HEADING: THE MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION
OF THE LAW FIRM WHERE I WAS
PLACED.
Law office attachment is one of the requirements a
student must meet in order to be called the Nigeria Bar. Consequently, I was
posted to the Ministry of Justice, Warri,
Delta State in order to develop my layering skills and the ability to reflect
on and learn form experience among others.
The above Law from is managed by Barr.
G.T. Nwogu with the help of four (31) other lawyers. That is to say that the
law from practices sole proprietorship type of practice or Law office. The
other 31 lawyers are experienced to some extent that they can handle a law suit
without the assistance of the principal in Court for instance; the externs in
the firm normally go to Court with some of these lawyers without our principal.
Also, it should be noted that each of the lawyers has a particular case
assigned to him or her and any time each goes to Court without the principal,
he or she must report to the principal.
The office has a general diary kept
with the secretary of the firm. The essence of the general diary is for the
lawyer to keep with the secretary adjournment dates in respect of cases, they
are handling. It should also be noted that every lawyer in the firm has his own
personal diary for the purpose of recording dates of adjournments. There is
also a list containing the names and phone numbers of all the lawyers in the
firm including that of the principal. This makes it easier for anybody to have
access to any of the lawyers any time. Also in the firm is a list containing
the amount of money chargeable as transportation fee depending on the distance
of the Court from Warri. It should be that the law firm does not have an
account.
The principal handles most of the
criminal cases in the firm. This is as a result of his experience in the area
of criminal law and also considering that he has many years of experience in
the legal profession. Also, most of the lawyers in firm normally handle such
issues as motions, adoption of written address, and bail applications. This is
as a result of their level of experience in litigation processes.
The management and organization of
the above Law firm like any other law firm is not without challenges. One of
the major challenges in the management of the above law firm is the in ability
of some Lawyers in the office to intimate the secretary about the adjournment
dates in the cases they are handling. This has caused the firm not to appear
for some clients in their cases especially when the lawyer in question did not
come to the office on that particular day. However, in order to solve this
problem the principal made it mandatory that before any lawyer could collect
his own percentage of the transportation fee, he must register with the
secretary the adjournment date in respect of the case he did in Court.
Another major problem is that the
firm does not have a bus to convey some of the lawyers to Court, considering
the fact that most of the cases in the firm are outside Warri judicial
division. This has always contributed to the first problem, because some
lawyers normally go home with the case form of the Court each time they traveled
long distance to do a case because they have to join public transport, they go
to Court very late and some times after their cases have been called in Court.
However, in order to solve this problem, these lawyers have inculcated the
habit of leaving their respective homes very early in the morning even before
6:30 am most of the time. This is because they do not have their private cars.
In all, it is my humble opinion that
the management and organization of the above chambers in relation with client’s
cases is good. However, the principal should be more serious in condemning the
attitude of some lawyers in the firm on how they handle some cases. For
instances one of lawyers in the firm that I followed to High Court 2 Warri had
another case at the High Court 5 same day. At the end of the day, he did only
the case at high court 2 because he could not be in both Courts at the same
time. There should be a stringent way of checking this kind of situation to
avoid future recurrence.