By Desire Emmanuel
The National Industrial Court has ruled that it is not the responsibility of a law firm to pay for the Bar annual practicing fees of a lawyer in its employ, saying it remains a personal statutory duty of the lawyer.
Justice Olufunke Anuwe of the Abuja Judicial Division of the court said this while dismissing the case filed by one Kolade against her employer, a law firm, seeking to compel the firm to pay her annual practicing fees, as the judge said the case lacked merit in its entirety.
The judge ruled that in the absence of an express term in the contract mandating the law firm to pay the practicing fees of the lawyers under its employment, such action is simply an act of magnanimity of the law firm and not borne out of any statutory responsibility, and such payment cannot transform into an enforceable obligation against the law firm.
According to court documents, the lady had asked for determination whether, having regard to the combined effect of Sections 8 (1) and (2) of the Legal Practitioners Act, and Rules 9, 11, and 12 of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2023, a law firm that engages legal practitioners as full-time employees and derives exclusive commercial benefit from the legal services they render in the firm’s name and on its behalf, is under a legal obligation to bear the financial responsibility for the payment of their annual practicing fees.
She also sought an order directing the law firm to bear the financial responsibility for the payment of her practising fees throughout the duration of her employment with the law firm.
However, the law firm argued that the Legal Practitioners Act imposes the duty to pay annual practicing fees on individual lawyers alone, and that no statute requires an employer, including a law firm, to assume that obligation.
It stated that Kolade would still have paid her annual practicing fees personally if she were not an employee of the firm.
In addition to her salary, the law firm contended that it also provides a quarterly bonus and end-of-the-year benefits to Kolade, and that the relationship between her and the law firm is contractual and based on the terms mutually agreed to between the parties, and the parties did not at any time agree that the it will bear the responsibility of paying Kolade’s practicing fees.
On the other hand, Kolade’s counsel, Tunde Adejumo, argued that the annual practicing fees her client had paid were to enable her to render services for the law firm, that is, the law firm that receives professional fees, retainer income, and commercial rewards on account of her labour.
He described as unjust, inequitable and unfair for the law firm to earn legal fees from the services his client renders, but abdicating responsibility for the statutory and financial obligations that enable her to provide such service legally, and the fact that the law firm benefits from her client’s practice makes it equitable for the employer to bear the cost.
He therefore urged the court to hold that the employer should bear the financial burden tied to his client’s professional qualification.
Delivering her judgment, Justice Anuwe, stated that the Legal Practitioners Act and the Rules of Professional Conduct place the responsibility to pay practicing fees strictly on the individual lawyer seeking to practice.
She held that in the absence of any statutory obligation imposed on the employer to pay the legal practitioner’s practicing fees, the only other way the employer of a legal practitioner can be under the obligation to pay the fees is where it is agreed in the employment contract for the employer to pay the money.
Justice Anuwe said that Kolade did not place anything before the court to show that the law firm had a legal or contractual obligation to pay her practicing fees, noting that the court cannot rewrite or expand the terms of an oral contract to impose duties contrary to statute.
The judge further stressed that since no statute or term of the employment placed the burden of paying practicing fees on the employer, there was no legal foundation upon which the claimant’s case could stand.
