AVOID CUTTING CORNERS, CJ TELLS YOUNG NEW LAWYERS

By Felix Engsalige Nyaaba

The Chief Justice, Her Ladyship Mrs. Justice Georgina Theodora Wood has advised legal practitioners in the country, especially the young lawyers, to avoid the temptation of cutting corners to get quick wealth in their services as lawyers, for such practices would have nothing in good returns than to cause irreparable damage to their reputations.

She said that  God in  his own ways rewards  and honours  honest and diligent workers and that there was no need for a professional lawyer  to cut corners or give-in to the wiles of clients who come to  them bearing offers that can only be described as “Trojan horse” .
The  Chief Justice gave the advice on last Friday at a mini-call ceremony to usher in 22 new qualified lawyers to the Bar in Accra.

She noted that the practice of adversarial system of litigation has unfortunately given rise to improper conduct on the part of lawyers.

According to her ladyship, legal practitioners have the responsibility to uphold and promote the values of integrity and civility, which preserve the sanity of the legal profession.

“You should therefore imbue integrity as the hallmark of your professional practice and in all things seek to further the aims of justice,” she caveats.

She entreated the new lawyers to exhibit a high sense of discipline, tolerance and respect to their clients and to the communities  in which they lives, so they too could  have faith and respect for them and the noble profession.

The Chief Justice also called on the young lawyers to spend part of their services time to do pro bono work and assist the impoverished to obtain justice, saying justice is not for sale but to be administered on every citizen and on the dictate of the laws.

She also called on the new lawyers who could not find themselves in the private practices to avail themselves for the state agencies, especially the Attorney General Department, the Legal Aid Ghana and the Judicial Services who are all indie need of legal practitioners to assist them.

She noted that, despite the expansion of the additional campus for the country at Legon and KNUST to contain the increasing number of students who want to read law, the law school is still constrained with resources, especially infrastructure and human resources to handle the  new students.

She therefore called on stakeholders to adopt steps to solve the resource challenges facing the Ghana School of Law to enable more people to be enrolled.

This, she said was the only way to make law accessible to the ordinary citizen.

The new lawyers were sworn in by the Chief Justice and witness by some members of the Judicial Council, family members and friends.