Coming Back to the Future

 

It's been quite a while since I've put something up on this blog. The reason for this is that I've been otherwise preoccupied. My time was taken up by professional disciplinary proceedings, which commenced just over three years ago, but came to a climax over the last few weeks. (I had mentioned it previously on this blog here and here).

It has not been easy having to wait for such a long time and having to live with the uncertainty about the future that is inevitable in such circumstances. For me it is a matter of great relief that finally the proceedings have concluded and the long wait is over. Of course you would expect me to divulge the outcome of the proceedings, and I will, but only to a limited extent, given that those proceedings are not the real subject of this post. To assuage your curiosity though, suffice it to say that the outcome for me in particular was a reasonably good one, given all of the circumstances.

I have emerged in a considerably better position than I had imagined, and am now able after a period of prolonged professional paralysis, to think about and consider the future. And this relatively favourable outcome is essentially thanks to the assistance of a wonderful brilliant senior barrister, whose services I would not normally be able to afford but for the great professional indemnity insurance policy that I had ensured was taken out by my former firm, which included cover for legal representation before the disciplinary tribunal.

So now that hurdle is in the past, and the time has come for me to pick up the pieces of my career, which I must admit is in unmitigated tatters. I feel almost as if midway through my working life, I am now required to start my career afresh, when one is at that age when Human Resources departments are not exactly falling over themselves to take you on; together with the added disadvantage of the world being in the middle of a horrendous economic crisis. I find myself wondering why I ever imagined that the end of the disciplinary proceedings would also bring to an end the uncertainty about the future, the apprehension and the worry.

At a Crossroads

I know of no one who has been faced with the situation that I am currently faced with and am therefore not able to draw from any other person's experiences in the very important choices that I am soon going to have to make.

The background to this is from a few years ago when intervention action was taken by my professional regulatory body into a firm at which I was a partner. The practice was closed down and all of the firm's partners were suspended from further practise. I have previously written about this on this blog here. Following the intervention, I alone of all the firm's former partners applied for the reinstatement of my practising certificate. My certificate was reinstated, but with the condition that I could not practise as a partner and was allowed to practise only in employment as an assistant, and in an employment for which the regulatory body had given prior approval, as there were supervisory and support requirements to be met by the prospective employer.

I was able to return to practise even while the regulatory body's investigations into the affairs of the now defunct firm were still in progress. Perhaps it was quite clear to the regulatory body that none of the factors which gave rise to the intervention into that firm were attributable to me personally, but instead to my former partners. And I enjoyed the staunch backing of my former boss, who stood by me and supported my application to return to practise.

The problem now is that I left the employ of my former boss, having entered into a fee-sharing arrangement with a different firm. By that arrangement, the firm purported to be satisfying the requirement for support and supervision imposed on my practising certificate, when in fact I was doing my own work. Suffice it to say that after a couple of months, the relationship with that firm too broke down. I found them crude, onerous and overbearing and thought of them as undeserving of my competence.

I cannot now return to my former boss, because he too has since run into difficulties with the regulatory body. So I am left high and dry, as I find that not many firms will accept me with such a cumbersome condition attached to my practising certificate. The reason is simple: the partners at those firms render themselves liable to disciplinary action for failure to supervise, in the event that something goes wrong; and this is not to mention the certain increase in their professional indemnity insurance premium as soon as the insurers become aware of my professional history. It is not surprising then that I have received the cold shoulder at the doors on which I have knocked.

So what are the choices? Well, I can either wait on the unemployment line until September when the disciplinary proceedings will be finalised, without an inkling as to the likely outcome of those proceedings; or I can consider making a clean break from the profession altogether and move in a completely different direction. The new academic session begins in September, so one must act promptly if one is to take advantage of it.

The fact of the matter is that whatever the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings, the intervention into my former firm (and the reasons thereof), will always be recorded against me. It is sufficient merely to state in one's application that one was a partner at a firm that was intervened, for professional indemnity insurance premiums to quadruple. And it is professional misconduct not to disclose this in your insurance application. It is irrelevant that I was not directly responsible.

Even if the conditions are removed from my practising certificate after the disciplinary proceedings, I shall be totally unable to afford to pay all of the regulatory body's costs for bringing those disciplinary proceedings against me, pay the likely financial penalty to be imposed by the disciplinary tribunal and then thereafter, also pay for the insurance needed to enter into practice on my own. Any prospective employers too will be wary of the potential increase in their insurance liability if they were to employ me.

All in all, forging ahead in the same direction portends a very rough time ahead, which makes the case for a career change. I am now considering going back to college or university to retrain. This seems drastic, I know, but my view is that some situations require radical action, and this is one of those situations. I am not sure that I am willing to spend the remainder of my career encumbered with responsibility for the acts of others, my former partners, who in any event are themselves no longer interested in practising. Incidentally, one of them, the major culprit, fled the jurisdiction with the proceeds of his deeds, and the latest I heard of him is that he lost his bid to be elected to the Nigerian Senate..

Law Society Library 

My day in court

Do you have a boss? How do you feel about him or her? Mine is absolutely wonderful! I joined his firm many years ago as a junior. I was newly qualified then and was keen to prove to my employer that taking me on was the best possible decision he could have made. I suppose in working so hard to establish myself in the firm, I made a good impression on him, because, although I left him after about four years to join another firm as a partner, he welcomed me back with open arms when I returned to his firm after that other firm was closed down, having run into difficulties with our professional regulatory body. The regulation authority suspended the practising certificates of all of us who were at that other firm, but just months later I was back in practice. Indeed, I alone am still practising of all those that were at that firm, because my current boss stood by me and assured the regulation authority that he would provide me with the supervision and support that the regulatory authority had imposed as a condition for my returning to practice.

The law is that when a firm is closed down, as my former firm was, the partners at the firm are liable for the costs incurred by the regulation authority in effecting that firm's intervention and closure. A series of invoices were sent out to me and the other partners, amounting to a sum in the region of £50K, said to be the costs for the intervention and closure. Now, because I'm the only one of the former partners remaining in practice, (the others have ignored all correspondence from the regulation authority), I am having to face the brunt of this, (carrying the can, so to speak), whereas the actuality is that none of the issues that gave rise to the intervention in the first place can be attributed to myself personally. I just happened to have entered into partnership with the wrong bunch of people and got myself into the mess that I find myself in. Through all of this, my boss has quietly supported and encouraged me. He assures me that he is confident that I have no personal involvement in the matters that led to the closure of that firm.

Today was the hearing in court of the court case that the regulation authority has instituted against myself and my former partners, to recover its costs arising from the intervention/closure. The hearing was in the afternoon, so I thought I'd attend the office in the morning and deal with some pressing matters before heading to court later. On arrival at the office this morning, I was informed by his secretary that my boss had left the office ten minutes earlier, on his way to court, to be with me at the hearing. This surprised me. I had neglected to explain that the hearing would be in the afternoon, simply because I had not expected that he would want to attend. So I quickly rang him on his mobile phone, told him the hearing was in fact at 2pm and he turned around and returned to the office. Hours later, after quite a busy morning, I peeped into his room to say that I was leaving for my hearing. To my surprise, my boss insisted on attending the hearing with me, which meant that he had to drop everything he was doing, (and there was a lot on his plate too..).

He stayed with me throughout the hearing, and waited with me for hours while the Judge considered the matter. Of all the defendants I was the only one present in court, and the case did not go very well for me. To put it in a nutshell, I've learned my lesson about being very careful when entering into a partnership with people you hardly know. And it's a lesson that I've learned the hard way too.. But I've also learned that there are in fact people, like my boss, who are genuinely kind and dependable. His presence at the hearing and his words to me afterwards helped to lighten the burden on my mind. I have always respected him, but after today, my respect for him has grown and taken a new dimension. He is truly an extraordinarily wonderful man and I am blessed to have him as my boss.

On becoming a leader

Music has always been my ministry. Though I dragged my feet about it for a long time, I finally recently joined the choir at my church in London. As a boy I was in an all-male Cathedral choir, where we the young boys sang the soprano/treble part and the older men sang the alto, tenor and bass parts. My father and both of my older brothers were also in the choir, and singing for me has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. In the choir we had vocal training, and were taught to read sheet music. At school I learned to play musical instruments, the recorder in particular. I distinctly remember that time many years ago, when the choir of Kings College Cambridge travelled all the way from the UK to visit us and sing with us during a special service at our church at Marina in Lagos, Nigeria. I was still a boy, well under 10-years old, but the memory of that special occasion is still fresh in my mind. Ours was also the church that the then Head of State of Nigeria, General Yakubu Gowon would attend now and again. This is just to provide some history.

Coming back to my story, having joined this choir at my church I attended choir practice for the first time yesterday. As we all know, the weather in London has been bad recently, so after the practice session there was the need to offer a lift to any of the others who wanted a lift home. I wound up with the pastor of the church sitting with me in my car, and within the 20 minutes it took to drive to his house, he had made the decision that I was to become the leader of the choir. Ahem! 

I mean, I had not even been in the choir for a full day, and more importantly, I had never joined the choir in ministering to the congregation during the Sunday service. But this pastor is one of those assertive people that you just do not say "no" to. So I said "yes", when after he told me he was appointing me, he asked me what I thought of his decision.

Now, I have never been the leader of anything in my life. I have always been content to stay unnoticed on the sidelines, such that even if occasionally I raised my head to say something or voice one opinion or other, I would quickly retreat to the safety of the sidelines. So the fact that the church authority after seeing me just once at choir practice had deemed me a suitable candidate for the job of choir leader, seems rather surprising. I suppose this suggests that they were impressed with my demonstrable knowledge of music, and with my vocal ability. And with this I don't have a problem. But leading a group of singers involves a lot more than just singing. It involves coordinating and organising. And having never had any experience of such, I find it daunting. However, I'm diving into my new role with enthusiasm and intend to do the best that I can, being always willing to take on new challenges, learn new things, and listen to advice.

By the way, I ministered with the choir at Sunday service today. I even got to do a solo part. The people at church all seemed surprised and one of them made a comment about "hidden talent". At this rate, it won't be long before we will be auditioning for the X Factor 😀 

The right to die?

Should the elderly and the terminally ill who still have the mental capacity to decide whether to end their lives have the right to do so? In recent days there has been an overflowing on the airwaves here of a plethora of viewpoints on the subject. The views range from those who are completely in support, including those who have actually aided either directly or indirectly relatives and friends to commit suicide, to those who are dead set against a change in the UK law that makes it a crime punishable with imprisonment to assist the suicide of another.

There are very ill people for whom death is inevitable and not in the very distant future. At least, not in as distant a future as it appears for many of us who currently enjoy relatively good health. Those who are terminally ill or are suffering from degenerative illnesses which get progressively worse, with the prospect that as the effects of the disease worsen the suffering is increased. Do these people not suffer prolonged agony as doctors strive to prolong their lives with the full knowledge that the patient will inevitably die in the end? What are the benefits of prolonging the suffering of a terminally ill person? Is it humane to let dying people linger in their suffering? Even ordinary animals are routinely "humanely" euthanized by veterinarians in order to avoid prolonged suffering for the animal. Why should the same principle not apply to humans, especially if the person concerned actually desires it?

With the traditional approach of prolonging life at all costs, the process of dying is long drawn out and the dying person suffers unnecessarily for an extended period. Helpless relatives are forced to witness the suffering of their loved one, which causes untold harrowing anguish for the relatives themselves, whereas in the end the inevitable death must still occur. Would it not have been more humane for the ill person, while still of sound mind, to have had the opportunity to ask for their life to be ended, voluntarily, thereby avoiding the suffering for them and the anguish for their family, who will then be able to carry on with their own lives in the knowledge that their loved one did not suffer?

One of the counter arguments is that to allow assisted suicide is to create a slippery slope down which many people will inevitably slide, including those who become victims of the greed of others. It is feared that some relatives will seek to get rid of ill relatives from whom they wish to inherit property, persuading them by whatever means to choose the suicide option. Another powerful argument is put forward by disabled people, who fear that their lives will become devalued and that there could be psychological pressure put upon them to consider ending their lives. Further, it is strongly argued against assisted suicide that the emphasis should be on the improvement of the quality of palliative care for the dying, i.e, to focus on the provision of care that alleviates the pain and the suffering.

While I do not oppose the idea that efforts at improving palliative care should be pursued, the right to avoid the suffering involved in the dying process should not be denied to those who wish to avoid it. Improving palliative care for everyone does not seem to me an expedient use of resources, since ultimately the terminally ill person will inevitably die. I previously shared the view that all human life is sacred and that we should not have the right to make the decision regarding when we should die. But having carefully considered the arguments for and against, I am persuaded that giving people who are old and infirm, those who are terminally ill but still of sound mind the right to choose when to die, is the civilised and sensible thing to do. Those who wish for their lives to be ended should be allowed to die, provided they meet certain strict criteria. If there is concern that unconscionable relatives might try to take advantage of a system that permits assisted suicide to bump off relatives who stand in the way of their inheritance, this is one of the more important aspects on which the legal minds tasked with drawing up the legal framework should focus. It is important for assisted suicide to be tightly legally pinned down, offering a good dignified death to those who wish it, while at the same time protecting the vulnerable from relatives who might wish to get rid of them.

Chryseobacterium greenlandensis

Over the weekend I was reading about ancient bacteria discovered in ice taken from more than two miles beneath the surface in Greenland. The ice was obtained by drilling ice cores down through the ice. The ice in which the bacteria was found is thought to be about 120,000 years old, and the really amazing aspect is that the bacteria have now been revived in a laboratory, after having been buried for such a long time. Researchers have managed to isolate and grow the bacteria in the laboratory, where they have established thriving colonies of small, purple-brown microbes.

It is thought that the prospect now arises that similar primitive lifeforms may exist in other extreme environments, even on other planets like Mars, or on a moon like Europa one of the moons of Jupiter, which is believed to be covered by ice, and where the conditions beneath the ice are thought to be similar to the conditions in which these bacteria were found. 

The microbes' ability to survive the harsh environment of a Greenland glacier for such a long period of time suggests that extraterrestrial life forms (if they exist) could survive in equally extreme environments. 

The study has so far revived two kinds of bacteria, which have been formally named as Herminiimonas glaciei and Chryseobacterium greenlandensis. H. glaciei is about half the size of C. greenlandensis. To read more click here.