By Mustapha Toheeb
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Good day, everyone, and welcome back to Courtroom Chronicles. Thank you for the warmth with which the first episode was received, it means a lot.
Today’s episode grew out of something I witnessed in court that has stayed with me since. It was one of those sittings where the air in the courtroom felt heavier than usual. As counsel rose one after another to move their applications, a pattern began to emerge: the way some of them were addressed by the court seemed to chip away at their confidence. Lawyers who had walked in composed grew visibly more careful, more hesitant, the longer proceedings went on.
One moment in particular has refused to leave my memory.
A young female counsel, clearly a new wig, still finding her footing, rose to address the court. She was nervous, and it showed. She fumbled for words, searching for the right way to frame her application. Whatever chance she had of settling into her rhythm was cut short by the manner in which the court responded to her.
She unravelled from there. The composure she’d walked in with slipped away entirely, and at one point she said, plainly, that she was scared and didn’t know what to say.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what that moment might mean for her, long after she left the courtroom. If this was her first appearance, what does an experience like that do to a young lawyer? Does it make her think twice before standing up in court again? Could a single bruising encounter plant a fear of advocacy that follows her for years?
This isn’t just a hypothetical worry, our courts have grappled with it before. In Okoduwa & Ors v. State (1988) 2 NWLR (Pt. 76) 333, the Supreme Court dealt with a case in which defence counsel were harassed and intimidated by the trial judge, one of them humiliated simply for making an application his clients had instructed him to make. The apex court did not look away from it. It condemned the conduct, recognising that when counsel are intimidated in this way, their ability to stand firm and represent their clients properly is compromised and with it, the fairness of the entire trial.
The Code of Conduct for Judicial Officers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria speaks to this too. Rule 3.2 requires judicial officers to be patient, dignified and courteous, not just to litigants and witnesses, but to legal practitioners as well.
None of this is to suggest our courts are short of judges who get this right. I have stood before judges who correct young lawyers with real patience, firm enough to keep control of their courtrooms, kind enough that the correction never tips into humiliation. Under them, a young lawyer can stumble, be corrected, and still find her voice by the end of the day.
And to be fair, young lawyers carry responsibility too. Preparation matters. Knowing your file, understanding procedure, showing up ready, these are not optional. But there remains a line between correcting a young lawyer and breaking her confidence. A judge can be firm without being cruel. Authority does not require humiliation to be felt.
Every senior advocate you admire today was once that nervous new wig, stumbling through a first appearance. How we treat that version of a lawyer — early, unsure, still learning — often decides whether she grows into the courtroom or grows away from it.
That will be all for this episode. See you on the next one.
About the Author
Mustapha Babalola Toheeb is a legal practitioner with interest in dispute resolution and tax law. He can be reached via 08106244073 or toheebmustapha15@gmail.com.
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