New Guidelines For The Rank Of Senior Advocate Of Nigeria

The new guidelines for the conferment of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria on aspiring lawyers, has been released by the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee.

According to Punch, the new guideline contains major changes one of which is the raise of the Application fee from N250, 000 to N300, 000. This was disclosed in a copy of the guidelines, which was obtained by journalists on Sunday.
Other changes in the new guidelines include; a provision which empowered the committee to suspend a legal practitioner who is facing any form of disciplinary action, complaint or prosecution, from using the rank of SAN, pending the determination of the matter.

An earlier commencement of the application process was also introduced.
Notice for applications shall now be issued not later than January 7th of each year, unlike the previous arrangement whereby such notices were sent out not later than January 31st.

Applicants are also now required to provide certified true copies of the complete record of trial proceedings in at least five cases they handled at the High court from filing stage to judgment. This is aimed at proving that they conducted the whole trial.

Academics that are desirous of applying must now show that their publications were published by reputable publishers, whose reputation shall be assessed and determined by the Academic sub-committee.

The new guidelines retained the criteria used for evaluating applicant’s competence. These include; Integrity- 25 per cent, Judges’ opinion-15 per cent, Knowledge of Law-15 per cent, Contribution to the development of the Law - 10 per cent, Leadership qualities-10 per cent, Strength and quality of reference-15 per cent and Quality of Law office-10 per cent.