Funke Adekoya, SAN Advocates ‘Success Fees’ For Lawyers

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mrs Funke Adekoya, has urged
corporate organisations to pay their external counsel “success
fees” for cases they handle.

A success fee is the added fee that a lawyer is entitled to if
his or her client’s case is successful.

Mrs Adekoya decried the payment of “peanuts” to external counsel
by corporate organisations in some instances, such as N300,000 as
legal fee for litigations involving claims worth millions.

“In-house counsel seem to be averse to success fees. If I win a
case, give me success fee,” she said.

The SAN spoke in Lagos at a breakfast meeting with heads of
legal departments of corporate organisations, organised by the
Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Section on Legal Practice (SLP).

Its theme was: “The Legal Practitioners Act and Commercial
Transactions”.

Mrs Adekoya, who is SLP Council member and International Legal
Practice Committee chairperson, pointed out that while most
companies respect the scale of fees of other professionals and pay
them accordingly, they usually engage in endless bargaining with
lawyers.

“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys,” she said, urging
corporate lawyers to ensure that their external counsel are well
paid to enable them meet their training and manpower development
needs.

The meeting was an opportunity for in-house lawyers to share
their expectations of external counsel.

They spoke of the need for external counsel to provide the sort
of quality services that foreign lawyers give.

They also urged law firms to put their houses in order, as some
de-market themselves by not being thorough and professional.

Others spoke of the need to treat each other with respect and
work together collaboratively rather than undermining each
other.

Speakers highlighted the need to bring the Legal Practitioners
Act up to date with modern realities, especially as regards the
duties of in-house counsel.

SLP Professional Ethics Committee chair, Folashade Alli, noted
that some rules of the profession have become outdated and need to
be amended.

Prof. Kanyinsola Ajayi (SAN) urged lawyers to equip themselves
so as to remain on the cutting edge. According to him, legal
practice is suffering from disruptions through technology, with
legal services being commoditised.

Mrs Funke Aboyade (SAN) said it was not dignifying for corporate
organisations to insist that external counsel must attend their
training with threats to strike their names off their lists if they
do not.

SLP chairperson Mrs Miannaya Essien reminded corporate counsel
that foreign lawyers are not allowed to practice in Nigeria. “If
you’re aware of the rules and you don’t take the necessary steps,
you’re also guilty of misconduct. If you don’t like the rules, be a
part of that change,” she said.

Also calling for better pay for external counsel, she added:
“In-house counsel will retire. If you pay external counsel poorly,
when you join us, you will also be paid poorly.”

Mrs Essien told reporter that the event was organised as a forum
to engage with in-house counsel. “We felt it was important to have
an engagement with in-house counsel– legal advisers, company
secretaries and people, who are in the business of providing
in-house legal work. We thought it would be best to have it as a
private engagement,” she said.

She recalled that the NBA had raised the issue of foreigners
practicing law in Nigeria, emphasising that such would not happen
without the companies allowing it.

Mrs Essien was of the view that a lot of work in-house counsel
do takes a lot work away from younger lawyers, leading to
complaints that young lawyers are not getting enough work.

“So, if we’re able to draw the attention of in-house counsel to
some of the things they cannot do, we do believe that it will
create more work for young lawyers and we do need to make more work
available for young lawyers,” she said.

SLP Treasurer, Mrs Boma Alabi, who earlier spoke of the need to
review the rules, told reporters that the corporate counsel were
invited to the short breakfast meeting because they hardly had time
for conferences.

“The plan is that we’ll be having an event every month between
now and August when this team will hand over. That will be in
different parts of the country. They will be on topics that enhance
legal practice,” she said.

On the meeting’s outcome, she said: “We have agreed that we’re
on the same side, which is an important milestone. It’s not them
against us; it’s lawyers on the same side. That was established. We
recognise their challenges, and they also recognise ours. We gave
each other feedback.

“In-house counsel are our colleagues and our clients. To that
extent, the interaction told us what we have in common and how to
build on them for better practice and better service delivery.”

On the rules, Mrs Alabi added: “The current legislation
certainly needs to be improved on and it’s in our best interest for
all of us to work together to improve it.”