Nigerian Lawyer Shamed In U.S.

Hello Friends!

Every Lawyer knows better! You MUST obtain a licence to practice the Laws of that jurisdiction.

...Just wondering what he was thinking. Fruad I guess...

Each day I pray that the good Nigerians out there who are honest and making our nation and their families proud, would be known in every way...We know they are many...Not few.A Nigerian lawyer, Mr. Gbenga Anjorin, who had handled hundreds of cases, has been barred from practising law in Michigan, in the US because he operated without a license..

Anjorin read law at Obafemi Awolowo Universisty, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Southwest Nigeria and graduated in 1992 before he travelled to the US to practise.

The Detroit Free Press reported that Anjorin had handled court-assigned cases, appeared in civil suits and even monitored the federal terrorism trial of jailed Nigerian bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up an airliner in Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.

Now holding the distinction of being disbarred before he ever got a state law license, Anjorin said on Monday that he is appealing his disbarment and declined to comment further.

“I’m going to wait until after the decision is made on my appeal,” he said.

But the problems are just beginning for the courts where Anjorin handled cases.“Mr. Anjorin is our Nigerian nightmare,” said presiding Judge Timothy Kenny of the Wayne County Circuit Court’s criminal division, where Anjorin managed to get paid $9,645 as a court-appointed lawyer in more than 50 cases between 2009 and 2011.

“We’re still sifting through the files” to identify and contact the defendants, most of whom pleaded to low-end felonies, such as minor drug possession, Kenny said.

“The first priority is the clients now in prison. Of the first six, five of them, after meeting with lawyers from the Legal Aid and Defenders office, decided to stick with their pleas struck with Anjorin, Kenny said. “The sixth is talking it over with his family.”

The defendants can withdraw their pleas and start over. But Kenny said they should “be careful what you wish for” because any previous deals or offers now could be off the table.

“It’s back to square one,” he said. “For those who already have prevailed, there will be no re-examining of their cases.”

Anjorin also collected $2,625 as a court-appointed lawyer in Wayne County juvenile court.

He appeared on larger stages as well. He attended some of the early court proceedings for Abdulmutallab and identified himself to international reporters as an observer on behalf of the Nigerian government.

The Nigerian embassy did not respond to questions about Anjorin.

Anjorin’s extraordinary and illegal courtroom career in Michigan, now under investigation for possible criminal prosecution, came to a crashing end in 2009 over five crates of kola nuts.

“I had no knowledge that he was not an attorney,” said Stephanie Marino Anderson, his opposing counsel, in the kola nut case.

Anjorin’s courtroom clumsiness wasn’t a tip-off, she said, because there are lots of lawyers who don’t appear to know what they’re doing. Instead, she said, some questionable documents Anjorin submitted to support a claim against her client about the ruined load of nuts sent up red flags.

A complaint to the state’s Attorney Grievance Commission led to the discovery that Anjorin was not licensed to practice law in Michigan. The commission charged him with violating his limited license.

“I was shocked and a little bit appalled that the bar association allowed him to have a P number,” Anderson said.

Anjorin was authorised under a special license from the State Bar of Michigan to give legal advice about Nigerian law. The limited license as a special legal consultant included what is called a “P number,” the five-digit identifier fully licensed Michigan lawyers all have.

Occupying a little-known niche, there have been just 14 special legal consultants in Michigan since 1988. And last year, Anjorin was one of just four in the state.

The limited license authorises lawyers with foreign accreditation to give legal advice about their homeland to clients in Michigan. It does not make them lawyers approved to practice in Michigan courts, a limitation that was not part of the bar association online listing.

Since the Anjorin case, the bar association has changed its handling of special legal consultants. The five-digit P number has been replaced with a four-digit LP number, and the online directory states they are “ineligible to practice law in state court matters.”

Anjorin used his P number to sign up for seminars so he could get approved as a court-appointed attorney, a lawyer paid with public money to represent indigent clients in criminal cases. He also set up a website offering legal services for divorces, international laws, immigration, traffic offences and his self-proclaimed specialty of drunken driving cases.

He also filed a case in federal court in 2010, but it went inactive after he was notified that he must join the local federal bar association.

Anjorin’s special license was stripped last month after a one-day hearing in December before the Attorney Discipline Board. Representing himself at the hearing, he said he believed he could take cases involving U.S. laws that were similar to Nigerian laws.

He tried much the same argument when questioned by Kenny, saying both the Nigerian and American systems were rooted in English common law.

It didn’t persuade the panel, nor was it a winning proposition for Anjorin when he met with Kenny.

Losing his license may be just the tip of his problems. Court officials are collecting information for a possible criminal investigation and forwarding it to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, which declined to comment or confirm the investigation.

The December disciplinary hearing seemed like a slow-motion confession, according to records of the proceedings.

Anjorin admitted he handled many criminal cases, and by his own estimation he took “like a thousand” traffic cases.

“I’ve prosecuted my duties very diligently, “ he told the hearing panel. “There is no doubt of the fact that in the district court of the Wayne County, I’m one of the leading DUI lawyers.”

He said he strayed from his own guidelines for taking only Michigan cases that paralleled Nigerian law because there is no DUI law in Nigeria.

Anjorin lamented that “unfortunately it’s probably what I know how to do best in the state of Michigan.”

In his failed plea to the discipline panel, Anjorin said he had won a lot of cases.

“I look at it this way, “ he said. “It would be inequitable; not only that, it would be repugnant to equity and good conscience just to send me packing, I mean to debar me because of this violation.”

In his final plea, Anjorin said he should be able to take some makeup courses because he was misled by the rules governing his limited license: “I feel like I’ve wasted four years.”

But he told the panel that he said would make things right: “I would urge this panel to make a necessary rectification and to make me a state attorney. That’s my recommendation.”


Culled from PM News.


xoxo
Simply Cheska...