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The consultative forum will discuss the Supreme Court?s Bar Matter 2012 which compels lawyers to give at least 60 hours of free hours of actual, courtroom lawyering a month or risk being barred from court.
The order compels ?every practicing lawyer? to fulfill their duty as agents of change in society by ?serving the less privileged.?
Excluded are lawyers employed in the private sector but who do not appear in behalf of parties in courts or any quasi-judicial agencies.
All that fall outside the exclusion have to tow the line or be ?required to explain? by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines? National Committee on Legal Aid (IBP-NCLA).
If no explanation is given, or if the NCLA finds it unsatisfactory, the NCLA will recommend to the IBP Board of Governors that the erring lawyer be declared not in good standing,? the rule said.
A lawyer declared ?not in good standing? cannot appear in court or any quasi-judicial body as counsel.
Lawyers cannot comply with the five-hour-a-month rule by such methods as offering free legal consultations or giving legal advice via television or radio.
According to the rule, the hours must be spent either inside the courtroom for trial, or attending hearings before quasi-judicial bodies, or in mediation proceedings.
In criminal or civil proceedings, they have to secure a certificate from the Clerk of Court who will keep track of the hours.
?Any lawyer who falsifies a certificate or any form required to be submitted under this rule or any contents thereof shall be administratively charged with falsification and dishonesty and shall be subject to disciplinary action by the Committee on Bar Discipline,? without prejudice to the filing of criminal charges against the lawyer.
Under Bar Matter 2012, ?A motion, except a motion for extension of time to file a pleading or for postponement of hearing or conference, or pleading filed on a particular case shall be considered as one hour of service.?
The SC justified the need for the program, saying ?mandatory free legal service by members of the bar and their active support thereof will aid the efficient and effective administration of justice especially in cases involving indigent and pauper litigants.?
The local IBP chapter is also waiting for the IBP national office?s action on resolutions the chapter issued regarding Bar Matter 850, which requires lawyers to take Mandatory Continuing Legal Education, and a subsequent order requiring lawyers to indicate in all pleadings their MCLE compliance certificate number and date of issue.
?We encourage our IBP Cebu City chapter members to write or call our local chapter offices for their complaints or concerns,? said IBP Cebu City chapter president Michael Yu.
Yu said the chapter has been responsive in addressing the concerns and issues of the local chapter members, but the chapter?s authority is ?limited? by its by-laws and it can only ?bring up the complaints of its members? to the national office who can act on them.
Lawyers, including government prosecutors, are complaining against Bar Matter 850, particularly how the IBP national office processes their MCLE compliance certificates.
Many lawyers said they have yet to receive their certificates even though they have already complied with the mandatory 36 units of added training.
The MCLE requirement has been compounded by Bar Matter 1922, which provides that unless the pleading a lawyer submit to court contain the lawyer?s compliance certificate number and date of issue, the pleading is to be dismissed and expunged from the records.
The requirement even worried government prosecutors after three criminal cases from Agoo, La Union, one for rape, one for homicide and another for illegal possession of firearms, were dismissed by a trial court because the prosecutor who signed the resolution could not indicate his certificate of compliance number and date of issue. (PNA)
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