We must accept that legal profession is one of the important profession in the society. It is as a result of the importance of legal profession that Rules of professional conduct (RPC) is established. The rules is designed to enhance the ethics of the profession, imbibe, guide and protect the integrity and reputation of the legal profession in Nigeria.
Conversely, I discovered that in practice, the rules of professional conduct is handled by some lawyers with a pinch of salt if not totally breached. Some legal practitioner deliberately make actions in court to linger on so as to enable them continue collecting appearance fees. Some handles client’s matters with levity leading to unnecessary adjournments and sometimes striking out for want of diligent persecution.
For instance Legal practitioners offence Rule 14(1) of rules of professional conduct (RPC) of law which is to effect that a lawyer is under duty to devote his attention, energy and expertise to the service of his client and also rule 16(1) which provides that a lawyer shall not handle a legal matter which he knows that he is not competent to handle, appears for matter not adequately prepared or exonerate himself or limit his liability to his client for his personal malpractice or professional misconduct.
Recommendations
From observations while I was doing my internship programme, I hereby make the following recommendations.
1. Regular accreditation and re-accreditation of law firms by the council of legal Education.
2. On-coming legal practitioners should be encourage by way of internship allowance as obtainable in the medical profession and to serve as a good take-off and abuse pre-dispose young lawyers into sharp practices.
3. That Rules of Professional Conduct for legal practitioners be made as an act of National Assembly.
Finally, Lawyers should treat his colleagues with respect, fairness, consideration and dignity, and shall not allow any ill-feeling between opposing clients to influence their conduct and demeanor towards another or towards the opposing clients.
Also, a lawyer as officers of Court shall conduct himself in a manner that will not obstruct the administration of justice. He should also be fair and candid to the court and maintain court-room decorum. That is to say he should conduct himself with decency and decorum whenever he is addressing the court. These also, include dressing properly and observing the properly behaviour in the court. In one of the cases I witnessed in Court, a lawyer in that matter asked the judge when the cross examination done by another lawyer in matter will come to an end, because he was tired. The judge however, being a human being got angry and seriously admonished the lawyer. It was discovered in the course of admonishing the lawyer that he was not properly dressed and the judge ordered him out of the court.