ADAPTED,
Just thought it was worth sharing.
I
was once privileged to be with some older members of the legal profession
sometime ago. These men were called to the Nigerian bar a couple of years
before I was born. They talked with so much mirth about the remuneration of
junior counsel. They criticized the perspective of new wigs and said all that
they always thought about was money and not building a solid career. After
chattering about this, they talked about their next trip to the US and how they
intended to toss their cases to their juniors to handle while they are away.
The men were three thick men clad in the traditional buba and sokoto. It was a
Friday afternoon and they had decided to give their expensive suits a well
deserved break. Their potbelly protruded from all dimensions in their attire. I
loved it! “If these men could have potbellies, then there’s hope for the skinny
me,” I thought to myself. However, once I took my leave, I began to think
seriously about everything that had happened.
In
the practice of law in Nigeria, the remuneration of junior counsel has been an
issue of debate again and yet again. The new wigs argue from the stand point of
sheer exploitation while the principals use the defence of pupilage. Principals
argue that because the new wigs learn to be “real” lawyer using their resources
– clients, cases, resources etc, they don’t deserve a fat remuneration. They
argue that what the new wigs/junior counsel need is focus on building a solid
knowledge base of the practice of law. This is always their defence for
victimization too. Their definition of hardwork is, you, a junior counsel,
staying up till 11pm or even doing a sleep-over at the office to ensure that
the multi-million dollar briefs are cashed-in. actually, they wouldn’t mind if
you came in on weekends too. To these principals, that is the definition of
hard-work. They don’t particularly care if you learn, just get the job done.
Period!
I
am not against hard-work; in fact, my mantra is “destiny demands diligence”.
However, I believe things should be put in perspective. If you are going to run
me like a beast of burden by making me work long horrid hours, the least you
can do is to remunerate me well enough to make me want to feel my being used is
justified. I am talking about a commensurate remuneration but remuneration
enough to make me smile as I work. The junior loses his beauty sleep for weeks
because of a brief and at the end of it, the principal smiles to the bank with
cheques of millions of dollars and then the junior is offered a pay-packet less
than $400 with a pep talk about how fortunate he should consider himself. In my
honest opinion, that is nothing short of slavery – a modern form of
slavery.
I
once interned with a firm where lawyers were being N25,000 while the principal
acquires cars and travels every summer. On one of the briefs I worked on at the
time, we made a profit of $1.6million dollars for the firm and that was all in
one transaction! It was a case of contract between a Nigerian company and a
German company. Several briefs worth millions of naira were under the arms of
the Principal. Just as you may have thought, it was a sole proprietorship.
Though he drives his junior counsel so hard to help him rake in his millions,
he believes that all they deserve is less than $200 per month. In my own opinion,
I believe that the theory of pupilage is overused and barely makes sense.
Doctors on housemanship are so green on the job and that is why their licenses
are temporary till the housemanship is over. Yet for the one year of
housemanship, they earn nothing less than $1000 per month.
Law
is glamourous because we make it look so. The first generation lawyers set a
high social profile for the profession and today we all struggle to fit in even
though the decorum and civility associated with the profession is fast fading
away. Lawyers are perceived to be cash-carriers. Lawyers are always rich; many
people believe that. My in-laws hear their daughter is engaged to a lawyer and
they beam with smiles and I heard my father-in-law heaved a sigh of relief: “at
least she’s going to be in safe hands,” he must have thought to himself. Safe
in that context means “he can provide all she will need”. How safe will she be
when the pay is just $250 per month. Principals seem to forget that junior counsel
have their own lives, dreams and challenges too. My in-law’s family awaits my
official visit, perhaps they await my show of affluence; who knows. They don’t
know that law practice isn’t always what seems on the outside. I am sad I might
disappointment them.
Following
this issue of poor remuneration, many junior counsel focus more on private
practice than their bosses’ briefs: it’s the only way they truly survive.
Many junior counsel plan to get out of their current firms to set up their own
firms and they swear to replicate this harsh treatment on their junior counsel.
They call it paying one’s dues. I guess the vicious cycle has just begun. With
this remuneration issue still this poor, I doubt if I will ever add more flesh
let alone get a potbelly. I can only try.*sighs* In all, whether I earn $150
per month or I earn $1,500 per month, I have learnt to abase and abound.
Above
all, I have learnt to be grateful.
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