Lawyers call for stiffer penalties in fight against quacks

Lawyers have called for stiffer penalties against quacks who have been preying on unsuspecting members of the public.

The legal practitioners who decried the surge in the number of unlicensed people acting as lawyers said the masqueraders have been approaching vulnerable clients to offer them legal counsel on various matters in court, only to swindle them millions of shillings and vanish.

Law Society of Kenya-Nairobi chapter representatives Daniel Gachau and Stephen Mbugua said some of the bogus lawyers have been impersonating certified advocates during court proceedings while others specialise in offering all manner of services including drafting property sale agreements and mediating succession matters.

Among persons found to be illegally offering legal services are former clerks for certified lawyers, law school dropouts and some civil servants who are well-versed with legal matters.

Speaking during celebrations to mark 50 years of illustrious career for Karuga Wandai, a long-serving counsel who was admitted to the bar in 1973, the lawyers called for concerted efforts to weed out the criminals whom they said not only soil their profession but also engage in economic crimes.

Having received numerous complaints from members of the public about the persons masquerading as advocates, the LSK representatives said that countrywide crackdowns for any lawyer operating without the requisite certification have started.

The officials told journalists that several quacks have been arrested and taken to court across the country as LSK steps up the crackdown with support from the National Police Service and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP).

“We owe a duty to the members of the public we serve to tell them who is a lawyer and who is not. Quacks have been in existence but these are different times. It is up to us to take up and protect our space and we are not afraid of pulling them out, publicising them and letting the law take its course when they are arrested and taken before court,” Gachau, the LSK chairperson, Nairobi chapter said.

They said the currently prescribed punishment for impersonators is not stiff enough to serve as a deterrence.

“The penalties currently prescribed in law are not stiff enough to address these concerns. To stop the surge, there needs to be a collective undertaking between LSK and other actors in the justice sectors to restore sanity to the profession,” lawyer Daniel Wokabi said.

“We are going to fight anyone swindling money from the members of the public by acting as a lawyer while they are not. If you are there and have been in the illegal business, we are coming for you. We must sanitise the legal profession,” Mbugua said.

They blamed the rise in the number of quack lawyers to Covid-19 pandemic that saw them move their services online, increased branches for a single law firm, among other factors.

“After the global pandemic struck our country, most of us left our law firms and moved our services online. We used to work remotely and let our clerks do the physical activities and we only would pop in when it was very necessary,” Vincent Githaiga, an LSK council member stated.

"I feel this is how they came to learn about the business and some decided to crown themselves the title of a lawyer even before going to school."

Wandai attributed the rise in the number of quacks to greed, saying most Kenyans, even in other professions, want to get rich overnight.

The challenge, he said, must be promptly addressed by ensuring that anyone found illegally practicing is jailed to serve as a dissuasion.

“The masqueraders are thieves who want quick money. They must be brought to book and made to serve memorable lessons if we indeed want sanity back to this profession. Lawyers must also follow the ethical principles of this career to the letter,” Wandai said.

The lawyer celebrated Wandai as their good role model, a professional who has remained true to the course, a man dedicated to serve humanity, approachable and respectable man whose career-life is worth emulation.