Today, 23rd June 2021, I celebrate my 4th year anniversary of being admitted to practice law in the High Court for Zambia.
Just a few days ago, on Sunday 20th June, the nation received the sad news of the passing of our Chief Justice, Honourable Lady Justice Irene Mambilima. She was the first female Chief Justice in Zambia, and an amazing one at that. The legal fraternity mourns.
I have read so many tributes, not just from legal practitioners. Some speak to the great person she was, some, to the great Chief Justice she was.
Clocking 4 years at the bar in the week of the passing of such a great woman of justice has had me thinking about legacy, becoming and just being.
One word that springs to mind is ‘authentic’.
We called her ‘Iron Lady’. We called her brave. I’d like to think she’d decided, at some point in her life, to always be herself, and thereafter spent the rest of her life developing herself. I imagine she had moments when it might have been easier to go with the crowd, to just blend in, but that may have meant going against self, and that, she could not do.
One of my favourite tributes of her spoke to how she presided over the 2011 general election that ushered in an opposition political party. I can imagine the pressure she must have been under, but when integrity is who you are behind closed doors, integrity is who you’ll be in the watchful eye of the public.
And so I think on what my 4 years has been. Yes, great admiration at the fact that I’m a lawyer but I cannot help but wonder whether I’ve done all that was available for me to do in my 4 years. Could I have done more? Have I done enough in deciding to always be myself, would I recognise what it looks like? Have I developed self enough to be able to stand, even if I remain standing alone, against the crowd? Have I done enough in the discovery of what being authentic means for me?
I think on to my 8, 10, 20 year anniversaries in the practice of the law; I hope to be happy with who I’d have chosen to be, and when my time comes for my legacy to be discussed, I hope to have genuinely inspired people to speak well of me, not just in the fear of respecting the dead.
Not-so-Rookie,
Edwina.
