Correspondent Attorneys in Zimbabwe

The practice of correspondent attorneys, also known as country attorneys has survived in Zimbabwe for a long time. P Kanokanga in The Law of Costs in Zimbabwe: Text, Cases & Materials (Durban, 2020) p 249 noted that:

‘Since ancient times, legal practitioners have been divided into two categories. In England, the position was such that there were lawyers stationed on the Royal Law Courts of Westminster, and the other lawyers spread through. Those were solicitors in the city and solicitors in the towns (principal solicitor and town agent).

The country solicitor was an important figure in the eighteenth century. The professional concerns placed the attorneys at the centre of affairs in many localities. The practice continues today in Zimbabwe, however, with a minor change of the term ‘country attorney’ which was substituted with the term correspondent attorney.

What is a correspondent attorney?

A correspondent attorney is a legal practitioner who is regularly admitted by the court, who acts as an agent of an instructing legal practitioner, and who plays a formal and technical role in the administration of justice aimed at compliance with the rules of court, and the proper service of court processes. The Supreme Court in Simbi v Simbi SC 164-90 held that:

‘A correspondent is the agent of the instructing legal practitioner. He is expressly appointed to accept service of all documents in the proceedings on behalf of the instructing practitioner and to transmit the contents of such documents to his appointer. That is the correspondent’s mandate and any failure by him to carry out his mandate is a matter between him and the instructing legal practitioner. There is no rule of practice by which a defence can be founded on laxity or inefficiency in the functioning of the arrangement between a correspondent and his instructing legal practitioner.