Poor Remuneration of Lawyers: Young Lawyers are the worst hit – Maximus Ugwuoke

A frontline aspirant of national position of Nigerian Bar Association, Ikechukwu Maximus Ugwuoke has commended the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) for adopting a new scale of fees for Ghanaian Lawyers and urge the current leadership of the Nigeria Bar Assocation (NBA) ably led by Olumide Akpata to follow suit without further delay in adopting a new scale of fees for the NBA.

Ugwuoke made this appeal in his reaction to the recent  news report of the adoption of new scale of fees by Ghanaian Bar Association.

In his words; “I am aware that the  the NBA President set up a committee in March 2021 with a mandate to devise feasible ways of improving the poor remuneration of Nigerian lawyers. The committee was tasked among others, with the responsibility of designing an enforceable framework, under which lawyers will charge the right fees for their legal services using acceptable metrics.

“I am also aware that early this year,  the said committee had submitted their recommendations to the  President of the NBA who had  promised to submit  the recommendation of the said committee to  the National Executive Committee of NBA. And this was the last we have  heard of this issue.

“I am particularly happy that the President of the NBA had noted that Standardisation of fees and poor remuneration of legal practitioners in Nigeria are probably two of the most controversial issues that successive administrations of the NBA have faced, but not necessarily addressed holistically.

“Consequently I urge his administration  to do all it can to address these issues decisively at this time in spite of the limited left of their tenure so that  the good efforts they had put into this all-important issue of welfare of Nigerian  lawyers would not have been in vain. His administration has done well in so many areas and their decisive action on this would be maximizing the welfare of Nigerian lawyers and be adding  more feathers to the cap of his administration..

” Nigerian Lawyers are not immune to the hard economic realities bedeviling our dear country. Lack of standardization of fees and poor remunerations for legal services have continued to rob lawyers  in Nigeria the opportunity of earning befitting fees from their legal services .  The young lawyers are the worst hit.

“The  members of the bar  have been waiting for the NBA to act on these issues in spite of it’s complexities.

“The recent adoption of new  scale of fees by the Ghanian Bar Assocation should be a source of encouragement to NBA that this milestone is also  achievable with the Nigeria Bar Assocation.” he said.