 1976, s 36(2). Never for a stranger. Never for the firm down the corridor. A pupil who once appeared for another firm’s client was turned away, with no standing to be there at all.⁵Legal Profession Act 1976, s 36(2); and see OCBC Bank (M) Bhd v CTK Enterprise Sdn Bhd, where a pupil who appeared for a firm other than the master’s was held to have no locus to appear (noted in the Malaysian Bar, Praxis, April–June 2011).

For the first three months, the door opens only an inch. She may appear before a judge or registrar of the High Court, in chambers. Before a Sessions Court judge or a magistrate, in chambers. Before a registrar of the subordinate courts — to mention a case, to enter judgment in default, to ask for bail, to take a consent order.⁶Legal Profession Act 1976, s 36(2)(a). Small, routine, sheltered work. She is learning the floor of the court before she is asked to fight on it.

After three months, the door opens wide

Then the three months pass. And the door swings open.

At their expiry, the pupil may — in chambers in the High Court and the subordinate courts, and before any magistrate — conduct any cause or matter.⁷Legal Profession Act 1976, s 36(2)(b).

Read those four words slowly. Any cause or matter. Not “mentions”. Not “the easy ones”. Any cause or matter, before a magistrate, in open court.

So we have our answer. Yes. After short call, and after three months, a pupil may conduct a hearing before a magistrate. She may examine a witness. She may cross-examine. She may address the bench. She may run a contested trial to its close.⁸Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee, ‘FAQ for Pupils’ (Kuala Lumpur Bar) — three months after the short-call order a pupil acquires rights of audience before a magistrate in open court, and may argue contested matters within those limited rights.

But mark the fence around the field. Before a magistrate — yes. In the Sessions Court or the High Court, in open court — no. There her voice still stops at the door of chambers.⁹Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee, ‘FAQ for Pupils’ — a pupil has no right of audience in open court in the High Court or the Sessions Court during pupillage. And wherever she appears, she must say plainly who she is: a pupil in chambers, pelatih dalam kamar, appearing for her master.¹⁰Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee, ‘FAQ for Pupils’. No disguise. No borrowed seniority.

Training ground, or trial by fire?

Why the magistrate, of all places?

Because that is where lawyers are made. The Magistrates’ Court is the busy ground floor of justice. The files are many. The points of law are often modest. The human stakes are not modest at all — a man’s liberty, a family’s bread, a small trader’s good name.

It is the right place to learn, for two reasons.

The first is plain. Firms need junior hands. Seniors cannot run every list. Someone must carry the straightforward matter while the master argues the hard one upstairs.

The second runs deeper. Advocacy is not learned from a book. It is learned standing up, on your feet, with a real client behind you and a real judge in front. The law knows this. The short call is the statute’s quiet confession that a lawyer is forged in the doing, never in the reading alone.

So the Magistrates’ Court is both at once. Training ground and trial by fire. But the fire has firebreaks — the master’s name on the file, the master’s responsibility behind every word, and the court’s own power to say “not today” when justice asks it.

When pupillage ends, the voice falls silent

Now the harder half of the question. What of the gap — after the nine months end, but before she is called to the Bar?

Here the law is unkind, and rightly so.

The short call rested on two pillars. One: she was a pupil — recognised, though incomplete. Two: she stood under a master’s eye. When pupillage ends, both pillars fall. She is no longer a pupil in chambers. She is not yet an advocate and solicitor.

She is, once more, an unauthorized person.

And so the right to speak, which flowed from her pupillage, drains away with it. The order does not outlive the status it served. In that interval she must keep her seat. The gown is on her shoulders; the authority is not yet in her hands.

It is a strange, silent season. She has done the work. She has not yet taken the oath. The law makes her wait at the threshold — no longer sheltered by the laboratory of short call, not yet clothed with the standing of the called. Until the words of admission are spoken over her, she may not speak for another.

It feels harsh. It is, in truth, only the wall doing its work.

Whose voice is it, really?

Behind all of this sits one quiet question. When a pupil runs a trial before a magistrate, who is truly responsible?

The master. Always the master.

The pupil’s voice is not her own. It is an extension of his. His name stands behind every submission, every concession, every choice made in the heat of the room. The grant of audience is a trust placed in him as much as in her.

Three things follow.

First, the master must choose well. A right of audience is not a licence to throw a pupil into any fight. The complexity of the case, the stakes, the frailty of the client — all must weigh on him before he says, “you take this one”.

Second, supervision must be real. Not a name on a form. The master prepares the pupil, reads the file, foresees the trouble, and stays within reach. The pupil’s hour in court is the master’s conscience, made visible.

Third, the pupil owes herself honesty. She must know what she does not know. She must ask, not improvise. A magistrate’s list is not a rehearsal room. The lives inside it are real. The right to appear is a trust, not a trophy.

The line, and why it is drawn

So — may a pupil speak as counsel before a magistrate?

Yes. After short call, after three months, on behalf of her master, before a magistrate, and no higher in open court.

And after pupillage, before admission?

No. The voice falls silent, until the Bar restores it.

The line is finely drawn, and it is drawn for a reason. Representation in court should come only from those who are both competent and accountable. The pupil’s brief season of speech honours that ideal without breaking it. She is trusted a little, early, under a watchful eye — so that one day she may be trusted entirely, and alone.

That short window in the Magistrates’ Court is no loophole. It is a rite of passage. The first time she truly speaks for another, with someone real depending on her, is the morning she begins to become a lawyer.

We should guard that window.

And we should never let her forget who is listening — not the magistrate, but the client whose whole world, for one hour, rests in her untried hands.

∞§∞

This article is written for a general readership and does not constitute technical or legal advice. Readers with legal questions are encouraged to seek independent legal advice.

The author thanks KN Geetha, TP Vaani, JN Lheela, and Lydia Jaynthi at GK Legal.

Gratitude to Sue Winston of Unsplash for the image.

Claude, Anthropic’s AI, smoothed the drafting; Perplexity Pro checked the facts. The argument, the views, and the errors remain the author’s.

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