A 100th birthday usually calls for cake and candles, yet P Balasubramanian Menon, a lawyer from northern Kerala’s Palakkad district, received something rarer and rather more formal. On 9 October 2026, six days before he turned 100 on 15 October, the Kerala High Court approved his designation as a Senior Advocate, timing the decision to coincide with the milestone itself.
Chief Justice Soumen Sen began the initiative, and Bar and Bench reported that this might be the first time the court has conferred the rank on a lawyer who practises before the mofussil courts, which sit below the High Court.
Bar and Bench calls Menon a trial lawyer, a practitioner who argues disputes before the courts that hear them first.
Under Section 16 of the Advocates Act, 1961, India has two classes of advocates, senior advocates and other advocates. A High Court may formally designate an advocate as senior, with the advocate’s consent, if it considers that ability, standing at the Bar or special knowledge or experience in law makes him deserving of the distinction.
By approving the designation, the Kerala High Court formed that opinion about Menon after more than 76 years in practice.
From Madras to Palakkad
To understand the honour, it helps to look at where his career began and how it changed direction. Menon comes from a traditional family in Palakkad and studied law at Madras Law College before he began his career in 1950 at the Madras High Court, where he trained under Advocate General Kuttikrishnan Menon.
After two years, he returned to Palakkad and worked under the criminal lawyer KS Ramakrishna Iyer.
Bar and Bench’s 2023 interview records that, like many lawyers of his generation, he had not made law his first choice.
The Kerala High Court designated Menon a Senior Advocate on 9 October 2026, days before his 100th birthday. Photograph: (Bar and Bench)
His early cases were criminal, but an encounter with a judge during a case in Kochi encouraged him to specialise in civil law, which has been his focus since 1952 and remains his main area of practice. LiveLaw reported in 2023 that he continued to practise on the civil side in his hometown.
How 73 years of practising law earned him a world record
His office, as Bar and Bench described it in 2023, has an old-world charm and countless mementoes, the latest being the Guinness World Record, while a second certificate in a glass frame marks the Indian Book of Records recognition that came a few months earlier.
Guinness World Records verified his career in Kerala at 73 years and 60 days on 11 September 2023, making him the holder of the title for the longest career as a lawyer (male). Asked by Bar and Bench whether he had ever imagined such recognition, he said not even in his dreams.
Menon surpassed the record set by Louis Triay, a Gibraltar lawyer whose record stood at 70 years and 311 days, according to LiveLaw. Triay died in February 2023 at the age of 94, months before Guinness World Records verified Menon’s career.
From beginning his career at the Madras High Court in 1950 to practising in Palakkad, Menon has spent decades arguing civil cases. Photograph: (Facebook/Suma Kanakala)
PTI reported in November 2023 that, with the enthusiasm of a much younger lawyer, he went to his office and the courts every day without fail, met clients and kept his arguments and cross-examinations brief, even at 97. He describes his duty to clients in terms of trust, telling a television channel, “When a party approaches me with a case, he is coming by trusting me.”
At 100, he still has no plans to retire
Three numbers recur in Menon’s story, and each measures something different: his age of 100, his more than 76 years of practice according to Bar and Bench, and the 73 years and 60 days that Guinness verified on 11 September, 2023. The gap between the two shows his career continued well after Guinness took its measurement.
In the 2023 interview, when he was in his 98th year, Menon said, “I am running 98. I am not even thinking of retirement.” He added that he still works to earn his livelihood, and PTI noted that he smiles gently when anyone asks about retirement.
The Senior Advocate rank now joins the Indian Book of Records certificate and the Guinness title among the formal recognitions of a career that began in 1950.
Menon has said that he hopes the record can inspire others, and his story offers them a gentle lesson: a lawyer who keeps his arguments brief, answers to his clients’ trust and smiles when asked about retirement has built the longest career Guinness has verified for a male lawyer, one patient year after another.
