- Odhiambo's stance comes after Attorney General Justin Muturi decried the state law office's acute shortage of state counsels.
- Muturi said in the Mombasa region, for example, one state counsel handles 400 files a year, terming it unacceptable.
Image: FILE
The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) has called on the Attorney General to prioritize younger lawyers in the anticipated mass hiring of state counsels.
LSK's vice president Faith Odhiambo said that this year alone, some 2,000 fresh lawyers were admitted to the bar adding that they should be given preference in the hiring to help them get proper career take off.
Her stance comes after Attorney General Justin Muturi decried the state law office's acute shortage of state counsels.
This, he said, has forced the counsels to handle numerous files and this affects the quality of service they render to the public.
Muturi spoke on the sidelines of the third Africa Region conference of the Association of Commonwealth legislative counsels in Mombasa.
He said that in the Mombasa region, for example, one state counsel handles 400 files a year, terming it unacceptable.
Signalling mass hiring of advocates for the role, the AG said the cabinet recently greenlighted the devolution of attorney general offices to the counties.
His office will harmonize with the Public Service Commission on who is supposed to oversee the hiring, he said.
“We are slightly below half of the establishment. I’m supposed to have 20 to 30 lawyers and state counsels in Mombasa because of the amount of workload in the area. One person handling 400 files per year is unacceptable,” he said.
Odhiambo, who is gunning for the LSK presidency in the February 2024 election, said hiring young lawyers is critical in improving the quality of state representation in court in the interest of the public.
“The concerns of the Attorney General are timely and accurate. Indeed, there is only so much an overworked, underpaid and outnumbered staff can do, however patriotic or diligent they may be. I am sure most practitioners in litigation against the state or state agencies encounter the same faces and names from the AG's office in the variety of matters they handle,” she said.
She said more state counsels will mean matters move swiftly in courts as several applications for adjournments will fall.
“The government needs to actualize the upscaling of the staff at the AG's office to ensure the soaring demand is met. Against the backdrop of thousands of new Advocates being admitted every year, this should not be an uphill task. This year alone, I have attended the admission of over 2,000 budding legal minds to the bar,” she said.
Odhiambo goes further, suggesting that “there should be automatic incorporation of a percentage of [newly admitted advocates] into the state law department every year” as state counsels.
“This will ensure continuity of the office, maintenance of standards, and ascertain opportunities for the thousands of unemployed advocates in our country. It is a win-win for everybody, more staff, more balanced allocation of duties, and consequently better output,” she said.
Besides raising the number of state counsels, the lawyer and lecturer asks that their working condition and remuneration at the state law office be improved.
“…. the packages received by staff at the AG's office need to be improved. We cannot ignore that the Advocates working at the AG's office forego what they would otherwise earn as commercial practitioners.”