By Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja, (PhD, University of London).
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The title of my short piece is an adaptation of Charles Dickens book/novel entitled: “A Tale of Two Cities”.
The introduction to that novel utilised a literary device named PARADOX.
This literary device named PARADOX is what I intend to utilise in this article to drive home the point that the current level of legal practice here in Nigeria falls below the minimum standard of legal practice that obtains in the United Kingdom (the same country from whom Nigeria allegedly copied the legal profession).
This has so permeated the majority of Nigerian lawyers they have not stood up to condemn the unprofessional conduct, methods applied by one lawyer to lower the reputation of his senior colleague in the eyes of the whole world.
Instead of this group of lawyers to focus on how the officials and stakeholders within the administration of criminal justice, can work effectively to reduce and even wipe of the menace of character assassinations by lawyers against themselves (in violation of Section 27 of the Rules of Professional Conduct that mandates each lawyer to apply good faith and treat each other fairly), they are focused on technicalities such as the issue of which court of law ought to exercise jurisdiction.
This brings me to the crux of this article: “if this happened in the United Kingdom, would Dele Farotimi, as a lawyer not be sanctioned for writing such unsubstantiated allegations against Aare Afe Babalola, SAN?”
“Will the Disciplinary Panel of the Law Society of England and Wales not initiate disciplinary actions against Dele Farotimi for writing such allegations against Aare Afe Babalola, SAN after a court of law had previously completed the hearing and passed judgment in a lawsuit of libel that was initiated by Dele Farotimi himself?”
Also, now that Aare Afe Babalola, SAN has submitted a petition to the Nigerian Police, which has resulted in litigation by the police at both the magistrate and Federal High Court in Ekiti State, why is Dele Farotimi and his fan club not allowing the lawsuit to run it’s course instead of the protestations on the media, online platforms and planned physical protests at different locations such as the Afe Babalola Centre, Kings College, University of London, United Kingdom, etc.
Is this resort to media trial and protestations on both social media and street protests against ongoing litigation by lawyers an acceptable style or method employed by lawyers in the United Kingdom?
The answer to the above is a huge “no”.
Based on both my personal first-hand experience of brief legal practice in the United Kingdom and what can be gleaned online from the website of the Law Society of England and Wales.
During my years of brief legal practice in England and Wales, I handled two lawsuits at the Employment Tribunal of Central London, United Kingdom.
Both cases were unfair dismissal of my clients by the companies that both of them had worked for as accountants for over twenty years.
I was successful in one of the lawsuits and won a huge compensation for one of my clients.
For the second one, I lost the lawsuit because of the greed of the husband of my client who refused the amount of money offered as out-of-court settlement by the company. He insisted that we should continue with the lawsuit instead of settling out of court. He was convinced that the employment tribunal would awarded a bigger sum of money, even though I had advised that we better take the money offered during the out-of-court settlement.
Throughout the duration of these two lawsuits, at no time did I as a lawyer go to any newspaper reporter to feed them with facts of the case, so that they could write a headline that suggests that the companies had engaged in unlawful dismissal of their staff.
Throughout my brief legal practice in the United Kingdom, I noticed that the majority of legal practitioners are in utmost dread and respect of the Disciplinary Panel of the Law Society of England and Wales.
A lot of Nigerian lawyers who later qualified to practice in England and Wales are usually disciplined for trying to tamper with clients funds or any of the other practices that are permissible when they practiced law in Nigeria.
For example, I was a lawyer in the United Kingdom law firm owned by a Nigerian born lawyer. We had a written agreement when I joined the said law firm. But as soon as I had brought clients who were members of the same congregation that I attended. After these clients had paid, the said owner of the law firm refused to pay me the share as per our written agreement. It took the threat of reporting her to the Law Society of England and Wales before she paid me the full sum. And I later discovered that she was previously under a written caution by the same Law Society of England and Wales.
I will like to conclude this write-up be reproducing the introduction to the book, “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”
The foregoing can be said to be the contrast between legal practice in the United Kingdom and Nigeria, whereas legal practice in the United Kingdom can be referred to as “the best of times,” in contrast, in Nigeria, current legal practice can be referred to as “the worst of times”.
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