Learned friend: Why the legal profession stands out

By Tichawana Nyahuma

Based upon the above definition, it then becomes doubtful that anybody who is trained in a certain trade or calling may be said to belong to a profession. It seems that professionals or professions are only lawyers and doctors in private practice because apart from possessing certain specialised training, they are also governed by the strict rules of conduct imposed by the relevant self-governing body and that they operate as individuals with virtually nobody to report to. They are individually liable for the consequences of their actions. Further, once they are done with the client or patient’s case, as the case may be, that will be the end of the relationship. The lawyer or the doctor attends to the client/patient’s matter completely without the expectation that the same person will return in future with some more “business”. In fact, it would be an act of misconduct for the doctor or the lawyer after concluding /treating the client or patient’s case, to make any insinuations indicating that the client or person should return tomorrow with a new case or ailment.

Away from court decorum, lawyers are unlike any other professionals you can think of on planet earth. Lawyers, judges and magistrates are not like doctors, nurses, architects, accountants and any other so called “professionals”. This is because they are expected to know everything under the sun. It may be said that doctors know everything about the human body and medicine, accountants know everything about accounting, engineers know all about their particular fields of trade, and so on and so forth. The situation is somewhat different with lawyers. At law school, aspiring lawyers are taught how to understand and interpret the law. By the time they finish the course, they will know how to understand the client’s case, where to locate the applicable law and how to interpret and apply that law. That is why in court, a lawyer is able to question and cross question a witness who is a ‘professional” in his own trade to the extent that the witness will end up agreeing with the lawyer that what he, the witness, thought was a certain state of affairs was in fact not so.

Learned friend: Why the legal profession stands out

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