It looks like the bad news was kept for until after our parents have spent the money on University, PLT and Board Exam. Most people I know have learnt only after being admitted to practice that the legal profession in itself is not very lucrative.
Sure! You see Attorneys living in big houses and driving expensive cars, but in many cases the money for these things did not come from legal work. Even the LSSA at the time of my PMT (Practice Management Training) told us that many of us would end up supplementing our income with additional business ventures because law practices do not make as much money as we would like to believe.
So- many of us have a farm, a rental property or some other source of income to supplement the income from our practices.
Unfortunately some of us easily fall for the temptations of illicit income...
These temptations tend to find us quite easily as we are often placed in an environment where we see exactly how clients and wrongdoers make money and hide it. The truth about schemes such as convincing clients to invest in risky schemes for your own benefit, which is easily forgotten, is that we know about these schemes only because the perpetrators got caught.
Throughout my time in this profession to date I have been kept from risking my career being ended by dishonest means of making money by the simple fear of being struck from the roll. I have spent far too much time preparing for my admission and could simply not develop the skills to do any other kind of work. Once I was admitted this profession took up almost my entire life...
Once an Attorney is suspended from practice pending the application from the Legal Practice Council he is not allowed to take on any work from clients and he may also not receive any payment from clients whatsoever.
The success rate of appeals against suspensions and ultimately being struck off is not high at all. Also- none of the precedents in case law with regard to applications for re-admission have I seen the applicant succeeding...
Fortune favours SOME of the bold. The others are not so lucky...
Concerning you, the client, it is important for you to know why your Attorney receives money from you and what he does with it. Unless you give specific instructions that money goes straight into the Attorney's trust account from where the Attorney's fees are paid or the money is paid back to you.
That money does not earn interest in your favour. If you know that you will have money kept in trust for months before it gets used you will have to instruct the Attorney in writing to invest the money in an interest bearing account where the interest accumulates in your favour.
The money in an Attorney's trust account is at least insured by the Attorneys' Fidelity Fund in the event that it gets stolen. Just know- however- that bridging finance is specifically excluded from the events for which the funds are insured. You and your Attorney should know better than to use other people's money to buy a house while you are still waiting for your loan's approval...
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