THE LEGAL PRACTITIONER OF LIGHT (2)
By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN
- Proclaim and Practice Your Faith for Positive Impact
Let people know your stand as the Light that will not compromise with darkness. Do your best to influence society positively. You must let your faith showcase excellence in all ramifications. In your legal practice, trust God for everything and in all things because you will surely need Him as you go along. On June 3 2002, I experienced a mysterious fire disaster that gutted our first functional law office and library located in Lapal House, Lagos at the time, whereupon we lost everything. We were able to overcome that terrible disaster through the grace of God, the prayers, encouragement and support of family members, church leaders, clients, colleagues and the goodwill of all. I also enjoyed divine support and favour from all men and women towards the process of my elevation to the Rank of SAN. All my court cases were accelerated and decided within record time, especially those in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The point is that with God on your side, He will raise men and women to help you succeed in legal practice and in all other areas.
- Maintain the Office Altar
It is important that you create the office fellowship for prayer, fasting and encouragement of your members of staff and also your clients. In the course of your legal practice, you would definitely meet with different people with varying forces and you must be spiritually active and divinely fortified to engage with them in the marketplace. Have daily fellowships and constant fasting and prayer sessions for divine intervention in all your matters, having done your own part as counsel. It is always good to be led by the Holy Spirit of God and to receive divine direction through constant meditations and prayers, on the procedures, styles and steps to be taken, especially when you have very difficult and complicated cases like myself. Let me share with you some prayer points that can influence your legal practice, progressively. Ask God to appoint a place for you in the legal profession, to establish you and to plant you in it without affliction or persecution. You can also pray to God specially that the work of your hands should be sufficient for you so that your legal practice should be enough to sustain you, your family, your workers, those who depend on you and to meet all your needs. Anytime you have a sensitive court case where there is perceived corruption, wickedness or affliction, either from the Bench or the Bar, you can take your pray to God to weaken the source of corruption or oppression and to take away their influence or wealth or power such that such corrupt practices will not prosper or affect you negatively. Of course this presupposes that you yourself are not involved in any such corrupt, oppressive or unethical practice. Specifically as counsel, you should always look up to God prayers, to give you the tongue of the learned so that you would receive divine utterance to know what to say, how to say it and the right time to say it so that each time you appear in court, before a tribunal or when you are making a presentation, you will flow naturally. You should also pray for divine favour before your superiors because the hearts of kings are controlled by God. Pray for theprosperity and peace of Nigeria so that you can dwell in the land safely and partake of its goodness. More importantly however, do not cease to ask for the mercy of God constantly, as that indeed is the ultimate cause of His intervention in the affairs of mankind. There are many other prayer points but I have just shared a few of them with you, to emphasize the point that it is possible to deploy your faith to influence your legal practice in such a way that society will be impacted positively. One of the good news of this commitment is that since we started our law firm in 2000, we have not lost any member of staff working with us or suffered any such calamity as to partake in their funeral.
- Diligence is Key
A lawyer must imbibe hard work and diligence, as stated in Proverbs 22:29: ‘Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.’ The world is in desperate search for legal excellence and competence. Anointing is not enough. Legal knowledge and capacity are very vital. Never stop learning, reading, studying and developing yourself. You must learn to work round the clock when the need arises, spending sleepless nights and quality time in settling your pleadings, conducting legal research and preparing for your court appearances. A client will readily engage a competent hard-working counsel over and above the one who is anointed but is rather lazy and thus incompetent. This is a trait that you will find in lawyers who have worked in established law firms like Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, of blessed memory. While working in his law office as counsel, we considered ourselves as lawyers married to law and law only, working throughout the day, the week and all the year round. On one occasion when he noticed that I was complaining of my crowded schedules, Chief Fawehinmi called me into his office to share with me an adage that if you want a job done, you should give it to a busy man. There must be a reason why the man is busy. That has kept me going ever since.
- Use Your Practice to Glorify God
Be useful to God, His work and be useful to society and others around you. Let it be a life and legal practice of impact because it is indeed a form of ministry. Give your time, talent, skills and your money to God and to the people. I believe that this is the motive for rendering pro bono legal services to indigent people and the force behind public interest litigation for the benefit of the poor masses of our people and the society, generally. When I checked through the programmes of RCCG as a mission, I discovered that they align very well with my trade of legal practice so I decided to buy into those programmes. The Weekly Services of Bible Study (Digging Deep) and Prayer Meetings (Faith Clinic) take place in the evenings after my court sessions. The Sunday Services take place on the day the courts and other offices are closed. The Holy Ghost Service is on Fridays which are mostly free days. The evangelism programme of Let’s Go A Fishing takes place during Easter and Christmas Holidays while the Annual Convention is in August during the Annual Long Vacation of the Courts. Seeing all these, I decided to be involved with the Sanitation Department of the mission, joining in cleaning the toilets and keeping the environment clean during our major programmes. I also work with the Security and Legal Departments of the Church, beside partnering with the Evangelism Department to establish mission fields in different parts of the world, with special focus on Africa Missions. Of course, you are well aware that since 2004, I have taken up pastoral assignments in different parishes of the mission, helping to mentor people and to advertise the good news of Jesus and the message of His salvation with every opportunity. Through my social media handles, I preach the gospel, offer prayers and counselling to those in need and do my best to assist people in other areas to the extent of my capacity. Try and create a good legacy, after you.
- Take Good Care of Yourself
What the Bible preaches is that you love your neighbour as yourself. You must therefore learn to practice self-love, whereby you invest time and resources on yourself as a matter of priority. Your health, your diet, your lifestyle and your appearance should command your primary attention because your legal practice and your ministry are only effective to the extent that your health can carry you. You would need to pay particular attention to medical investigations, to know your health status, to know the status of your body organs and how they are functioning. If God has blessed you through your legal practice, there is nothing wrong in taking good care of yourself by living in a good environment, be mobile, dress appropriately and neatly, watch your diet and lifestyle, take good care of your family, those working with you and people around you, generally.
CONCLUSION
A single person can make a difference in the society in the same way that he can also corrupt it. It is a decision you must make not to conform to unethical standards in the course of your legal practice in any way that will compromise your faith. If we truly live by the tenets of the messages we preach and be legal practitioners of light, society will be the better for it.
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