The bittersweet taste of private practice
‘It is not easy, yet with perseverance the snail reached the ark’
The legal profession, as a vast pool of opportunities, avails a legal professional skill desirable and valuable in man’s interaction and conduct of affairs with the society. This importance of the need for a lawyer’s service in gathering of people makes it possible for one to be employed in any kind of organisation, institution, establishment, agency etc to provide solutions for legal problems as they arise.
In the same vein, the vast pool of opportunities also avails a lawyer the conundrum and confusion of making a choice suitable for one’s place in the legal profession. This creates a situation where lawyers find themselves journeying on a wrong path for a number of years in search of self-discovery in the legal industry, some end up taking jobs below or beyond their optimum performance to prove a point.
The Nigerian lawyer can either be employed in government as a civilian, military or paramilitary officer, or in the private sector under the employ of a multinational, business outfit, nongovernmental organisation, or in private practice under the employ of a law firm or self-employed managing their own law firm, or partners in a partnership. Each employment comes with its benefits and challenges as is the natural happenstance of life. Our focus, however, are legal professionals engaged in private practice.
Private practice comes with a bittersweet taste on the life of a legal professional. It offers sweet gifts like freedom to handle any brief, and charge professional fees commensurate to the job; ability to become a millionaire with one brief; independence of mind to build a name, and carve a niche for oneself in the legal industry; expertise on areas of law that determine human existence from litigation, property, corporate, marine, divorce, et al.
Private practice also offers bitter gifts to a Nigerian lawyer like frequent empty pockets, unpaid allowances and salaries, black-turn-to-brown suits on working tirelessly to satisfy clients, faded T. M. Lewin white shirts from clients’ disappointment, labour exploitation with no commensurate wages from employers of labour, societal pressure and expectation of what a lawyer should be, do or become. {https://www.tmlewin.co.uk/ shirts/}
Some lawyers in private practice are employed in reputable law firms with a monthly pay cheque of nothing less than N50,000 (fifty thousand naira), a welfare package that caters for all Nigerian Bar Association mandatory fees from practicing fees, branch dues, dinner levy, capacity building and training sponsored by the firm e.g the annual general conference, bonus cheque for efforts contributed to the growth of the law firm in that year, specialized area of practice in the law firm depending on the strength of the legal professional, just to name a few.
Then again, there are lawyers employed in one-man law firms with fifteen thousand monthly pay cheque, doubling as fee earners and support staff in the law firm from Monday to Friday, responsible for their own personal development and capacity building, left to cater for their basic needs with little or no financial strength, and engaged in all kinds of practice irrespective of their strength or weaknesses from going to court, managing properties, bailing suspect from police custody, travelling to enter appearance in the various customary courts, etc.
There are two sides to a coin, hence, not every legal professional can be on the same side of the coin, neither can we all have the same slice of the cake. Some would have it good as they journey through life, some would have it bad until it becomes good, and some unfortunate ones may never find themselves again in the lost path they have taken. The same applies to private practice; it is not the current circumstance of a legal professional that determines the future.
A legal professional faced with the bittersweet taste of private practice ought not to just know the path to take, but walk the path and understand that sometimes we fail more than we succeed, but if we fail to succeed due to failure, then failure becomes our success. In the words of Colin Powell “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure” for it is never too late to get it right. Many have allowed the bitter side of private practice numb their ability to envision and enjoy the sweet side that comes with private practice.