NBA stamp, seal will enhance lawyers’ income –Alex Mouka

What is your take on the NBA stamp which was recently launched in Abuja?It is to ensure that quacks and people who have no right to prepare any legal documentation no longer carry out business as usual; to ensure that lawyers would now have brief by client to prepare legal documents and court processes to […]

What is your take on the NBA stamp which was recently launched in Abuja?
It is to ensure that quacks and people who have no right to prepare any legal documentation no longer carry out business as usual; to ensure that lawyers would now have brief by client to prepare legal documents and court processes to prevent a situation where clients steal documents prepared by lawyers and copy and paste and use them. So this scheme when it takes off fully will revolutionise law practice and it will enhance the income of all lawyers.
What is your take on the pro bono scheme?
Lawyers are expected to do matters free of charge for people in appropriate instances. People who are deserving of legal services but who cannot afford to pay legal fees. The reality is that it is something some lawyers have been doing over the years on an ad hoc basis, when they feel like, when it suites their mood, when they feel charity but all over the world pro bono legal services have become a regulated regime.
There are two broad reasons; one, pro bono services has become recognised as a means for advancement in the legal profession, it is now one of the requirements for the Award of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).  
Two, in some jurisdictions evidence of pro bono services is a credit that can be used as a tax credit or to get such advantages in terms of other expenditure that lawyers are ordinary meant to make. Now, in order to prevent people from taking advantage of running pro bono services without properly doing them or wrongly classifying certain services as pro bono, as is the case all over the world with the legal institutions, there has been a move to massively regulate the provision of pro bono legal services. Similarly, there is a growing concern about the quality of representation that lawyers themselves put into pro bono legal service.
There is no point in a senior lawyer, for instance, taking on a case for an indigent accused person (a criminal case) and then, simply because the client is not paying legal fees, the lawyer then does not dedicate sufficient time and quality of input into doing the work, that’s not right. Therefore, part of the reason for regulating pro bono is to ensure that lawyers will devote the same quality, the same attention, the same time, energy and resources to pro bono work as they would to other fee paying work.
So the essence of the NBA scheme that was launched recently was a clearing house for pro bono legal work, as also we have an inbuilt certification scheme, so that when lawyers are doing pro bono legal work they know that there is a need for the NBA to certify that the work indeed meets the criteria for pro bono legal service.
Basically all these initiatives are innovations to enhance the practice and the integrity of the process.
With the move towards e-filing in the judiciary, how do you affix NBA stamp on the soft copy of a document?
Now, whether they like it or not, for a long time to come documents and court processes are going to be prepared in hard copy format, the stamp will have to be affixed in the documents. So for a long time to come we will still be filling court processes and submitting documents for most work we do in hard copy, the stamp most be affixed to your documents. Now, however, there is a move towards electronic filing, even with the electronic filing, the current practice is to file scanned documents or scanned copies of documents – for example. if you are registering a company, your memo and articles will be prepared in hard copy format because the subscribers must sign, the stamp must be affixed to the memo and article in line with the new scheme that has been launched.
In your opinion, who should be appointed as the next INEC boss since Prof. Jega has declined re-appointment?
I would not suggest a name, what I would say is that my expectation as a Nigerian and I believe the expectation of most Nigerians is that whoever is appointed to be the next INEC boss should be somebody who has some of the characteristics that we have seen Jega display.
Like calmness under fire, transparency, a clear perception of integrity, if nothing more, because Jega has demonstrated very admirably well in these three qualities in the recently concluded elections.
Are you satisfied with the disciplinary mechanism in the NBA?
What I would tell you is that, historically the disciplinary process within the profession has not been very strong. However, over the last three years there have been moves to strengthen the process and I can tell you that under the current presidency and going forward, we are going to see the greater strengthening of the process such that I foresee a time in the near future when issues of professional misconduct or indiscipline by lawyers would be an exception.
What is your take on the 2015 presidential election that produced Buhari?
The president-elect must be commended for his perseverance; we are celebrating his victory today but it’s very easy to overlook the fact that he could have given up very easily, it is not an easy thing to lose an election and you get up and you try again. You lose again and you try again and again for the fourth time, it’s one or two things; it either shows a desperate ambition or somebody passionate about salvaging Nigeria, so I commend him for his perseverance, I congratulate him. I also want to commend the outgoing president, it has become a given that an incumbent will use every facility at his disposal to ensure that he stays on in power, I am certain it was against the advice of the cabinet for him to have come out before the official announcement of the result, haven seen the way it was going, to congratulate Gen. Buhari, this proves his maturity. What Jonathan has done transcended national politics so I commend him. I wish him the very best.