'Home Truths For New Wigs' By Adesina Ogunlana

When two or three new wigs gather, there complaint is! Oh my God, can new wigs complain? Before getting employed, they complain about the dearth of jobs. After employment, they complain about, well about everything.

It is either the office is too far, or the job is too tedious. Of course there is the perennial complaint about poor salaries. There is the grouse against the “tyranny” of principal counsel and the oppression by the judge/magistrate.

In the event, the average Mr. or Miss New Wig is invariably a grossly dissatisfied individual who often feels cheated and exploited by his employer, thus always out to hop on to greener pastures, all the time or at least almost all the time.
However the more likely truth is that the new wig’s greatest enemy is, oft times himself. A multiple combination of character failings render many new wigs unsuitable for the tasking field of legal practice.

Below are some of these faults.
1. LAZINESS
A typical new-wig is a firm believer in the dreamer’s axiom of “Little Work, Great profit.” Unfortunately legal practice thrives on a different parameter of remuneration which is “Great Industry, Great Success” and conversely “Little Industry, Little Success.”
A typical successful lawyer is a busy bee - always reading, always consulting, always counseling, perpetually preparing.

Working long hours is the norm in his field, partly because the field of law is vast and partly because at any time, the advocates faces two barriers, the judge and the opposing counsel. Nobody scales over double barriers, with a casual leap.
But what does our “Just-called-to-the-Bar fellow want? He wants to have a life of pleasure, comfort and relaxation, of breaking very little sweat.

To such fellows, poring over case-files is a pain, studying law reports and researching authorities, a horror, not to talk of drafting and re-drafting processes, a high crime.
What our new wig wants is to spend a few hours in chambers reading soft-sell magazines or leafing through one or two documents before checking out for break and after another hour or so, close for the day. If he goes to court, he hopes to be out of the premises of the court-house before 11.00am.
And as their ilk argue, “Too much stress spoil fine boy!”
The lazy new wig cannot bear working on in the office beyond 6.00pm. And except the sun rises in the west and the moon turns pink, he will never be in the chambers on a Saturday.

Work for weekend? Tu fiaka! Am I a slave? Mr. Jelenke lawyer queries and even further-“How much are they paying me sef?”
No senior counsel employs a junior in the hope of nursing a liability. The junior is expected to add value to the chamber, and a continuous asset for that matter.
Clearly a lazy bone junior is no way an asset to his employer’s chambers. Rather he is a liability and in some situations, worse than a curse. My advice to lazy bone junior lawyer is to set up shop themselves, where they’ll be masters and mistresses of their own and even more important, take things easy. When that happens, water, as they say will quickly finds its level. To be continued…