PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND SKILLS WEEK 7 TASK

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND SKILLS

WEEK 7

TASK

Duties of Lawyers to the Court, Colleagues, State and the Profession

1.     Ade Lawal is a lawyer who was recently called to the Nigerian Bar. He lives about three streets away from his friend, Tonia Moredia who is fifteen years post-call. Tonia is a notorious socialite who attends every social gathering that she is invited to and even gate-crashes to those that she is not. Many times, she takes case files home on Fridays for matters which she shall be appearing in on Mondays but she hardly finds time to go through these. On this particular Sunday evening, she stops by at Ade’s house and pleads with him to kindly go to court on her behalf and appear as the defence counsel. She told him that the matter was for mention. Ade accepted to assist Tonia. After all, what were friends for. To Ade’s surprise and shock when he got to court, he discovered that the matter was for hearing, and that the defence was supposed to open their case. Not knowing what to do as he was obviously unprepared for what confronted him, he told the court that he was holding brief for Tonia who was the actual lawyer that was already handling the matter.

Discuss the propriety or otherwise of Ade’s response to the Court on the day in question? What is required of Ade based on his utterance?

2.     Angela Obaseki is a senior member of the Bar. She has applied for the rank of SAN on several occasions but her applications have always been turned down. Aggrieved by this fact, Angela torments many lawyers in court. She sits at the front row on her arrival in the court room and does not make an effort to move when those that are rightly meant to sit in such places arrive. She insists on having her matters called before that of junior lawyers and many times, the judges indulge her especially when she goes into the ‘story’ of how she is mates with many judges at the Supreme Court and how many lawyers in the court were not yet born at the time she was called.  One other habit Angela involves herself in is to assure clients, regardless of the nature of the case, that they shall come out successful at the end of the day.

Discuss the ethical issues in the above scenario regarding the conduct of Angela.

3.     Nobert Akindele, though highly knowledgeable, is a very impatient person by nature. This is apparent in his dealings with persons present in the court room.

Nobert, a lawyer of twenty years standing, was in court last week to represent his client, Innocent in a divorce suit. The matter had been adjourned many times at the instance of the judge. When the judge finally sat to preside over the case, the court clerk whispered something into the ears of the Judge and at that point, he had to apologise to the court, announcing the need for all counsel present to take dates. Nobert was very livid and could no longer endure one more adjournment by the court, as it had become the habit of the judge. At that point, he burst out. “Mr judge or whatever you call yourself! Who recommended you to the Bench? How many cases have you sat for this month? If you know your personal life would not enable you to function and carry out your duties as you should, you better resign and stop given the judiciary a bad name by your incompetent conduct.” With these words spoken, Nobert stormed out of court leaving even his own client behind.

i.                   Comment on the conduct of Nobert.

ii.                 Assuming Nobert was right about his comments about the judge, are his utterances justifiable? What possible redress might he have?