Unique Achievement
Abstract
Unique Achievement
You are all congratulated for today's achievement. There is no doubt you have for years been looking forward to this day. I assure you that this is not an end in itself; perhaps it is the beginning of an end. At any rate, you have now entered a new lease of life; it is a life you are to live for as long as you practise the profession of law. You will now embark on a new learning process that will be with you for ever. But do not be frightened, you are not going in for new professional examinations except those you intend to impose on yourself. You have today become barristers and solicitors of the Supreme Court of Nigeria; there is no more learning to maintain you as such professional. Rather the learning you are to embark on is that to improve your lot within the profession. It is an exciting profession and it is such that no matter what your success is, you are not bored. There may be degree of success and this depends more on how you fare:
- in relating to your learned colleagues;
2. in devoting enough time to learning;
3. in maintaining an impeccable integrity for honesty and sense of duty.
The barometer for your success no doubt includes how you relate with your colleagues. Every member of the profession from today is your learned friend. You must be open and friendly; you must manifest honesty; you must, as time permits, be sociable. An introvert rarely makes a good barrister. In Court, you must not under any circumstance withhold facts that help the Court to arrive at the justice of a case. Your goal always must be to achieve justice. Thus first and foremost, you are an officer of Court just as is the counsel for your adversary. When you have this in mind, your duty to Court will easily be discharged. What makes the difference between success and failure is how under the above enumerated duties, you conduct yourself. Some go to Court to make noise and play to the gallery at the expense of losing sight of the substance of his duty to Court. They compete for headlines in the news media. Some even like the appellations such as “renowned criminal lawyer” when he has never won a single criminal case, in some cases his handling of the cases puts his clients into deeper trouble; some are called “constitutional lawyers” when all they have done is to write in non-professional publications perhaps slightly better than a layman's opinion of what the constitution is, and in the main are not known to have won any landmark judgment in that field. Such lawyers revel in the illusion of what the news media write about them — with their photographs at social gatherings. I assure you these are noise makers, not lawyers. The likes of those you know today as highly successful lawyers really worked hard to achieve their fame. They hardly talk outside their profession. Learn from these.
