Why Study Law? -By Abba kyari Mohammed

There is a widespread misperception everywhere in this world that lawyers are ruthless, merciless and immoral set of people that are bent on making money regardless of religious, moral, rational and humane constraints involved in the process. Once people hear you are a lawyer or law student, they automatically see you as someone who has or is on the process of making fortune for himself through lying, manipulation and even bending the rules. People often mistaken the art of lawyering and applying logic to matters as manipulation or tricks to get what you want regardless of the factors surrounding it. In schools, eateries, homes and anywhere public, people always tag rationality, logic and due processes as lying and manipulation skills lawyers use to have things their way. In fact, in predominant Muslim societies, lawyers/law students are considered to be people who cannot make heaven. They are stereotyped as the worst set of people and as a result, many young lads who have ambition and passion of becoming lawyers and in extension the stamina and innate capacity to become even the most brightest of lawyers are systemically stigmatized and brainwashed into changing their choice profession to pursue another which the society is comfortable and well pleased with. These and many other factors are responsible for underdevelopment in our societies where law ought to play a vital role in reshaping the ideology of these societies socially, morally and politically in order to achieve optimum civilization and progress. They are also the bane of the justice system in those societies as disputants are often times discouraged and further demoralized in seeking redress from courts of law which is ideally a hope of common man in the street.

I was well aware of the societal perception and stigma when I took the bold step to enroll into a college to study law. This is even as I stay in a society whose perception towards even western education is not fully approving, a primitive society, a ghetto as it is popularly known. A society where one can be tagged infidel or philistine for wearing a suit or similar attires. My decision was greeted with a lot of backlash from family, friends and foes alike. I was told even by my closest friends that I cannot make heaven as heaven is forbidden for lawyers though jocularly, I know it is what is truly in their minds deep down. But the backlash, the affronts and even the open declarations didn’t for a minute deter or discourage me from my resolve to study law as I know and passionately believe that they all do it out of ignorance of the scriptures and the injunctions contained therein.

The society maybe right to paint lawyers all sort of things and stereotype the whole profession as corrupt, manipulative, unjust and even oppressive. It can also at some point be justified against discouraging people from seeking redress in the courts. These, I can say are due largely to the corrupt, unethical and unorthodox practices of some few bad eggs in the profession. The kind of injustice and oppression people face in courts because of underrepresentation is glaringly responsible for the apathy people have for the profession and in extension the system as a whole.

People loose their ancestral lands, some cannot recover their debts, some are illegally and arbitrarily detained by whimsical law enforcement agencies and at last cannot get redress, some are wrongly convicted for offences they do not commit, some are falsely defamed and their reputation spoiled for the rest of their lives yet without redress, some are in abusive marriage but cannot leave, killers are being freed and many more types of injustice and oppression are meted out to the underprivileged and
the destitute just because they cannot afford a service of good lawyers to present their case before the courts, just because some lawyers decided not to be just and ethical, just because the rot in the system has made it impossible for them to access justice, just because corruption, nepotism and bribery has eaten deep into the fiber of the system, so much that it only favors the affluent and privileged over paupers and less privileged. These are enough grounds for the society to have distaste towards the profession, abhor lawyers and even stereotype them the way they wish.

These are really matters of grave concern and anyone who is patriotic, who has humanity in heart and who has his/her society at heart, its progress and development cannot fold hands and allow such shenanigans to thrive. These are some of the things that motivated me to venture into the law profession as against the popular view that people study law only to make money. I can see so many opportunities to make change and better the lives of people using law as a tool, I can see opportunities to help the society in getting justice, I can see so many opportunities to contribute for humanity in law, I can see windows through which I can help to reform the rotten system, I can see hope, salvation and reform which I can help realize using the law. I firmly believe there is reward for such benevolent acts and I without any modicum of doubt believe I can make heaven on this path as against the popular backdrop among people that forbade heaven for lawyers.

And I can say legal profession is actually a two edged profession which can lead one to whatever destination one chose for him/herself and I’m telling you that law is actually a path of salvation and nobody should make you feel less spiritually or morally, instead religion, morality and humanity should be your driving force for studying law.