and that, in any event, the movement should be able to count on more than £300 a year for its operations.
Gandhi suggested a different tack. “Entrust me with your legal work,” he implored the merchants, promising that, in exchange, he would do their political work without charge.9 The merchants had some apparent reluctance to commit to this path, the reasons for which Gandhi himself recognized. “I am not a white barrister. . . . Nor can I be sure of how I shall fare as a lawyer,” Gandhi confessed to them.10 The merchants were able to set their reservations aside, however, as twenty of them agreed to give Gandhi a retainer for a year’s worth of legal services. In addition, Dada Abdulla, originally a skeptic and now one of Gandhi’s strongest backers, agreed to provide Gandhi with furnishings in the place of the monetary gift he had intended to present to Gandhi on his departure. He also paid for Gandhi’s bar admission fees and for the law books Gandhi needed to establish his practice. Gandhi took up residence in Beach Grove Villa, a prominent European section of town. Gandhi’s decision to live in an elite neighborhood was quite deliberate: “I thought that the house should be good and situated in a good locality. I also had the idea that I could not add credit to the community, unless I lived in a style usual for barristers.”11 He agreed to a retainer of £300 per year, the minimum he considered necessary to run a barrister’s household.
Gandhi went about the task of setting up a practice. Despite having been called to the bar three years earlier, he had never successfully practiced law on his own. What did he know of the practice of law in Natal? His only experience in South Africa was assisting other lawyers, an experience that exposed him to but a small and rarified portion of practice and gave him very little understanding of what was required of a general practitioner. Gandhi must have reflected, too, on his failed attempt to establish a thriving solo practice in Bombay. He would not make that mistake again. So he began searching for a practice setting that would afford him access to a veteran lawyer who could counsel him on the intricacies of Durban practice. Gandhi’s timing in this matter was fortuitous, for the Natal bar had recently begun to experiment with partnerships, an arrangement previously not common in the colony.
PARTNERSHIP
Gandhi’s friend Louis Paul, the Roman Catholic Indian interpreter for the Durban courts, served as Gandhi’s eyes and ears in this effort, bringing Percy Evans Coakes to Gandhi’s attention.12 Although Coakes was no novice at the bar—he had been admitted to practice a bit less than seven years earlier—neither was he the seasoned veteran who could have taught Gandhi tricks learned over a lifetime of practice. Perhaps Gandhi believed that he, a barrister, and Coakes, an attorney, would make a natural fit, not only because their practices would complement each other as would those of a barrister and solicitor, but also because Coakes had sometimes worked for Indian interests.13 Given the intensity of color consciousness in Natal, surely few white lawyers would be enthusiastic about opening their practices to an Indian barrister. A novice who brought with him the legal work of twenty Indian merchants, however, might be a different matter. In the summer of 1894, with forty-five advocates and more than one hundred nonadvocate attorneys licensed to practice in Natal,14 a lawyer who could bring with him the legal business promised to Gandhi by his “Arab” patrons would be quite a catch, assuming one could stifle his race prejudice. Coakes, who had fought before the borough magistrate in an attempt to keep the names of registered Indians on the voters’ list, seemingly had no race-based reservations and, having represented Indians, understood the benefits of representing Indian merchants. Moreover, there was stiff competition among lawyers in Natal at the time. As the Natal Mercury observed, “Competition in the labour market generally reduces the cost to the employer, and judging from the grumbles one occasionally over-hears, this inexorable law of political economy is making itself unpleasantly felt among Durban attorneys.”15
Because Gandhi was aware of the leverage he had in this market, he was to be no pushover in negotiations with Coakes. The Durban lawyer first demanded that Gandhi pay a premium to join his practice. Gandhi not only turned that suggestion down flat but, playing his best poker hand, also sent word back to Coakes, through Paul, that he was preparing to leave Durban. Indeed, Gandhi instructed Paul not to “show over-anxiety to Coakes.”16 While Gandhi’s courtroom skills may not have been very advanced, his abilities as a negotiator surely were.
A few days later, Gandhi, having heard nothing from Coakes, sent out word in the community that “unless everything was settled by next [week],” he would go. The prospect of losing Indian business must have been too much for Coakes. He immediately dropped his demand for a premium. In fact, he was now willing to give Gandhi a share of the practice’s proceeds! So confident was Gandhi in his ability to consummate the deal with Coakes on his own terms that, on hearing of Coakes’ new position, Gandhi that same day made an inquiry to the registrar of the Supreme Court about licensing. On the following day, Paul announced that Coakes had agreed to see Gandhi.
In a three-hour meeting, the Durban lawyer offered Gandhi a 25 percent share of the partnership’s profits during the first six months and 30 percent during the last six months of their yearlong agreement. Gandhi refused the offer and instead proposed that he receive a flat third for the entire year. Two days later, Coakes conceded once more, agreeing to this percentage.
Coakes sent Gandhi a draft of a written agreement to which Gandhi made alterations and additions, sending it back to Coakes. Gandhi demanded that he be given some credit for the cases that he brought in to the practice but that were to be conducted by Coakes. Again, Coakes conceded this point to his younger partner-to-be, and the two affixed their signatures to their agreement on August 4.
OBJECTION
With the partnership agreement now in place, Gandhi turned his attention to getting himself admitted to the bar—and attention this process needed. The bar was divided about his admission. Attorney General Harry Escombe, who had done some legal work for Dada Abdulla,17 had shown some solicitude for Gandhi’s welfare when, earlier in the year, he had urged his young friend to take out his advocate’s license,18 advice Gandhi would soon follow.19 Escombe’s welcome, however, was not representative. Natal’s lawyers did not look kindly upon allowing Gandhi entrance to the profession. The degree to which this opposition was based on Gandhi’s skin color, rather than the threat he posed to the economic well-being of the white bar, is uncertain. It is not difficult to imagine, however, that there must have been a renewal of the fear Gandhi’s first appearance in Durban a year earlier had caused, a fear that an Indian barrister would take Indian work away from the province’s European barristers.20 Indeed, the Natal Witness surmised that it “was the loss of fees that prompted the opposition, and that has been the common verdict of the public.”21 Whatever the motivation, the bar establishment settled upon a strategy for keeping Gandhi out of the law business: it would not oppose Gandhi’s application on grounds of color, but would instead seek technical grounds on which to base its opposition.22
While the bar was nominally a divided bar—that is, one entered it as either an attorney or as an advocate—in practice “there was a joint bar.”23 The rules at the time permitted most attorneys to practice as advocates, and most advocates as attorneys. This arrangement was known as “dual practice.”24 Attorneys were akin to solicitors—office lawyers who focused principally on noncourtroom matters, such as the drafting of contracts. Advocates were akin to barristers—courtroom lawyers appearing without restriction in trial courts of their choosing to argue cases.25
Gandhi, admitted in England as a barrister, applied as an advocate. Prior to 1893 the requirements for admission were undemanding, but with the promulgation of a new set of rules in 1893, the requirements were strengthened. Natal would now require that the applicant pass a preliminary examination, serve two to four years of a clerkship, and then pass a final examination in Roman law, Roman-Dutch law, Natal law and statutes, and evidence. Gandhi was able to escape these relatively rigorous new admission requirements, however, by virtue of his having achieved barrister status
