Lawyers are turning against the very people they vowed to help, leaving victims hopeless and stripped of their rights.
It seems the suffering of people whose rights have been violated will continue unabated because lawyers appear to be no longer interested in assisting them.
I have written many stories about people who approached lawyers to report civil cases, hoping they would assist them to find justice, but to no avail.
I am talking about medical negligence victims, train accident victims, victims of illegal arrests and people whose children were injured due to the negligence of schools.
As I called some of the victims one by one recently, I got the shock of my life when I found that almost all of them did not get help from the lawyers.
Instead, the lawyers reportedly turned against them, while some paid lawyers who did not even make an effort to assist.
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Some complained that after they handed over documents relating to their cases, the lawyers stopped communicating or became rude.
Most of the people claimed the lawyers cut communication after sending letters of demand to the accused parties.
Surprisingly, the fight turned from a commitment to find justice for the victims to a squabble between the lawyers and the clients.
The people said they tried to report the lawyers to the Legal Practice Council (LPC), but the entity sided with the lawyers.
One case was of a woman whose nine-yearold son got paralysed after the acid obtained from an unlocked school laboratory entered his ear as they were playing.
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The kids thought it was paint. The incident happened in Phororong Primary School in Khutsong, Carletonville, in 2022.
The mother approached the lawyer, who reportedly cut communication later in 2023.
In frustration the woman approached the LPC, which failed to assist her as well.
She is now looking after her paralysed son and does not even know how the case is progressing as the lawyer’s office is no longer taking her calls and not responding to her e-mails.
To make things worse, the lawyer is refusing to hand over the files to her new lawyer.
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Another complainant, Mabutana Radebe from Polokong in Sebokeng, lost his legs in a train incident.
The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa paid nearly R8 million, but his lawyer kept the money in his trust account while Radebe lived in poverty. His family reported the matter to the LPC, but nothing was done to compel the lawyer to release the money.
When reached, Radebe’s legal representative could not give me straight answers.
He was rude and even threatened me.
It is about time that action is taken against lawyers who harass their clients.
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According to data released last year by the LPC, more than 500 cases in which lawyers were accused of embezzling more than R1.4 billion of their clients’ money from trust funds had not been prosecuted.
It also revealed that only 59 convictions were made in seven years and just 25 resulted in jail time.
When I was young, I used to respect lawyers and the legal profession, thinking they loved assisting people whose rights had been violated, but what I witness today erodes all the trust and respect that I had.
However, much as we have some rotten apples in the profession, I believe we still have some good lawyers.
The LPC and other relevant bodies must get their house in order and be honest and fair when handling squabbles between lawyers and their clients. Something needs to be done to save this vital profession.
