In my yearly progression as an advocate and solicitor, it constantly bemused me to see counsel (each of them) having a semblance of a “pencil case”. After all, to see senior lawyers submitting on important, crucial and substantial areas of law, with voluminous documents for reference but yet having an item which school children carried.

Until it wasn’t.

I told myself naively that I would buck the trend. But I was wrong.

It was from that pivotal moment when the realisation dawned upon me that the PC stemmed not from appearance but rather practicality.

I use the term “pencil case” because it was what I identified with being in school. Hence if I could first clarity on this “pencil case” (“PC”). Unlike its name, it may or may not contain a pencil (but usually it does).

Rather it’s an item that houses stationaries. There is no rule set in stone as what must be in a PC. It well can contain a stone (cue laughter).

So starts my observation of a counsel’s “pencil case” or PC.

1.  To set the record straight, there is no uniformity in terms of size, type, colour or contents of such a PC.

2. But there are common “ingredients”. That being:-

(a)  highlighter (typically yellow);

(b) pens of different colour (black, blue and red being the usual constant);

(c) pencil (surprise hahaha) but mechanical and not the carbon type as it will break in transit;

(d) stapler with a box of staples;

(e) post-it-notes (typically yellow as it’s the most common); and

(f)  a ruler.

3. It’s durable and will not be affected if there is an accidental introduction of liquid.

4. Practicality and usability trump appearance.

5. There are back-ups. If one pen is out of ink, there will be alternatives.

To provide visual context to the lessons learnt, here is my pencil case after experimenting with different sizes, shapes and otherwise.

The said pivotal moment I referred to earlier? It was several years ago when someone was in dire need to staple documents. Lo and behold, my pencil case came to the rescue.

To lawyers out there, what items do you recommend to be in a counsel’s pencil case?