Modern day legal practice

“You never know what’s around the corner unless you peek. Hold someone’s hand while you do it, you will feel less scared.” – Amy Poehler   The legal profession as practiced today is the same as practiced before the coming of technology and modern trending legal concepts like partnership, mentorship and virtual law firm. New […]

“You never know what’s around the corner unless you peek. Hold someone’s hand while you do it, you will feel less scared.” – Amy Poehler

 

The legal profession as practiced today is the same as practiced before the coming of technology and modern trending legal concepts like partnership, mentorship and virtual law firm.

New generation lawyers, due to fear of the unknown, follow the norm in establishing a practice for themselves. We find lawyers opening firms with only a lawyer; that is the principal partner, and a secretary (some do not even have a secretary) and we expect the legal industry to have a different outlook than what obtains today.

Many of us make the mistake of thinking that the change we desire in the legal profession ought to come from someone or somewhere prophetic, neglecting the fact that it is the little drops of activities of the firm.

Bill of charges: Professional fee is the reason why we are in this business in the first place, yet it is the most informal arrangement between clients and lawyers. The mistake we often make is negotiating our professional fees orally without documenting same and sending to the client for reference. I stand to be corrected, there is no brief too small for a bill of charges, even if a lawyer is going to secure the bail of a suspect in police custody, once the family has been informed of the cost, such lawyer should take along his bill of charges to present to the family.

Pay before service: Many times we see lawyers going up and down for the sake of a client, with a high possibility that such client is yet to mobilise the lawyer for such service. After the whole stress, the client begins to explain to the lawyer how his family is in one financial emergency or the other. This can all be avoided once a lawyer presents a bill of charges and demands a certain percentage to be paid before commencing work.

Billing: Another major issue affecting the growth of the legal profession is the billing system adopted by some legal professionals. There is an erroneous belief by laymen that “senior lawyers always handle matters better than younger lawyers” (whether this is right or wrong is subjective). Imagine a junior lawyer charging N100,000.00 for incorporation of a company limited by shares, and a senior lawyer charging N50,000 or N70,000 for the same job, who do you think the client would go for? This module of billing affects the generating power of younger lawyers in the profession.

The change we desire in the legal industry does not need rocket science to achieve; all that is needed is the will to hold the hand of another colleague and take a peek at the corner where new things abound. Although some institutionalised law firms do the aforementioned, they are few to make a difference. We need all hands to the plough to revolutionalise the face of the profession, and it can be done, if only we put our minds into it.

Godspeed!

 

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