Khalipi "Jake" Moloi, who has died at the age of 70, went from being a court interpreter to a high court judge and acting judge president of the Free State.
He started the first black law firm in the Free State against daunting odds when apartheid was at its height.
During two states of emergency in the '80s Moloi's practice was one of the only ports of call for black anti-apartheid activists arrested, tortured and detained by the security police, often without charge.
If and when they were charged, Moloi was usually the man they relied on to defend them in court.
For a black lawyer to cross-examine a state witness, who was often a white policeman, before an unsympathetic judge in front of an openly hostile white audience in a remote platteland dorp where his client was often assumed to be a "terrorist" before the trial even began, took courage.
For a black lawyer to subject white state witnesses in this environment to the kind of incisive cross-examination that was Moloi's speciality, against a backdrop of police pressure to withdraw, accompanied by threats and intimidation, took considerable courage.
Moloi needed no reminding of what had happened to other black anti-apartheid lawyers who refused to withdraw from sensitive political cases.
He had to do a lot of travelling to remote platteland towns where his clients were being held, and where there were constant reminders, even before he entered court, that he was in hostile territory.
He related stories of how, if his car was being filled by a black petrol attendant and a "white" car drew up, he would be left waiting while the attendant rushed to serve the whites, who were usually in no hurry.
He wasn't allowed to stay in hotels, which meant driving long distances at night. It was not unusual to be followed.
Many clients during the states of emergency were school children, many held indefinitely.
Trial advocacy
He led a delegation of civic and mass democratic movement leaders to Pretoria to negotiate with the then minister of police Adriaan Vlok for them to be released.It was during this period that he acquired his reputation for trial advocacy. He and his law firm, which had offices in Bloemfontein and Welkom, became famous in the black community.
Many other black lawyers who subsequently opened law firms in the Free State were trained by him during their articles of clerkship, including the present judge president of the Free State, Judge Mahube Molemela.
His articled clerks and up-and-coming attorneys and articled clerks from other firms would flock to whatever court he was appearing in to watch him in action and learn from him. Many attorneys in practice today were trained in trial advocacy by him.The golden rule, he told his pupils, was that when cross-examining a witness they must know their purpose. Once they had achieved that purpose, they must sit down. There is nothing more for you to do.
Former national police commissioner Bheki Cele felt the sharp end of Moloi's cross-examination technique when the judge investigated his role in awarding police leases worth half-a-billion rand.
Public protector Thuli Madonsela ruled that Cele's involvement amounted to maladministration and unlawful practice. In 2011 Moloi was appointed by President Jacob Zuma to head a board of inquiry into Cele's fitness to hold office.
Cut it out
When Cele started blustering during cross-examination, a visibly irritated Moloi told him to "be specific". Cele was being "evasive and vague", said Moloi, and warned him to cut it out.
"If you want us to have a negative impression of you, you should continue with the way you are responding," he said.
The inquiry found that Cele was dishonest, conflicted, negligent and unfit for office, and recommended that he be fired, which he was.
Moloi was born in Kestell in the eastern Free State on October 4 1946. After matriculating he became a court interpreter.
He completed his BIuris at the University of Zululand in 1974, and became a public prosecutor and magistrate. He was a candidate attorney at Schoeman & Kellerman in Welkom until 1979 when he opened his own law firm, Jake Moloi & Partners.
In 1997 he obtained his LLM (Master of Laws) degree in human rights from the University of the Free State and in 2003 an LLM degree in international trade law from the University of Stellenbosch.
In 1996 he was appointed to the amnesty committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Cape Town. In 1998 he became the first black person to head the attorney-general's office in Pretoria.In 2003 he went to Brussels for three years after being contracted by the European Union to help with the regulation and improvement of international trade relations.
As president of the Black Lawyers Association he was instrumental in the formation of the Law Society of South Africa, which under his leadership began the process of transformation of the legal profession.
He was an acting high court judge in the Northern and Western Cape before being made a high court judge in the Free State in 2009.
In 2014 he was nominated for judge president of the Free State, but lost out to his former pupil Molemela.
He was with her when she received an SMS informing her she'd been recommended. No one was happier for her than he was, she said.
Moloi had no time for sloppiness or ineptitude in his court and berated lawyers who were inadequately prepared.
He was renowned for his professionalism. He was invariably prompt with his judgments, which were usually short, succinct and to the point.
He is survived by his children.
1946-2017..