It was glaringly obvious that Thabo Bester and Dr Nandipha were smitten as they sat next to each other on the bench in a magistrate’s court awaiting the proceedings to commence. Something about their dynamic was sickening to watch. This got me thinking, what about this sight upset me so much; because if you think about it, you could argue that these two people love each other – and love is a beautiful thing right?

Yes, love is beautiful. But what makes their visible ‘love’ so off putting to me. Firstly, they are in court – definitely not the time or place for PDA. Secondly, they are accused of murder for starters. But I think ultimately, it drew my attention to the importance of context. Context plays a critical role for us as lawyers. Let’s look at the following example. I was once in court, and as a junior (and not good at that) litigator, the Magistrate told me that my matter must stand down. In my mind, stand down meant back off, we are finished, and I gladly walked back to the office. After about half an hour the still small voice nudged me to ask one of my seniors, “so hypothetically, what does it mean if a Magistrate tells you your matter is to stand down, it means it’s over right?” … the look in his eyes was answer enough, but he proceeded to explain that stand down basically means, “we will get to it later, wait until after the other matters have been heard…”. “Okay so sir, if you leave court thinking that stand down means you can leave, what then?”” Your matter will be scrapped from the roll, and you will have to start from scratch, and your client will not be happy. So, with this in mind, I ran in my block heals to court, by grace alone, court was still in session, and I could attend to the matter that was ‘stood down’. In the context of court, stand down does not mean back off like I thought. But, if you ask Merriam Webster, stand down means to withdraw or resign, to go off duty. I hope this proves my point.

Let’s turn to the context of things that I actually work with, as I think it is now well established, I do not belong in a court room. When you’ve lost a loved one, the range of emotions you feel are often so deep it feels like it might just destroy you, and yet – it is in this very time that you need to be strong and focused because there is so much that needs to be done. It sometimes feels like a cruel joke that when you are dealing with some of life’s greatest sadness, you have to deal with the often-overwhelming task of deceased estate administration. It is a world that many people have no understanding of.  No context for. The words don’t make sense, the process seems impossible, the paperwork is illegible – and then, people forget to give you a hug or hand you a tissue and tell you, everything is going to be okay. People forget your context. I must admit, because loss is something that we deal with so often, it becomes a norm to a certain extent; and it is easy to forget that every client is just a person who lost a loved one – and then suddenly, we are the Thabo Bester and Dr Nandipha, sitting in a bench, completely oblivious of their surroundings, only focused on themselves. Love out of context. It happens so quickly. A couple of months into the deceased estate administration process, you forget about the sisters you met on the first day that lost their only brother; the mom who had to bury her child; the grandson who lost his only grandparent.

So, this is more of a place it on the permanent record type of blog. A so called, taking yourself to task. May we, as lawyers, never be the picture of someone who was oblivious to their client’s context. May we always remember that love in context is good, and out of context, it is sickening.