Twenty students passed with first class out of a total of 4,350 successful candidates who participated in the March 2021 Bar Final Examination of the Nigeria Law School.

The Director General of the Nigerian Law School, Professor Isa Ciroma, disclosed this while presenting the successful candidates for July 2021 Call to the Nigerian Bar, to the Body of Benchers on Wednesday in Abuja.

Mr Ciroma said that a total of 5,770 candidates sat for the March 2021 Bar Final Examination.

”Total number of candidates who participated in the examination were 5,770 and out of the number, 4,350 candidates were successful with 20 recording first class,” he said.

The professor said that the figures represented 75 per cent success of the final examination.

Mr Ciroma assured that the institution shall continue to remain the gatekeepers of the law profession, adding “as teachers, and administrators, we will continue to uphold the standard and integrity of the Bar.”

Summary of the result showed that 432 candidates made Second Class Upper, 2,174 made Second Class Lower while 1,724 others had pass.

The school had on Tuesday, graduated and called to the Nigerian Bar, 884 candidates from its December 2020 batch in addition to four others from previous batch.

In his address, Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour, Chairman, Body of Benchers said that the graduates were expected to adhere to the provision of rules guiding the profession, at all times.

“I urge you to conduct yourselves in the most responsible way expected of you as people in a noble profession.

”As a lawyer, you are an officer of the court and accordingly, you are not to do any act or conduct in a manner that will obstruct or adversely affect the course of justice.

”The practice of law is not a right but a privilege.

”It is a privilege that can be lost should you fail to live up to the requisite professional standards imposed upon you by virtue of your entry into the community of lawyers,” he said.

He warned that the Body of Benchers Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee was always determined to discipline any lawyer found wanting or breaching set rules of the profession.

Mr Rhodes-Vivour hinted that his committee had from January to July, disbarred six lawyers and suspended some following non adherence to the laid down rules

“Be of good behaviour in the course of your operations and abide by the ethics and values of the profession, to avoid being brought before the committee,” he advised.

Mr Rhodes-Vivour also encouraged the graduates to continue to read and update their knowledge on both statute and case law in order to grow in the profession. 

(NAN)