Legal practitioners and judges of different courts in the country have blamed institutional failures of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the National Judicial Council (NJC), and the Body of Benchers for the erosion of ethics in the law profession.
Speaking at the Law Week of the Ondo chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), legal practitioners, including Yusuf Ali, Wahab Shittu and Muyiwa Akinboro, all SANs, as well as Justice Bode Adegbehingbe, blamed institutional failures for the dying ethics of the law profession.
Dwelling deeply on the theme: “Dying Embers of Professional Ethics: Blunted Sword of the Gate Keepers,” Ali, SAN identified the legal framework governing the ethics of lawyers in Nigeria, defining the core principles of professional ethics in the process.
He took a short historical excursion into the ethics of the legal profession, as well as the specific ethical rules from the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners, RPC, 2007.
He dissected what he termed the symptoms of decline, the root causes of the decline, and the consequences for justice delivery and the society at large.
The legal practitioner of more than 40 years identified the roles of the gatekeepers in reviving the dying embers of professional ethics in the legal profession, in particular, and the judiciary at large.
In Nigeria, the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners RPC lists a comprehensive ethical code mandating honesty, fairness, confidentiality, loyalty to clients, and duty to the court.
These codes, he said, “are regrettably more often sacrificed on the altar of personal interest and professional expediency.”
His words “The Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the National Judicial Council (NJC), the Body of Benchers, Law Faculties and the Nigerian Law School, Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) and Legal Elders, the Judiciary, the General Legal Community and general public, Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee, (LPPC) all act as gatekeepers”.
Ali also posited that while no one has queried the fact that integrity, objectivity, confidentiality, accountability, and competence are the core principles of professional ethics for legal practitioners, many have raised questions on how far practitioners have adhered to these principles.
He said: “Weak legal and institutional frameworks, diminishing legal education and mentorship, financial pressures and social economic realities, lack of continuous professional development, erosion of moral compass and value system, institutional failures of oversight bodies like the NBA, NJC, LPDC, peer protectionism and the culture of silence and political and economic interference in disciplinary processes, feature as the main causes”.
In his submissions, Dr Wahab Shittu (SAN) did not take a fundamentally different position from the guest speaker.
He agreed that ethics are deteriorating despite decadesold rules, adding that systemic factors contribute to the decadence.
For one, “many infractions go unreported. Clients often lack the knowledge or resolve to challenge their own lawyers, and colleagues hesitate to call out peers. In this vacuum, rogue actors operate with impunity”, he said.
“There is a dangerous ‘not my business’ attitude. We have had anecdotes of courtroom colleagues sharing tips for playing fast and loose with rules, or law firms tolerating small deception in billing. This insidious normalization dulls our ethical instincts”, he added.
While discussing conditions encouraging the loss of ethics, Shittu said “the legal market is competitive. Overwork, underpay and the lure of quick gains in an economy under strain may tempt some to cut corners.
Combined with technologies that facilitate e-filing and remote work, which can distance attorneys from oversight, the opportunities for unethical shortcuts have grown”.
In his contributions, Muyiwa Akinboro SAN, did not fundamentally detour from his colleagues; he, however, said that more actions have to be taken without delay to arrest the drift into the total ethical death of the profession.
This position was also shared by Sule Usman, SAN. A Court of Appeal judge, Justice Olabode Adegbehingbe who chaired the session, opined that “lawyers and indeed all players in the profession should be ethical in all their dealings and uphold national and global standards in their practice”.
