Clients and patients

Client and patient are terms used to qualify a person receiving service from a legal or medical practitioner respectively. Although some medical doctors call their patients clients. For the purpose of this discussion however, client refers to the customer of a lawyer, while patient to the customer of a doctor. It is believed, and I […]

Client and patient are terms used to qualify a person receiving service from a legal or medical practitioner respectively. Although some medical doctors call their patients clients. For the purpose of this discussion however, client refers to the customer of a lawyer, while patient to the customer of a doctor.

It is believed, and I stand to be corrected, that both legal and medical professionals are into the business of saving lives. The lawyer ensures that we live in a fairly sanctimonious society; where man does not eat man and where survival is not for the fittest, while the medical doctor works to keep your body healthy.

When you have an issue at the Accident and Emergency (A&E) of a hospital, you do not find lawyers there but doctors saving lives, and even if you find a lawyer, he will also be a patient.

Sure, if you need someone who knows how to draft documents, enforce human rights and protect personal liberty, you get a lawyer, but if you need someone who knows how to set your broken leg, you get a doctor.

It is important to note that lawyers and doctors are equally important in the existence of humanity and contribute maximally in their own ways to the livelihood of man. So when I visited a hospital recently, as a patient, and saw the crowd that came in to seek medical attention, I was forced to ask myself, “If lawyers do indeed save lives also, why do our law firms not get clients on a daily basis the way hospitals get patients?’

When I asked this question on a social media platform, the answers I got are worth sharing:

Emmanuel Adeji – “The Nigeria Police have taken the job of legal practitioners; they take complaints, make arrests and judge cases, while doctors protect their jobs same way they protect their patients.”

Abayomi Usamot said – “The police are doing lawyers’ job nowadays as most cases do not get to court.”

Chukwudi Ezeukwu – “Nigerians actually listen to their pastors more than their lawyers and doctors?”

Yor Hynex – “The treatment in a ‘lawyer’s hospital’ takes years to heal and so many patients in the lawyers hospital are yet to get treatment for many years now. Lawyers hardly give free medical supplies, and there are no more incorruptible judges.”

There are points in the observations above. Firstly, the legal profession does not protect its brief from sharks outside the profession the way medical doctors protect their brief. For instance, the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) keeps advertising that Nigerians can incorporate a business without a lawyer, and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) is doing nothing about such attack on our briefs.

Secondly, police stations have been transformed to law firms and courts. Even a lawyer is sometimes manhandled and disrespected by the police, with no consequences for their action. The Nigerian man is more afraid of rifle and detention than enforcing his/her rights through the court.

To who much is given, much is expected and respect is reciprocal. Therefore, for society to accord us the respect we deserve as lawyers, then we must begin by changing the perspective of society. We must reclaim our place as the last hope of the common man.

The Nigerian needs to understand that the law is there for his/her protection. Someone may ask, “How do we fix it?, and I will say through the courtroom. The court is the most powerful tool in gaining public confidence in the judicial system. Our judges must show the world that they adjudicate matters based on the evidence placed before them, and not based on ethnic or religious affinities.

Justice delayed is justice denied. Operators and players of the Nigerian Legal System ought to put hands to the plough and find solutions to delayed proceedings. We should upgrade the system fully to digital as the number of years it will take the system to digitalise is shorter than the years analogue system will cost justice dispensation.

In summary, medical practitioners protect their earnings and image, the legal profession needs to engage in serious rebranding to put food on the table of its members.

Godspeed!

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