Seniority at the Bar: A shield or sword?

The importance and impact of the legal profession in every enlightened society cannot be overstressed. How well these fundamental elements have served their usefulness can be better minored and understood from the effects emanating from the legal profession. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, the Bar is defined as the whole body of lawyers qualified to […]

The importance and impact of the legal profession in every enlightened society cannot be overstressed. How well these fundamental elements have served their usefulness can be better minored and understood from the effects emanating from the legal profession.
According to Black’s Law Dictionary, the Bar is defined as the whole body of lawyers qualified to practice in a given court or jurisdiction; the legal profession or an organized subset of it. The simple inference from the definition is the synonymity of the Bar to the legal profession. It is apparent that the Bar is closely associated with practice in a given court or jurisdiction.
According to Black’s Law Dictionary, seniority is defined as (1.) “The preferential status, principles, or rights. . . .” (2.) ‘The status of being older or senior’. What distilled from the two sets of definition is that seniority is a status. Chambers 21st Century Dictionary (revised edition) defines seniority as “a privileged position earned through long service in a profession with a company.”
Though the bulk of legal practice in Nigeria is generally within the premises of the judiciary and court system, however, the scope of legal practice is far wider. The other areas of legal practice other than litigation include transactional, arbitration, medical law, advisory and legal journalism, which has gained momentum lately in terms of print media, employing lawyers to write columns on legal matters to enhance concerted and integrated journalism.
Apart from litigation, the latter form of practice rarely emphasizes seniority as of essence. The court system is predominantly passionate about seniority and the Bar is the medium of accentuating the fundamental element of seniority.
A peep into the rules of professional conduct for legal practitioners 2007 is pointedly loud on how lawyers are to be treated among one other.
Section 26(1) of R.P.C. states:
Lawyers shall treat one another with respect, fairness, consideration, and dignity, and shall not allow any ill feelings between opposing clients to influence their conduct and demeanor towards one another or towards the opposing clients.
Section 26 (2) of RPC states:
 Lawyers shall observe among one another the rules of precedence as laid down to this: All lawyers are to be treated on the basis of equality of status.
According to subsections 1 & 2 of Section 26 of R.P.C. mutual respect, fair consideration and dignity are obviously not negotiable guidance on how lawyers are to treat one another. Before the law and besides the rule of precedence, all lawyers are to be treated on the basis of equality of status.
However, the above is in contrast to what is obtained in practice. What young lawyers often experience on daily basis around the courtrooms is in complete variance to what the rules of professional conduct direct. Where is the majesty of the law? Instances abound where senior lawyers, those who are privileged to have been called to the Bar much earlier, exert the idea of seniority in the best ways they perceive.
These include getting larger share of appearance fee, whenever they even deem it necessary to share or altogether, pocket the appearance fees as a justification for being in the lead; Scorning young lawyers when they commit blunder in proceeding; Paying counsel stipends or paying nothing at all in the excuse that, “what does a new wig know?”
Other examples include seniors sending young lawyers on errands with inadequate or no transport fare, or sending young lawyers on errands which a messenger or secretary in the office could do. To the young lawyers, equal treatment before the law is a myth or a sort of mirage.
From the foregoing examples, the idea of seniority only conveys taking advantage of the system. Seniority to the ‘seniors’ is more of a sword to protect, project and promote personal agenda and interest. Seniority in short is an instrument or means of offence rather than means of shielding and stirring the posterity of legal profession by motivating new wigs on the path of honour and tolerating the so-called “nuisance” or the inadequacies of up and coming futures of the profession, having been there and can feel how the shoe pinches.
Without looking at the legal and academic scope of the word ‘status’, it is important to state that it conveys both rights and responsibilities. If our seniors will maximize all the rights and privileges conferred by being senior, it also behoves on them to discharge in full the corresponding responsibilities, which include fairness in terms of reward in kind and cash, overlooking blunders of new wigs and calling to order any cocky conduct in them.
By adhering to the above suggestion, seniority will indeed serve as a shield to ensure that the purpose and the cardinal principles attributed then to the legal profession are fostered and invariably, young lawyers will have every reason to accord greater esteem to seniors.