The news that has been trending on lawyers’ WhatsApp forums and other social media forums is the letter written by a senior lawyer from a highly reputable law firm in Nigeria soliciting a brief from a prospective client. (It is more serious than this but I just don’t want to get into the details).
This act is highly prohibited by the rules of professional conduct of the Nigerian Bar Association. Lawyers are serially prohibited from soliciting briefs or begging for cases at all times. Lawyers in Nigeria are also prohibited from engaging in advertisements or advertising their practice. It brings the noble legal profession to disrepute.
This rule was provided for in rule 39 of the Rules of Professional Conduct and it states; a lawyer shall not engage or be involved in any advertising or promotion of his practice of the law which …..makes comparison with or criticizes other lawyers …..or includes any statement about the quality of the lawyer’s work, the size or success of his practice or his success rate.
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Briefs should come to lawyers; a good lawyer who knows his onions shouldn’t find it difficult getting briefs and don’t have to hassle for briefs. Any act of a lawyer done in order to secure a brief or a case amounts to professional misconduct which is punishable by suspension and in some cases even disbarment.
For a lawyer who is a senior counsel and a partner in a top-tier law firm in Nigeria to have engaged in this level of unprofessional conduct of writing and sending an email to the CEO of a company begging for a brief is totally ridiculous. Acts like these subject the profession to disrepute, ignominy and opprobrium.
In the email sent by the lawyer to the prospective client, part of the letter was boasting of how the Founding partner of the law firm is influential amongst politicians and judges and how the founding partner can use his affluence and influence to secure a favorable judgment for the prospective client. This paragraph is quite distasteful and ought not to be swept under the carpet. No law firm or lawyer should publicly or even privately make this boast.
The general public should know that any lawyer who engages in the practice of begging or soliciting for briefs is a rule-breaker, breaking rule 39 of the rule of professional conduct of lawyers in Nigeria which prohibit the lawyer from doing that, and such lawyer should never be taken seriously, instead, he or she should be reported to the authorities of the Nigerian Bar Association.