‘It is not enough for large legal firms to quote the number of black lawyers in their firm when vying for contracts,” says Mohamed Husain of Knowles Husain Lindsay, who has been intimately involved in the drafting of the Legal Services Charter. ‘Many lawyers of colour have been and are still being marginalised and kept from corporate and commercial legal work. This is one of the problems the charter seeks to rectify.”
Husain, a founder member of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers and the president of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces, says: ‘We are seeing black legal firms being merged with large traditionally white firms in order to reach the proposed target quotas. The unintended result of these quotas may well be that many black firms will simply be absorbed by the large traditionally white firms.”
But are we not then moving into a polarised position, with large firms on the one hand and relatively few small black firms on the other, empowered but at a competitive disadvantage because of their size and a smaller skills pool?
‘Yes,” says Husain, ‘but this can be overcome by ‘twinning’ — joining of hands between large firms and small empowered black firms in the commissioning of contracts.
‘This will allow for a more equitable spread of work as well as continuous skills transfer, ensuring that top skills are not concentrated in the hands of too few.”
Husain, who was the first lawyer of colour to become a director in a large legal firm in 1990, says there is already a widening of the gap between these firms. South Africa, like the rest of the world, has a shortage of skills, and the legal profession is no exception.
Husain, who has just been appointed vice-president of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, knows this first hand: ‘Corporate and commercial clients, as well as organs of state, can address this widening gap by changing their briefing patterns. But black firms have an obligation to come together and form large black firms too, which will, over the longer term, balance out the advantage the current large firms have due to sheer weight of numbers and diversity of skills. It is an important element of transformation that we build large black firms which can take their place among the blue-chip law firms which are predominantly white.”
Legal aid for all
The Legal Aid Board has shown it can deliver on its purpose: increasing access to justice for all by decreasing the number of unrepresented accused going through the legal system.
Sixty percent to 75% of cases in district courts are defended by the Legal Aid Board, as well as 70% to 80% of matters in regional courts, and 90% of matters in high courts. This demonstrates the board’s success in reaching an increasing number of poor people and helping them realise their right to a fair trial.
The board’s defence of criminal accused gives effect to the Bill of Rights in South Africa’s Constitution, which bestows on all the right ‘to be presumed innocent” until a court of law rules on the charges.
The Legal Aid Board, with 99 delivery points, justice centres and satellite offices across the country, continues to use a mixed-model system of delivery that includes private practitioners as well as co-operation agreements with NGOs involved in the delivery of legal services to the poor. The majority (76%) of the Legal Aid Board’s staff complement of 2 135 are legal professionals. — Ilse Ferriera