By Dele Olawanle
I started my law practice in the UK in August 2004. It was very hard for me and my law partner then. There were no clients. Life was very hard.
For the first 6 months, it was a nightmare. I had to pay for the office and the staff from my savings and my wife’s salary. Those days.
I knew a lawyer very close to my office then who used to have clients queuing outside his office from 8 a.m. even though his office opened at 9 a.m. He was very busy and making brisk business.
One day, a white man who works nearby approached me and said “Dele, what type of law are you doing that people are not queuing outside your office”? I said I was doing proper law but that it takes time for a business to grow. He answered, “ Whichever law the other man is doing, we will find out one day”.
The other lawyer was just doing immigration law but I do immigration and other areas of law. He was very ‘busy’ and had a lot of clients.
There was a client who came to see me for an immigration matter and I charged him £1800 for his case and he seemed surprised. He said they directed him here but that the amount they told him was more than that. I asked him how much and he said £8000. I was shocked. I told him I don’t charge that much and he left. He was looking for the other lawyer. That was in the year 2010.
A few months later, there was a huge raid by the police and the immigration authorities on the other lawyer’s office. They took away all his files and they declared him wanted. He was a British citizen with his wife and children but of African origin. He ran away from the UK till today. He had a church he was pastoring and the church scattered. He cannot return to the UK. He would have exhausted all the money he made from the fraudulent applications by now.
Why am I warning you? It is not a lawyer’s job to look for who a client will marry. It is not a lawyer’s job to import husbands or wives for clients. It is not a lawyer’s job to get false documents for clients. It is not a lawyer’s job to arrange for a payment for a client to get a Certificate of Sponsorship. Those are criminal activities. Every UK lawyer is an officer of the court and the King. Do not commit fraud and destroy your career.
If you are doing conveyancing which has to do with helping clients to buy and sell their properties, do not take their money and run. Some lawyers have taken £200,000 to 400,000 pounds of client’s money and disappeared. Small money that was big in their eyes. Some ended up in prison and some ran away but today they are very broke. Do not do that!
Build your career slowly. Make your money little by little. Build a legacy. Godliness with contentment is a great gain. We brought nothing into the world and we will take nothing out. Do not be in a rush to make money otherwise, you will destroy generational glory.
The money I did not make then, I am making now still little by little. My babies then are now adults and are lawyers like me. Your children will do what you do. Don’t destroy their chances.
As a professional in every field, run from fraud. You will make it in due course but it takes time to build a legacy. I wish you well.
Dele Olawanle.
