by 
By Dr Abdullahi Saliu Ishola
Backgrounds:
Fellow Nigerians, beware of fake Legal Services from authentic lawyers. In the spirit of the renewed hope which all Nigerians (politics aside) are looking up to as from May 29, 2023, when the new President of the country will be sworn in, I have decided to reveal this Top Secret to all Nigerians. There is great patriotism in not allowing one’s fellow countrymen to be cheated by any body, not even by members of one’s same profession.
Fellow Nigerians, as you look out for NAFDAC Number in foods, drugs, and other consumables you want to buy, I am here going to reveal to you how you can look out for fake legal services from your lawyers. I mean services rendered by qualified lawyers; I am not talking of fake lawyers. The truth is that so many people have enjoyed or may even still be enjoying fake legal services from their lawyers, and they will still be thanking the lawyers and see him as being generous and considerate to them. So many Nigerians get fake legal services from their lawyers while they feel happy about it and would even still be full of thanks to such lawyers.
The lawyers are however not to be blamed because such clients, like any lover of fake items, are looking for cheap legal services and for such lawyers not to lose out completely, he would take whatever the clients can offer and hand over fake legal services to him (if one lawyer fails to give such fake services, another would gladly do). I am glad that all Nigerians now have a clear tool they can use to understand when any lawyer wants to merely collect their money and render to them fake legal services. That is the Top Secret I want to reveal to my fellow Nigerians.
Secrets You Must Know About Lawyers and their Services.
By the nature of their training and the job they do, lawyers can hardly offer you free services, which can be truly free in the real sense of the word, except in few circumstances. Thus, do not approach your lawyer with the expectation of free legal services, if you do, what you will eventually get (which you can never know) is “fake legal service”. The bitter truth is that the better you pay your lawyer, the more authentic the services he would render to you would be. The few circumstances when you can be sure that your lawyer truly wants to give you a free service are as follows:
When he undertakes the services as a moral duty, he owes you due to your relationship, especially as close members of the same family and he also has a vested interest in the works. Thus, even if the lawyer is a member of your family, say your brother or sister or even your child or parent, but the work you want him to do for you is personally beneficial to you (for instance to prepare land document or other business document for you) if you don’t want to get fake legal services, gladly be prepared to pay him as he may mutually and happily concede to you.
When he renders his legal services to you as a form of community service or under the umbrella of an NGO or Government Institution; you will get free and authentic services from him on that occasion as well.
When his services are parts of his own contributions to a joint project in which he is also involved. When he categorically reveals to you the minimum charges which he is required by law to collect from you in order to render authentic legal services to you, but he voluntarily requests you to pay certain lesser amount, conceding some amount to you. For instance. instead of charging you 10%, he concedes to you 5% and asks you to pay 5%. However, if after such concession, you are still asking him any lesser payment, if he agrees with you, just know that what you will eventually get will be a fake legal service and you cannot blame the lawyer for that. The consequences of fake legal services may not be so imminent, but it will certainly arise one day in the future.
When he is the one that approaches you to offer his services to you free of charge, when your conditions demand that you should be assisted (may be subject only to asking you to take care of incidental expenses).
How to Detect and Avoid Fake Legal Services: Your Secret Code
You know how you can detect and avoid fake products, right? For Muslims in countries where the Halal Certification has become institutionalised, you can easily identify products which are not lawful for Muslims to consume by looking out for the Halal logo. How then can you detect that what you want to get from your lawyer is fake legal service and avoid it?
First, let it be your mindset not to look for free or cheap legal services from lawyers, That is your best bet; your “Fake Legal Services Avoidance Technique” which always allow to guide your relationship with your lawyers. Thus, when you are undertaking any business or make any purchase of items or putting up any project or you want to engage a lawyer for legal services, always prepare legal fees as part of your indispensable expenses. For instance, when you are buying land or landed properties, always ensure that you set aside the due fees which the law requires to be paid to your lawyer and avoid playing smart in looking for means to surcharge the legal payment. Once you cultivate this attitude towards legal services, you can never be a victim of fake legal services. Remember, a lawyer properly paid, is a lawyer that properly serves.
Two, be well equipped with the knowledge of the minimum fee which a lawyer, depending on his years of call to the Bar and depending on whether he is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) or not, must charge for the relevant services he wants to render. Let me reveal a very big secret to you on the legal way you can get a cheap but authentic legal service. In order words, if you are a lover of cheap legal service that would still be authentic, just look for a lawyer with short years of experience at the Bar (i.e., young lawyer or baby lawyer). Another secret is that, in terms of cheaper legal fees, young lawyers who can render such authentic cheapest legal services are those who are less than ten years at the Bar. Once a lawyer spends ten years and above at the Bar, he has become a Senior lawyer in terms of the fees he can charge. But it is needless to state that, you cannot compare the experience and competence of a senior lawyer with that of a young lawyer. Thus, the choice is yours!
Third, more importantly ad much more revealing a Secret which every Nigerian must know to detect and avoid fake legal services is that lawyers’ charges for their “authentic legal services” are well regulated by a Code. Get a copy of the Code stating the minimum which your lawyer must charge you. If any lawyer is accepting less than the minimum stipulated by the Code, run away from him because what you will get from such a lawyer will be fake legal services. The name of the relevant Code as recently reviewed and widely circulated is LEGAL PRACTITIONERS (REMUNERATION FOR BUSINESS, LEGAL SERVICES AND REPRESENTATION) ORDER, 2023 [referred to in this Article as “Code”]. This Code is a legal document of just 20 pages. It is the Secret Code through you can detect if your lawyer wants to accept just any amount for your and give to you fake legal services.
Let all Nigerians be informed that various legal services which may be required from lawyers have minimum charges below which your lawyers must not allow you to pay except if he wants to render to you fake legal services. One big secret which so many clients do not know is that lawyers also make different returns from the fees they receive from their legal services, such as their payments of Annual Practicing Fee (APF), Personal Income Tax; Rents; Office Expenses; etc. It is only when they render fake services that they will conceal the money received from you, refuse to make necessary legal returns and thereby not able to give you authentic legal services.
Henceforth, another secret that will make you detect easily if the legal services which your lawyer will offer you is fake is when he does not inform you in writing (for instance asking you to fill a designed form) what you are required to pay in accordance with that Code. Order 5 of the Code is very emphatic that, for any lawyer that renders authentic legal services to any person, his “remuneration shall not be lower than the minimum set out in the relevant or appropriate Scale” of charges. Lawyers are to keep record of their charges. So if there is no record stating the amount charged, you should demand for it and if he refuses, then you should know that what he will give you would be fake legal services.
Let me clarify another point that would make you know that any lawyer that accepts less than the minimum charges allowed under the Code will do so only when what you will get from him is a fake legal service. This is because it is compulsory for every lawyer to comply with the minimum fee set out in the Code as failure to do so would amount to professional misconduct (which is like a professional offence). Order 8 of the Code is very unequivocal on this when it provides as follows:
(1) The fees chargeable for any business or service conducted by a legal practitioner are as prescribed in the Scales set out in the Schedule to this Order and they are not subject to negotiation except as prescribed in this Order.
(2) A legal practitioner who contravenes the provisions of suborder (1) of this order is liable for unprofessional conduct and shall, without prejudice to the provisions of this Order be liable to such punishment as may be prescribed by the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee.
From the portions underlined above, Nigerians should know that lawyers that would accept to do works for them for peanuts which other lawyers would not accept from is doing so because he is ready to render to them fake and illegal legal services which can put them into trouble in the future. They should avoid such.
While this write up is not enough to explain exhaustively the minimum charges which lawyers will charge when he wants to render authentic legal services to his client, it is worthwhile to clarify the minimum charges for authentic legal services in respect of preparing land Agreement be it Deed of Transfer or Deed of Conveyance as well as Tenancy Agreement which are common services which many people usually engage lawyers to do for them, (which of course must be done by a lawyer for them if such transactions must be legally valid).
How to Detect When Your Lawyer will Prepare Fake Land Agreement/Title Document for You
It is common for so many people who buy land or landed properties to think about legal fees as the least significant expenses they should bear. Someone who get money to buy a property worth of millions would still be looking for a lawyer that would “help” him prepare the Agreement. This explains while such people would be doing “Legal Services Shopping” by which they would be sampling legal charges from one lawyer to another to eventually settle for one offering or accepting the cheaper fee even when the document to be prepared for them would eventually be fake. Therefore, it is important for you to understand what your lawyer must charge you, at the minimum, for you not to receive fake services from him. How to know this is very simple and clearly stated in the Code.
To start with, there are three Indices which will determine the minimum which your lawyer can charge you. These are:
(i). his age (whether he is above or below ten years) or status (whether he is a SAN or not) at the Bar;
(ii). the nature of the Services involved; and,
(iii). the State within which the lawyer’s practice (law firm headquarters) is located or the State where the Legal Services to be rendered will be carried out. In this regard, the 36 States of the Federation and the FCT Abuja have been grouped into three Bands as spelt out in Order 14 of the Code as follows:
“State band 3” includes Federal Capital Territory and Lagos State;
“State band 2” includes Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau and Rivers States;
“State band 1” includes Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Bauchi, Borno, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kastina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara States
Accordingly, the first step to take to guide against getting fake legal services from your lawyer is to ask him about his age at the Bar if he is not a SAN, simply to know if he is above or less than ten years at the Bar. Then you should consider his place of Practice or the place where the legal services to be rendered to you would be executed. After this, you should be clear about the category in which the services fall. However, there are some services where all these considerations are not relevant as all lawyers are mandated to charge in the same within the same minimum fee regardless of their age at the Bar and status as a SAN. This is with regards to Land Agreement/Documentation.
Accordingly, both State Bands and Years of Call are not relevant for charges in matters of land agreement. What is considered is the cost of the land or property purchased. Thus, as can be seen on page 13 of the Code under Scale Table 4, for land/properties whose cost/value is less than N50, 000, 000:00k (Fifty Million Naira), the minimum charges that must be paid is 10% of the Cost/Value. For those whose cost is between N50, 000, 000:00k (Fifty Million Naira) and N100, 000, 000:00k (One Hundred Million Naira), the minimum charge is N5, 000, 000:00k (Five Million Naira) for the first N50, 000, 000:00k (Fifty Million Naira) and 5% of the remaining balance. For properties whose value is above N100, 000, 000:00k (One Hundred Million Naira), the minimum fee payable is N7, 500, 000:00k (Seven Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira) for the first N100, 000, 000:00k (One Hundred Million Naira) and 3% of the balance.
Whenever lawyer easily offers to charge you contrary to the above for your land agreement, you should know that what he would prepare for you would be fake, a product of fake legal services. Therefore, caveat emptor; let buyers of legal services beware of fake services.
Conclusion
All Nigerians should be determined that as we enter a new dispensation under a new President, they will rise against fake legal services from “hungry lawyers.” They should do this by getting determined not to be parties to cheap and free legal services which birth fake legal services. They should be resolute to always do the needful which make them get authentic legal services from lawyers by making payment for their legal services within the minimum required by the law. Above all, as required under Order 11 of the Code, let everyone be a vanguard against fake legal services by reporting erring lawyers working against Nigerians to enjoy authentic legal services. Let reflect on that Order 11 which states as follows:
A person who, has knowledge that a legal practitioner has charged or agreed to a remuneration in contravention of the provisions of this Order shall report such legal practitioner to the Remuneration Committee of the bar and the branch of the bar where the legal practitioner carries on his practice, which shall investigate the infraction and upon a prima facie case being made, report the erring legal practitioner to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee.
About the Writer:
Dr Abdullahi Saliu Ishola is currently a Research Fellow (post doctorate) at Centre for Islamic Economics and Finance (IKAM), Istanbul University, Turkey. He is a Senior Lecturer, Department of Islamic Law, Faculty of Law, Kwara State University, Malete- Nigeria (KWASU). As a community service, he is an Adjunct Professor (pro bono), Department of Islamic Law, Faculty of Law, Pen Resource University, Gombe, Gombe State – Nigeria. He can be reached at asishola1@gmail.com and +2347038998357 (WhatsApp).
