RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT FOR LAWYERS HAS A FORCE OF LAW

RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT FOR LAWYERS APPLIES TO WHEN A LAWYER IS ACTING IN A LEGAL PRACTITIONER CAPACITY

Generally it is common knowledge that the Rules of Professional Conduct in the Legal Profession were made pursuant to the Legal Practitioners Act. There is no doubt that many other professions such as, Medical and Dental Practitioners, also have their rules guiding their members professional conducts. It should be noted that the acts being guided by the rules under consideration are that of lawyers and the documents to be affected are only documents being presented to be prepared and being filed by lawyers. In other words, even for a lawyer to be directly affected by the rules in question, he must be “acting his capacity as a legal practitioner, legal officer or adviser of any governmental department or Ministry or any Corporation.” In the same vein, for any document prepared by a lawyer acting in any of the above capacities, to be required to conform with the rules stated above, such document must be a “legal document” that falls within the listed documents or any other similar documents.

– O. Ariwoola JSC. Yaki (Rtd) & Anor. V. Senator Bagudu & Ors. (SC.722/2015, 13 Nov 2015)

COUNSEL (APPEARING FOR HIMSELF) WILL HAVE HIS MISTAKES VISITED ON HIM

In Kotoye v Saraki 1995 NWLR (Pt.395) 256, in circumstances where the party (who is also a legal practitioner) took a decision not to appeal. Uwais J.S.C (as he then was) at Pages 7 and 8 said: “Any act of gambling involves risk taking and no gambler can claim not to be aware of that. When a counsel makes a mistake, such mistake or its consequence should not, in general, be visited on his client who, in most cases is a layman. Can the defendant/applicant who has been or is a legal practitioner be such a client? I certainly think not. There is therefore, no good reason given for the delay bringing this application.”

NATURE OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CLIENT & COUNSEL

The nature of the legal relationship between Counsel and his client, which exists in this case between plaintiff and PW1, his Counsel, is one of an independent contractor and not one of principal and agent. (See Performing Right Society Ltd v. Mitchell &.Booker Palais de Danse Ltd (1924) 1 KB 702 at page 365 per McCardie J). It is not that of master and servant. Counsel is clearly not a servant of his client. It is accepted that where a client gives specific instruction to Counsel, such instruction must be adhered to. Where the nature of the specific instruction is in conflict with the manner of discharging his professional skills and interferes with his control of how to conduct the case of his client, Counsel is entitled to return the brief to his client. Counsel who is in law, the dominis litis is not bound to obey any such instructions. It is in the exercise of his apparent general authority in the discharge of his professional duties to his client, to have complete control how such instructions are to be carried out, and over the conduct of the case.

– Karibi-Whyte, JSC. Afegbai v. A.G Edo State (2001)