Ammended Information Paper - Paul Paraka Lawyers


By PAUL PARAKA

Certain allegations were made against Paraka Lawyers recently on the floor of Parliament, and this is our response to those allegations.

PROFILE

FACT 1.    Paraka Lawyers is at present the largest National Law Firm in the country with twenty-two (22) Branch Offices in all the Provinces. Its Head Office is in down town Port Moresby at the Mogoru Moto Building.

FACT 2.    The total number of workers employed by the Legal Firm is close to one thousand (1000), comprising both Lawyers and support staff spread right throughout the length and breadth of this nation.  Our employees strive to serve our people in each Province who cannot afford the luxury of travelling to Port Moresby every time to seek legal services.

FACT 3.    The Law Firm employs an exclusively local national workforce.  Every year, a large number of trainee Lawyers who have graduated out of the Legal Training Institute numbering between 25-40 are recruited and placed around the country, replacing well-trained Senior Lawyers, who move on in life choosing either to set up their own legal practices or be involved in other opportunities in life.  Paraka Lawyers prides itself in recruiting half of the Legal Training Institute pass-outs every year, without boasting about it, despite a few criticisms from certain quarters of the community about such recruitment.  You will never have a workforce in the country unless you recruit those raw talents and train and nurture them to be formidable workers who will contribute effectively to nation building. 

FACT 4.    Paraka Lawyers has different charge out rates for Lawyers depending on their seniority, for instance Junior Lawyers (2-4 years experience) starting charge out rate is at K200.00 per hour, and the Senior Lawyers (5 or more years experience) starting charge out rate is at K500.00 per hour.

    A Junior Lawyer would clock in K1,600.00 in eight (8) hours in a day, or K8,000.00 worth of workload in a week, that equals to K416,000.00 per year.  One hundred (100) Junior Lawyers would clock in an estimated workload of K41.6 million or more in a single year, depending on the workload undertaken by the Lawyers and number of billable hours spent on each file.  Lawyers do spend more time, and in some cases daily billable number of hours can reach 10-12 hours.

    On the same token, a Senior Lawyer clocks in K4,000.00 worth of workload per day (at K500.00 per hour for 8 hours) and in a week (a total of 5 working days), he is able to clock in K20,000.00 worth of workload.  In a year (52 weeks), he is able to clock in K1.04 million worth of workload.  Therefore one hundred (100) Senior Lawyers are capable of clocking in a total of K104 million worth of workload in a year.  The total value of workload increases depending on the workload undertaken by a Law Firm and the length of time it takes to undertake those work.  Clients normally settle their legal bills on installment basis over a period of time.

FACT 5.    Paraka Lawyers is not a one man law practice operating out of the corner of a residential area in Port Moresby.  It occupies and operates out from the three (3) top floors of Mogoru Moto Building in down town Port Moresby employing a large number of Lawyers and support staff.

FACT 6.    Paraka Lawyers was engaged by the State through the Office of the Department of Justice & Attorney General commencing in year 2000 to undertake civil cases for and on behalf of the State and its instrumentalities, principally because it had the capacity and network in the country to deal with a large volume of work from the State.  As at December, 2006, when its engagement was terminated, Paraka Lawyers employed a total of four hundred (400) support staff, one hundred (100) of whom were Lawyers.  The staffing strength has now increased to one thousand (1000), comprising of both Lawyers and support staff.

FACT 7.    Paraka Lawyers’ engagement was endorsed by the National Executive Council (NEC) on the 24th February, 2005 by its Decision No. 41 of 2005 and further approved by the Parliament in its meeting on the 2nd March, 2005 by a majority vote of 44 to 10.  The two (2) decisions of the NEC and Parliament respectively were never revoked and still remain todate. Paraka Lawyers’ engagement has resulted in the dismissal of thousands of legal proceedings including the setting aside of various illegal lands awards consequently saving the State billions of kina worth of illegal and unmeritorious claims

FACT 8 AND LINK TO COURT ORDERS HERE

FACT 9.    At the time of the termination of the Retainer Agreement towards end of December, 2006, substantial of our legal bills for work done for most part of 2004, and the whole of 2005 and 2006 and part of 2007 (work that continued to be done after the stay of the termination of the Retainer Arrangements) were outstanding.  The former Attorney General at that time cleared those legal bills for Paraka Lawyers for the subsequent years.  There is NO STAY ORDER preventing those legal bills from being paid.  These legal bills are separate and different from the two (2) sets of legal bills, the subject of the National and Supreme Court proceedings.  The total legal bills stayed from being paid is K12.937 million, the first set of legal bills comprising nine hundred forty-four (944) matters is for K6.499 million; and the second set of legal bills comprising another five hundred fifty-two (552) matters is for K6.438 million.  These legal bills have not been paid to date.

FACT 10.    Of those cleared legal bills by the former Attorney General, there were a total of 4500 legal bills still outstanding.  Representations were made to the Department of Finance for these legal bills to be paid.  Progressive payments were made, since beginning of 2012, and the final payment was made in May, 2013, and this therefore concludes our outstanding legal bills with the State, except those bills the subject of the pending Court proceedings.

FACT 11.    Some of those payments were received through other Legal Firms, who were instructed to receive the funds on our behalf.  There is nothing wrong that Lawyers are authorized to demand and receive payments on behalf of their clients through their Trust Accounts.

FACT 12.    The payments were made to our Legal Firm through Administrative arrangements by the Department of Finance.  The Officers in the Department of Finance executed their duties professionally and diligently.

FACT 13.    These are legal bills that were appropriately cleared by the former Attorney General in his absolute discretion and judgment.  The Department of Finance correctly used the earlier legal clearance by the former Attorney General to effect the payments.  There was therefore no legal requirement for a fresh legal clearance from the new Attorney General.

FACT 14.    We wish to thank the Department of Finance and the Executive Government for clearing all our outstanding legal bills, and look forward to working with the Government in the future.

FACT 15.    Pro-bono Legal Services

        We have undertaken a large volume of pro bono work (free legal representation) for remandees and prisoners right throughout the country.  The primary purpose is to train our Lawyers in the areas of advocacy skills and criminal law practice. In the process, remandees and prisoners are able to have access to private legal assistance that they might not have due to inability to meet their legal costs. 

        We have in no way attempted to take over the role of the Public Solicitor.  With respect, it is the fundamental right of remandees and prisoners to choose lawyers of their choice.  No one can force a remandee or prisoner to choose a lawyer.  This course is fundamentally unconstitutional.

        Whether these Lawyers assist remandees/prisoners at their own costs or not is not mandatory – this is not an absolute pre-condition (it should be read as only directory) to appearing for accuseds by private counsel. 

        We have not been paid by the State in all our representations that we have done for accuseds for the so many years in the past.  The assertion that we are receiving some form of payments from the State is utterly false and baseless.

        Yes, at some stage, we will ask the Attorney General and the NEC to consider some form of ex gratia payments for complimenting the Public Solicitor’s work.  There is nothing wrong in asking!  The Attorney General and NEC can consider the request on its own merits at some stage in the future.


        Because of the hard stand taken by certain Judges recently, we have requested our existing clients to deposit some funds to enable our continued representations; those who are unable to do so have been sadly asked to seek the services of the Public Solicitor.  In some of these cases where there is no Public Solicitor stationed in some of those smaller Provinces, remandees will have to wait longer for the Public Solicitor’s arrivals during Court Circuits to do even bail applications.  These will be an unfortunate thing now that we have been forced to stop the good work that we have been doing right throughout the country.


INVESTIGATION

Any issues on the propriety of the payments can be resolved between the Department of Finance, Department of Justice & Attorney General and Paraka Lawyers.  Any sticky points that are not agreeable between parties can go before the cabinet for further deliberations and directions.

It is premature to allege any impropriety in the payments without all parties being heard.  Any proposed high level investigations should be looked to as a last resort.  This would only hurt businesses with constant negative publicity in the media.  When that moment comes if necessary, we are prepared to present ourselves and justify our legal bills and payments.

CONCLUSION

We are a leading Law Firm in this country.  The Government and its Leaders continue to preach of an educated population that must be employed in the formal employment sector.  Paraka Lawyers has for the last twenty (20) years, continued to absorb the educated youth in the formal employment sector, nurtured and trained them, and prepared them for life beyond.  We therefore request continued political support.

It is the private sector that drives any economy.  Leaders should support and encourage private sector growth.  We request the Leaders of this nation to rise and support Papua New Guinean professionals and businesses to grow in their professional endeavours and business undertakings.

I hope this information sufficiently provides a balanced view on all those allegations.


_______________
PAUL PARAKA
Principal

Dated:    20th May, 2013

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