CAN LAWYERS HAVE TWO JOBS?
By Dickson Jere
A lawyer had two jobs.
He was running a private law firm as well as working as company secretary for a company. A dispute arose over his benefits at the point of exit and the company refused to pay him saying he had another job in a private law firm that was equally paying him.
That arrangement, it was widely believed, was illegal and against the Legal Practitioners Rules of the Law Association of Zambian (LAZ) – the governing charter of lawyers in Zambia. Because of the perceived illegality, the company argued that the lawyer cannot be paid his dues.
That prompted High Court case in which the lawyer sued the company but lost as his “two jobs” arrangement was found to be illegal and against the LAZ Rules. He then launched an appeal in the Court of Appeal.
Can a lawyer have two jobs? That was a vexing question that a panel of three Judges had to determined early this month.
Widely believed, lawyers in employment (in-house), were not supposed to work in private law firms. But that has now been clarified in a 30-page Judgment delivered on 8th April 2022.
The Court of Appeal believes that one can work as a private lawyer and at the same time be in full time employment!
“In our view, (the rule) does not stop an advocate in private practice to also work for another institution or company either on full-time or part-time basis,” the three-man panel ruled.
“We must state that the legal profession has evolved over the years, in that the scope and number of supplementary occupations in which advocates are permitted to engage are considerably wide,” the Judges noted, adding that lawyers were only stopped from engaging in other occupations that may affect their reputation.
The Court then analyzed the evidence and concluded that there was no evidence to suggest that a lawyer who was company secretary as well as running a law firm had failed to perform his duties or indeed his reputation was tainted.
The Court went further to state that the LAZ Rules only stops lawyers who have been appointed to hold public office such as Ministers, Attorney-General, Director of Public Prosecutions, Solicitor-General or indeed any office in government, from running private law firms.
“If the intention was to prohibit all legal practitioners employed as in-house counsel from engaging in private legal practice, the framers of the rules would have expressly stated so,” the Judges said.
The Judgement is seen as landmark especially among in-house counsel but will certainly trigger debate from private legal practitioners especially those who held a strong view that in-house counsel cannot have a private law firm or practice as such.
Very interesting jurisprudence in this Judgment which will change the landscape of the Zambian law as far as private practice is concerned.
For full details; Read the case of James Mataliro v Occupational Health and Safety Institute – Appeal No. 106/2020