Every time someone merrily compares my life as a working lawyer to one of the exciting characters on Suits or whatever legal show is the belle de jour in TV shows, I want to lend the person a hand…a violent backhand.

My day began with driving to work and realising at the office gates that I was supposed to be appearing in court in the seedier side of Lagos Island. A little too late as I had already arrived work decked in a pastel pink Pink shirt, navy blue peplum skirt and nude heels, looking like a 50’s housewife on grocery day and not like a lawyer off to court.

My colleagues watched me askance, silently but obviously wondering if my black and white legal gear was somehow hidden underneath my rainbow disguise. Alas it was not. I didn’t even broker any argument, as I said to them, I was only coerced on the night before to attend court on behalf of another counsel who pleaded to be let out as he had too much work on his desk. Who doesn’t?! The privileges of seniority.

So 8:42am found me speeding towards Marina like I was Cruela de Vil and the Lagos High Court housed an endangered species of Dalmatians. I got to court, frazzled and unable to find parking space…after cursing out the mothers of all drivers in oh, just about all of the south side of Lagos city! I sat in my car and converted my polychromatic workwear into court-friendly garb, using a handy black jacket, my collarette and wig and gown. All done, I flew out of my little Ladybird in my new disguise; that of a serious human being. I was SO tempted, for no justifiable reason really, to do a Clarke Kent and tear apart my jacket, push out my chest and point to the beautiful pale pink top still hidden underneath. But I didn’t, I’m pretending to be a serious adult now you see. Instead, I stood with white horsehair wig (yes, really) in place on top of hair now primly pinned in a bun, starched white collarette, billowing black legal gown….and nude heels. Yo, the shoes could not be helped, I had to leave some personality in there…figured I’d just hide my feet from the judge as black shoes are unfortunately a requirement.

Meh!

I marched down the streets of Lagos Island (thanks to wilderness parking) with the harmattan winds playing hide-and-seek in my legal gown and making me look like an extra in the Harry Potter movie, and wondered again why the hell my firm will NOT move me out of the litigation department! The silly costume, the hot courtroom heaving with hungry lawyers, the irritating paper work, endless bureaucratic forms, ceaseless adjournments and eccentric judges with a penchant for hearing cases intermittently as though justice is discretionary, wear me out. Note to World, legal work is NOT glamorous.

People hear “lawyer’ and see sonorous, stylish, sophisticated speeches to an awed jury in a beautific courtroom rich in history, drizzled with traditional yet conservative opulence and palpitating with the combined forces of equity and justice while the comforting feeling of rightness pervades the air.

Ha!

I sat heavily on the shaky bench when I finally found the right courtroom….after running around the maze of bewigged and black-gowned negroes milling about like zombies from a Nollywood rendition of Night of the Living Dead. All the while lugging heavy files and corresponding law reports in hand (you have to show the judge the authorities you’re citing in support of your case as there are no individual court-copies of law books. Who needs a gym when I can tone my arms with heavy legal none page-turners?!).

I arrive harried but of course, the judge has not begun sitting! Why would he?! Where would he leave the theatrics of lawyers waiting desperately for the three knocks signifying his lordship’s grand appearance, for the policeman preceding his entrance, for the fluttering clerks preening and prancing as minor lords of their impoverished manor expectant of their master’s arrival? I think for the umpteenth time, that the judiciary would really be more effective if it were run as a corporation, not a cross between a bungling civil service and an amateur theatre arts project orchestrated by Unilag’s Faculty of Arts. But lawyers love this madness; they imbue the legal dramatics with a reverence I cannot grasp. All that drama, yet nothing gets done so what’s the point?

I was lucky that my matter was listed as number four on the court’s cause list. After a short hearing, my case was adjourned to the end of January 2014 (yes, it’s still December the 4th 2013) just so the court can listen to me and my opposing counsel ventilate on a minor matter which has little to do with the substantive issue in the case. And we wonder why litigation can easily run, uncompleted, for two decades.

I was lucky today, number four! Sometimes, you sit in that airless room, number 18 out of 20 cases the court will hear…of which three might be trials involving confusing and old-bones-dry subject matters. You impatiently listen to the parties drone, or suffer through the judge’s reading of his long ruling on a matter….and after wasting an entire afternoon angrily warming the bench like a footballer who’s pissed off the coach, the court rises at number 17! That’s it, the judge is not in the mood to hear anymore matters… despite the fact that you’ve just wasted your entire day waiting. Although lets be honest, they’re more likely give up at number 7 than 17! The court adjourns for an inordinate and inexplicable length of time, you might even return to the court on the new date and have the judge ask that all parties readopt their processes; in other words repeat what you did ages ago, to refresh his memory. Lawyers don’t help matters either! The court asks us to pick a new date and despite the fact that we’re in December, a counsel can tell you that his diary is full until May next year! Tales by Moonlight.

PretendingToBeBusySoILookMoreAccomplished.org.ng

Anyways, what is to be gained from this longwinded tale on the frustrations of Nigeria’s judiciary? Not a damn thing.

*Packs files and leaves court*.