Why I decided to switch my career at 21?
The dream was never to become a lawyer.
I actually came from a family where lawyers were not considered good people. My goal was something else entirely. I wanted to build a company, become a CEO, and create a legal-tech startup that made legal services easier and more accessible for people. The idea behind E-Waqalat (www.ewaqalat.com) was simple. A client comes to our platform, connects with the right lawyer, and gets their legal matter resolved.
Then, about two years ago, we started our ground operations. And something unexpected happened.
During our pilot phase, clients started coming to us from completely different walks of life. Factory and mill owners. Businessmen. Professionals. And people who worked on daily wages, just trying to get by.
A few of those cases changed the way I looked at law forever.
There was a widow from an underprivileged area of Sindh, whose brother-in-law had denied her rightful share and thrown her out of her own home. There was a factory worker who lost his hand in a machine accident, while the factory owner refused to pay him a single rupee in compensation. There was a member of the Hindu community, living in a Muslim-dominated feudal area, whose temple had been destroyed.
And there were many more like them.
Some of these people were living below the poverty line. They had nowhere else to turn. Our panel lawyers took on several of these cases pro bono, simply because it was the right thing to do.
I was not the one handling those cases. I was just close enough to watch what happens when someone finally gets the right legal knowledge, the right advice, or the right lawyer at the right time. I saw, up close, how one piece of correct legal advice can quietly change the entire direction of a person’s life.
Even today, when some of those people run into me, they remember us. And they pray for us.
That stayed with me.
For the first time, I started developing a real respect, and eventually something like a soft corner, for the profession of Law. I started reading about Allama Iqbal, Quaid-e-Azam, Mahatma Gandhi, and Abraham Lincoln. Many of them were successful lawyers first. They made money, built remarkable careers, and achieved great things. But they also used their profession for something bigger than themselves.
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And that made me ask myself a question I did not expect to ask.
What if I pursued law too?
It was not an easy decision to sit with, and it was an even harder one to say out loud. I heard the criticism from people around me, and I heard it often.
“Now you’ll be earning haram income.”
“Lawyers spend all day lying and doing wrong things.”
And perhaps the loudest one came from inside me:
“Who’s foolish enough to do another bachelor’s degree after already finishing one?”
Maybe they were right about one thing. It was not the easy path.
But I had already seen what this profession could do when it was used the right way. And besides, no other profession teaches you negotiation, conviction, and communication the way this one does.
So I decided to get my hands dirty, and to actually test my own decision instead of just thinking about it. About a year and a half ago, I started an apprenticeship at a law firm, working closely with the profession while I kept building E-Waqalat alongside it. I started from the field of corporate law, and honestly, it was a great experience, one I enjoyed a lot.
And today, I am standing at the place where all of this started to feel real for me. University of the Punjab, studying law.
The university has been teaching law since 1868. For 158 years, it has produced brilliant lawyers, judges, bureaucrats, politicians, and senators across the subcontinent. Walking through it, knowing that, makes this chapter feel like it belongs to something much bigger than me.
I still don’t know exactly where this path will take me.
But one thing I know for certain now. I did not choose law because I always wanted to be a lawyer. I chose it because, somewhere along the journey of building a legal-tech company, I discovered why law actually matters.
And I am excited to see what comes next, proud that I am on my way to becoming the first lawyer in the entire bloodline.
