The Nigerian Lawyer

That was the hue and cry at the Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association. It was a proposition that was slipped in at every opportunity. To understand the depth and intensity of this cry and the resulting reaction, an appreciation of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) is necessary.

The Conferment of the rank of SAN sprung up as an equivalent to the Queens Counsel of England. The first lawyers to be conferred with the rank were Chief Fredrick Rotimi Alade Williams and Bekinbo Graham-Douglas in 1975, which was when the rank was established.

The rank is conferred by the Privileges Committee and is awarded to lawyers who are 10 years or more at the bar. However, conferment is not automatic and since it is a privilege, the rank is not one that is of right; in other words, no one has the right to be conferred with the rank of SAN. Certain conditions need to be met, such as the number of cases handled and the number of Court of Appeal and Supreme Court appearances, to mention just a few and even at that, conferment is totally at the discretion of the Privileges Committee.

Once a lawyer has been conferred with the rank of SAN, he/she becomes a silk wearing member of the Bar. This comes with quite a number of privileges some of which are the right to be heard out of turn at Court and the best seats in Court. One other indirect privilege the holder of the rank enjoys is the best and more lucrative cases are usually for the picking.

So one might ask, why would lawyers wish to eradicate such an honourable icon of accomplishment? There may be several reasons for the abolition of the rank of SAN, but the loudest was the method of conferment. Since the conferment is solely at the discretion of the Privileges Committee, there is obviously little transparency about it all. The general opinion seemed to be that less deserving lawyers were being so honoured while earnest, hard working and deserving lawyers were being overlooked, despite countless applications. There were murmurs and words such as ‘politicizing‘ and ‘cartels‘ were bandied about. The call for the abolishment of the rank became so heated that the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) at the recently concluded Annual General Conference (AGF) had to institute a technical committee to investigate the call and report to the National Executive Council (NEC), the ultimate decision making organ of the NBA.

What would such a move, should the NEC act on it, mean for legal tradition? Apart from the obvious halt of a thirty-plus-year tradition, the younger lawyers would be the most affected. It would mean for some, the draining of a legal wellspring of inspiration. There are some law students who from their first year at university, dedicated their toils and candlelit vigil over tomes to the eventual donning of silk. What would the abolition of the rank mean to their hopes and dreams? What becomes the determinant of excellence in the legal profession? Not to say that the rank of SAN right now is the sole determinant of excellence in the profession, but there is the presumption of excellence which comes with the silk robe. Is abolition really the answer or should we focus more on reformation?

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