By
Ayuk Kure
Email: kureayuk@gmail.com
‘Beauty and Brains’ is perhaps the term that best describes her. She is the perfect blend of elegance, wits and yes, excellence. She exudes confidence everywhere she goes and her carriage is with such dignity, splendour and glory. She articulates her views in any debate with tenacity of voice and veracity of words that sometimes even as an opposing party you have no choice but to nod in agreement with all that she has said. In short, she is the ideal woman every man contemplates to have for a wife and the perfect employee every employer would love to have in their employ. Her name is Rose and she is a lawyer
Although her name seems to suggest that life has been all rosy for her alas that is not so. She has actually had her fair share of the vicissitudes of life and she has probably had it more rough than anyone else out there. She was born on the hill side of the Shiroro Dam in Niger state and her father was a principal station officer at the Nigerian Hydro Power Station at Shiroro. Her father was a very hardworking man and she was very close to him. She told him often how that she would love to be a lawyer some day and her father would in his characteristic style say to her: “Rose, you can become anything you set your mind to become. Only make sure that whatever you are, you are the best”. Well, Rose’s life continued to be rosy until that fateful day when she returned from school and was told that her Dad, Mum and only sibling had been electrocuted in the power surge that came from the hydro power engine that was just recently replaced. This shattered her world and made her future very bleak. Soon after her family was buried, the government officials came and drove her out of the house to go find somewhere else to stay. That night she slept in front of the gate of the house she once called home. The heavy downpour that came that night all started and ended on her frail body. For this, she vowed to become a lawyer that will fight the cause of helpless and poor employees who are often the victim of unfair and disdainful treatment of wicked and unsympathetic employers.
The proprietress of her school eventually took her in and promised to sponsor her to any level of education. She sat for the WAEC examination and she aced it. She was the best in the whole federation and she was awarded the WAEC scholarship for excellence to study domestic and international labour law in Harvard. She soon became a force to reckon with in her class and for her excellent grades she got an opportunity to intern in the best law firm in the United States of America, Samanta cobbler partners. The firm had some of the best lawyers in the United States and the principal partner was qualified to practice law in twenty-seven (27) countries including Nigeria. According to what Rose was told, the firm attained this enviable status because of its regular advertisement in the print and news media. Wikipedia even has it on record that the firm dedicates a whopping sum of 2 billion dollars to advertise its services annually in the print, news and social media. Since the firm was steep into labour matters and wanted to showcase its expertise in the area, the best person they could think of to do the advert was Rose. On T.V, Rose poured her heart into advertising her firm. Her words were pungent, inviting and compelling. She spoke with so much passion that at the end of the advert, the firm received over a hundred thousand calls from prospective clients from all over the world. That one advert brought the firm so much fortune that it has never seen in all its 20 years of existence.
Rose finished summer cum laude from Harvard and came back to Nigeria to have her law school where she also graduated with first class (honours). Several law firms wanted to employ her but she was not willing to work for anybody. She wanted to establish her own law firm and continue her fight against the unfair treatment of employees in Nigeria. With the funds she gathered from the US she started Rose Jones & Co., Legal Practitioners and solicitors in the heart of Victoria Island, Lagos. The firm’s slogan read: "the best commercial law firm in Nigeria: where we stand, others squat”. The firm’s address and slogan were boldly written on a large sign post placed outside the office building.
In order to further improve the corporate image of the firm, Rose established an advert unit in the firm to champion the firm’s drive for more clients. When her attention was drawn to the provision on advertisement; she said that that was an obsolete provision that could not stand the test of modern day legal practice. She called it primitive and barbaric and must be expunged from the rules of professional conduct with the force of radical agitation. She further said that that provision was a facade –it was government’s attempt to keep new wigs chasing after paid jobs and an attempt to keep law firms in Nigeria from showcasing their true capabilities. She therefore urged everyone to calm down and follow her lead as that provision was navigable. Before long the firm of Rose Jones & Co was on every television screen advertising their expertise in domestic and international labour law. In fact one of the advertisements on biawazo T.V. read:
“One ogbonge law firm don land Naija o! Him name na Rose & Co., Legal Practitioners & Solicitors. Your oga dey beat you for work? Government don carry you money chop? No fear again! The ogbonge law firm don show! Them get lawyers when go fight your oga and them no dey fear government. Them sabi this work pass anybody for this country! And the good thing na say you go pay only shikini moneeey!”
This advert brought the firm so much publicity and fortune that they soon became the envy of other law firms. The likes of Nigerian Labour Union (NLU), Nigerian Union of Professional Teachers (NUPT) and the Consolidated Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Association (CMDPA) all engaged the firm as a result of this advert.
Recently, a petition was served on Rose, the Principal Partner of Rose Jones & Co. by the chief sheriff of the Nigerian Supreme Court on allegation of infamous conduct in a professional respect. She is alleged to have engaged in advertisement and soliciting which are both clearly prohibited by the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners. Now, she is in a dilemma as to whether her conduct amounts to a professional misconduct given that that rules 39(1) of the Rules of professional Conduct clearly says advertisement is allowed. She is also in a conundrum as to whether the Supreme Court has the power to try her in the first instance on the alleged offences.
She needs your legal opinion.
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