The Legal Profession: A New Vision For A New Era

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KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, IMMEDIATE PAST VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, TITLED: “THE LEGAL PROFESSION: A NEW VISION FOR A NEW ERA” AT THE NIGERIAN BAR ASSOCIATION YENOGOA BRANCH LAW WEEK, BAYELSA STATE, ON THE 16TH OF MAY, 2025

 

PROTOCOLS

 

Let me begin by thanking the Chair of the Bayelsa Bar Association Mr. Somina Johnbull, and his team for the very kind invitation to give these keynote remarks. I will always feel at home here in Yenogoa because I know I have a brother and friend here, His  Excellency, Governor Douye Diri, of this great state. He is indeed a worthy friend, he travelled to Ikenne when the people of my home town welcomed me home in July  2023. And I am also at home because I am in the company of my learned brothers and sisters. Men and women with whom I have travelled along the same pathway, I am also in the company of law teachers, co-travellers with me in the voyage of instructing and inspiring generations of lawyers.

 

It is because I am so at home here that I have chosen a topic that I hope will open up discussions on where we are in our journey as professionals and where we ought to be. I will be speaking on the topic, “The Legal  Profession: A Vision for a New Era.” Our profession is in a radically new dispensation, a dispensation created largely by the most consequential advances in technology and in perhaps the most turbulent and uncertain times in living memory.

 

The problem is that it is easy not to recognise a new era when you are living in it. In 1987, I wrote a seminar paper on computer-generated evidence. At the time, nobody had computers, there were no mobile phones, let alone text messages. As far as most of us were concerned, the computer was at best a glorified typewriter, but I had a shocking, eye-opening experience that year at the library of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London, which I visited every year for research.

 

I got there in December of 1986, and I wanted to find books in the regular catalogue; I was confronted with a device, a tabletop computer, no more paper catalogues, everything was in the computer. I had no idea how to use it; one of the library assistants, sensing my difficulty, called a student on internship to help me. I  discovered that I could locate any book in the library by simply typing the author or the subject and using the search option. I knew then that the world of research had changed for good, and that this thing called the computer was going to change practically everything around us, including vital aspects of my subject area, the Law of  Evidence. This inspired my seminar paper, which later became a controversial article.

 

The Chair of the Seminar was my mentor and the leading authority on the Law of  Evidence, Justice Akinola Aguda of blessed memory. In the paper, I was considering the then section 90 of the Evidence Act on Documentary Hearsay. I made the point that, in light of the use of computers, the definition of document had become obsolete and we would need a new definition of document in the Evidence Act, and that we would also have to reconsider the definitions of original and secondary evidence. The definition of document in the Act was “an inscription in letters, figures or marks on a substance.” This definition could only cover physical, visible inscription – on paper or other tangible material, whereas the content stored in the computer memory or chips is not visible or readable by human senses because it is stored electronically, and one would need a device to decode and display it. I was roundly criticised as crying wolf!

 

My critics argued that the definition of a document had lasted several decades; it would withstand any technological development! Since no one in the room had used a computer, they had no appreciation of how game-changing that simple device would be.

 

Today, as we all know, the definition of document in the 2011 Act is no longer an inscription on a paper or tangible surface; it now covers electronic records, digital storage media, and electronic communications. But all that was 35 years ago, the world of thirty-five years ago is unrecognisable today. Let me make another prediction: with Generative AI, we have to redefine who the maker of a document is, what constitutes hearsay, and what would be the original of a document. In sum, Generative  AI introduces a break in the direct line between human thought and documentary evidence. Law will have to evolve from defining documents by who wrote them and how they were fixed, to defining them by how they were produced, verified, and attributed.

 

The pace of technological advancement, the rise of globalisation, and the democratisation of information have transformed every profession – yet the legal profession, bound by precedent and tradition, and some bad habits, has still remained stubbornly resistant to change. Our profession needs a new vision, a new set of tools for a new era – we are in a vastly different era from when the tools we use today were designed.

 

Let me begin with legal education: how we teach law and what we teach law students. But before I do so, I will attempt to describe what legal practice already looks like and what it will look like in the next few years to prescribe what sort of legal education we need.

 

I was speaking to the new management of the law firm, which I co-founded and from which I am now retired, Simmons Cooper Partners. They were showing me their new AI-driven tools for the work of the firm. They now have a ChatGPT interface that, within minutes, can sift through several legal databases and offer summarised opinions based on statute and case law. They also use a predictive Analytics and Legal Strategy interface that uses historical data on case law and statute to provide advice to clients.

 

What used to take days of research can now be done in minutes! And the system can argue with you if you oppose its point of view. They also have a tool called the GitHub Co-pilot for legal drafting, which uses the firm’s database and can suggest language and clauses tailored to specific legal documents. They showed me another tool, the  Work Product Character Recognition Tool, which ensures that all work generated by the system, all documentation coming out of the firm, adheres to the firm’s professional tone and branding guidelines. And then they have AI chatbots for immediate responses to common enquiries from clients, which work even when the office is closed for business. There are also AI contract review tools like Luminance, Kira Systems, or  Spellbook that can highlight risky clauses and suggest amendments, compare clauses to existing precedents, and translate legalese into plain English. And these tools are  getting smarter every day.

 

In December 2024, ChatGPT launched its 01-preview, designed to solve complex problems by spending more time thinking. The incredible thing about these systems is that they are capable of critical thinking, using huge data resources faster than the human mind! Even judges using these tools can literally input facts, evidence and submissions of counsel and let the tools do the application of case law and statutes to the facts and evidence, analyse the submissions and come to conclusions, write the judgments or rulings, including consequential orders. It is clear that a lot of the work that lawyers do can now be done much faster and more accurately by technology. The systems do not get tired or go on leave, they don’t ask for a pay raise! And you know these tools are now becoming cheaper and cheaper, like mobile phones, they’ll be available everywhere and to everyone! The laws we practice, the tools we rely on, and the institutions were largely conceived in a pre-digital, pre-AI, pre-globalised world.

 

Thirty years ago, lawyers were gatekeepers of specialised knowledge because we were the only ones who knew what to look for in a law library and how to apply the cases and statutes we found to the problems our clients brought to us. Now with AI, you don’t need to go to a law library or know what books to look for, you only need to pose the problem to your AI tool, it will go into the library, search all the right cases and materials faster than any human can and give you an opinion in minutes!

 

The role of the lawyer is also changing very rapidly. You can no longer be a technistic lawyer, that is, a “section 2 says, section 4 says” lawyer, and survive in the next few years. For example, the commercial lawyer today must be a man or woman of affairs, a global professional with an understanding of how the global financial industrial complex works. He must be able to put the deals together and not just be an adviser. This is because, as we have seen, technology is fast replacing basic legal analysis and opinion writing; a big part of our cake has been bitten off by technology, and more will be eaten up very soon and very quickly!

 

Years ago, you could make money from writing a learned opinion on doing business in Nigeria. Today, your client can do that himself or herself using ChatGPT. Besides, globalisation has made legal expertise easily available in real time. What is happening now before our eyes is the most profound revolution that our profession has ever experienced, a revolution that will radically change the delivery of legal services and even adjudication forever.

 

We are no longer the gatekeepers and custodians of basic legal knowledge, but more importantly, we are no longer the custodians of legal reasoning and legal opinions. So, how and what should we be teaching law students now? We now need an enhanced curriculum for legal training. Aside from teaching core legal subjects, we must also integrate legal technology and AI into the curriculum, learning how to critically assess inputs from systems like ChatGPT, Harvey or Case text. We need to have more cross-disciplinary training for lawyers, law, data science and design thinking. Law students and lawyers must now learn about data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the design of legal tech systems. We must also integrate skills in computational thinking and logic into our legal education curriculum.

 

Because AI systems will increasingly take over tasks like legal research, drafting, and even basic reasoning, the true value of human lawyers will no longer lie in their ability to find the law or summarise it; machines can already do that faster and more accurately.

 

Instead, lawyers must now focus on the aspects of legal practice that machines cannot replicate, or at least not yet, with the same nuance and responsibility, developing skills in determining what ought to be done in the client’s best interest, ethical reasoning, and interpretation skills. From the point of view of teaching methods, we need to adopt simulation-based learning, for example, mock AI-assisted litigation or contract review.

 

The training of lawyers must meet the new realities. We must now train lawyers to work with generative AI tools and interrogate the tools for maximum results, and train lawyers to ask critical questions from Generative AI. Legal education must now emphasise problem-solving and critical thinking. Law teachers must also embrace change. It is incredible that a law teacher is still dictating notes today with all the resources available to students. In phones and other devices, whole libraries can be stored. All the volumes in the Elias library in UNILAG that I used as a student and lecturer, and more, are now on my iPad. I also have a law pavilion, a local electronic database of Nigerian law reports and legislation, and the platform now also has an AI legal assistant designed to help lawyers navigate civil procedure rules. Most judges, many lawyers and law firms subscribe to this or some other digital legal platform.

 

Teachers, all over the world, not just law teachers, are battling with what to do with students using AI to write essays, academic papers with the increasingly sophisticated and intelligent generative AI tools now available. Many of the tools are excellent for research, and some universities are investing in reliable detection methods and or working on rules for ethical use of generative AI. But it is unlikely that we can do much about this tool, which was launched only in 2022, and it is by its iterative learning processes, becoming smarter and more difficult to detect daily. This might be how calculators were initially resisted, but today, working out stuff mentally sounds really archaic.

 

Bar training is also bound to change. The mandatory one-year law school with students in residence must now be re-examined. One institution trying to teach thousands of students in classrooms is simply holding on to an anachronistic past. Even multiple campuses can’t address the challenge because you then need to provide high-quality faculty on each campus. Any jurisdiction that has large numbers of students for bar exams should have a standards board that certifies training providers who may use a hybrid format, in person and online and the exams may also be online.

 

If I want to teach a student how to move a motion or cross-examine a witness, a good video showing how it’s done will be more than sufficient. So many learning platforms have excellent virtual courtrooms where you can learn faster than any teacher can teach. It is my view that the days of the in-person law school are over. We must embrace online teaching accessible from anywhere in the world. In addition, license training or coaching organisations to conduct preparatory training for bar exams, attachment to chambers should still be retained, while examinations can be online, or in person at various centres locally or abroad.

 

Let me speak briefly to the state of our profession. The legal profession in Nigeria and the system of administration of justice are perhaps one of the oldest of the professions. It has created reputations, dynasties, enormous wealth and modest livelihoods for generations. But its integrity, credibility and relevance are gravely threatened and have been so for many years now. There is no doubt that there is a grave decline in the prestige and importance of our profession. There is, at least anecdotally, a sense that our profession is crumbling under the weight of corruption, ethical violations, and poor standards. The stories of counsel, senior and junior alike, acting as conduits for the giving of bribes to judicial personnel are rife; it is worse, of course, when such are senior counsel.

 

As I said, a lot of evidence is anecdotal, but the problem with reputation is that it is damaged by mere perception, in this case, a perception that our system of justice is corrupt and that the bar and the bench are culpable. We are already hearing people say, “better to know the judge than the law.” Once your clients get to the point where they believe that justice can be bought or influenced, you no longer need good lawyers; you don’t even need lawyers, all you need are middlemen. There are, admittedly, selfish reasons to uphold the integrity of our craft. A thriving legal system, rooted in credibility, creates greater opportunity and wealth for its practitioners.

 

Also, the competition among countries for foreign investments is getting fiercer. Nobody wants to invest in a country that has a reputation for a corrupt judicial system. But there are higher reasons too – altruistic, even timeless ones. If we are to be more than mere beneficiaries of legacy, we must become its authors.

 

We must leave behind a profession that continues to confer honour, dignity, and livelihood to generations we will never meet. To do so, we must regulate ourselves – we must enforce discipline not merely to punish, but to protect the patrimony. Creating and maintaining efficient disciplinary structures and rules is a huge challenge. In the end, the difference between elites who build enduring legacies and those who squander them is not brilliance or ambition.

 

It is the capacity for self-restraint, the willingness to sacrifice personal comfort for the collective good, and the seriousness with which they honour the obligations of privilege. The British legal establishment stands out as the exemplar in self-preservation and preservation of the commonwealth by the recognition of the obligations of privilege. By strict enforcement of discipline, strict rules of entry into the profession, preferment to the rank of Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Counsel) and even stricter in the judicial appointment process, they have maintained the integrity, prestige and relevance of the British system of justice from generation to generation.

 

Such is the absolute trust in the British legal system that today, by the creation of extraterritorial jurisdiction for their courts, commercial disputes from all countries of the world can, by agreement of parties, be tried in the Royal Courts of Justice in London. It is important to point out that the British legal profession attained this enviable position by rigorous self-regulation.

 

While serving as Attorney-General of Lagos State, I was called upon to write a mitigating reference for a senior Nigerian lawyer in practice in England who was on the verge of losing his license to practice. Why? He was before the court of appeal in respect of a criminal matter. In the course of arguing the appeal, the court hinted to him that his position was unarguable, but he stubbornly continued the argument. In the end, he lost the appeal. But the court wrote to the regulatory body seeking that he be penalised for pursuing an unarguable point. He was at the point of being disbarred when he came to me to ask for a character reference. Our profession, like the British profession, must protect itself by a rigorous process of training lawyers, the appointment of judges and the discipline of the bar and the bench.

 

Finally, let me spend a moment on another issue touching on the credibility of our courts and the certainty of legal outcomes. This is the spate of inconsistencies that we see today in the decisions of our courts. Almost all levels of courts now appear afflicted by the disease of conflicting judgments. But when these are judgments of the Supreme Court, then we have a greater challenge. Let me give three examples of such situations. In Benjamin V Kalio 2018 and Abdullahi v Adetutu 2020. The Supreme Court in Benjamin V Kalio held that an unregistered registrable instrument is inadmissible to prove title, but it can be used for other evidentiary purposes.

 

But in Abdullahi v. Adetutu 2020 without distinguishing Benjamin V Kalio, the Court refused to admit an unregistered registrable instrument for any purpose, including evidentiary value, suggesting that such documents are completely inadmissible.

 

The second is Owners of MV Arabella v NAIC and Akeredolu v Abraham. In MV Arabella, the court took the view that procedural defects (like wrong or missing parties) are jurisdictional issues, requiring strict compliance. But the court adopted a different approach in Akeredolu, holding that not all procedural defects affect jurisdiction and that courts should focus on justice over form. This was clearly more progressive but implicitly overruled MV Arabella.

 

Then, in another two cases, on the powers of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC), Okike v LPDC, and Akintokun v LPDC. In Okike, the Supreme Court held that the LPDC’s proceedings are sui generis and not strictly bound by the technical rules of criminal procedure or evidence, as long as the rules of natural justice and fair hearing are observed, whereas in Akintokun v LPDC, the Supreme Court insisted on strict compliance with formal rules of procedure and evidence, effectively narrowing the LPDC’s autonomy.

 

These inconsistencies make it difficult to advise clients, one more obstacle in an already fraught system. The doctrine of Stare Decisis is fundamental to our case law-dependent system of justice. Once precedent is not respected, legal outcomes become a game of chance.

 

Let me conclude by saying that the future is here, unfolding around us, faster than our rules, bolder than our traditions, and far more demanding and unforgiving of inefficiency, corruption and uncertainty on the state of the law. We have entered a new era, one that demands not only a new toolkit but also renewed commitment to discipline and integrity; these must be the pillars of our renewed vision.

 

Thank you for listening.

---

KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, IMMEDIATE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AT THE NIGERIAN BAR ASSOCIATION YENOGOA BRANCH LAW WEEK TITLED: “THE LEGAL PROFESSION: A NEW VISION FOR A NEW ERA”, IN BAYELSA STATE ON THE 16TH OF MAY, 2025



PROTOCOLS


Let me begin by thanking the Chair of the Bayelsa Bar Association Mr. Somina Johnbull and his team for the very kind invitation to give these keynote remarks. I will always feel at home here in Yenogoa because I know I have a brother and friend here, His Excellency the Governor of this great state. He is indeed a worthy friend, he travelled all the way to Ikenne when the people of my home town welcomed me home in July 2023. And I am also at home because I am in the company of my learned brothers and sisters. Men and women with whom I have travelled along the same pathway, I am also in the company of law teachers, co-travellers with me in the voyage of instructing and inspiring generations of lawyers.

It is because I am so at home here that I have chosen a topic that I hope will open up discussions on where we are in our journey as professionals and where we ought to be. I will be speaking on the topic The Legal Profession: A Vision for a new era. The legal Profession : A Vision for a new era. Our profession is in a radically new dispensation. A dispensation created largely by the most consequential advances in technology and in perhaps the most turbulent and uncertain times in living memory.

The problem is that it is easy not to recognize a new era when you are living in it. In 1987, I wrote a seminar paper on computer generated evidence. At the time nobody had computers, there were no mobile phones, let alone text messages, as far as most of us were concerned, the computer was at best a glorified typewriter. But I had a shocking, eye-opening experience that year at the library of the Institute of advanced legal studies in London, which I visited every year for research. I got there in December of 1986 and I wanted to find books in the regular catalogue; I was confronted with a device, a table top computer, no more paper catalogues, everything was in the computer. I had no idea how to use it; one of the library assistants sensing my difficulty called a student on internship to help me. I discovered that I could locate any book in the library by simply typing the author or the subject and using the search option. I knew then that the world of research had changed for good.

And that this thing called the computer was going to change practically everything around us, including vital aspects of my subject area, the Law of Evidence. This inspired my seminar paper, which later became a controversial article.

The Chair of the seminar was my mentor and the leading authority on the Law of Evidence, Justice Akinola Aguda of blessed memory. In the paper I was considering the then section 90 of the Evidence Act on Documentary Hearsay. I made the point that in the light of the use of computers, the definition of document had become obsolete and we would need a new definition of document in the Evidence Act, and that we would also have to reconsider the definitions of original and secondary evidence. The definition of document in the Act was “an inscription in letters figures or marks on a substance”. This definition could only cover physical, visible inscription - on paper or other tangible material, whereas the content stored in the computer memory or chips is not visible or readable by human senses because it is stored electronically. And one would need a device to decode and display it. I was roundly criticized as crying wolf!

My critics argued that the definition of a document had lasted several decades; it would withstand any technological development! Since no one in the room had used a computer, they had no appreciation of how game changing that simple device would be.

Today as we all know the definition of document in the 2011 Act is no longer an inscription on a paper or tangible surface. It now covers electronic records, digital storage media, and electronic communications. But all that was 35 years ago, the world of thirty five years ago is unrecognizable today. Let me make another prediction. With generative AI we have to redefine who the maker of a document is, and what would constitute hearsay, what would be the original of a document. In sum, generative AI introduces a break in the direct line between human thought and documentary evidence. Law will have to evolve from defining documents by who wrote them and how they were fixed, to defining them by how they were produced, verified, and attributed.

The pace of technological advancement, the rise of globalization, the democratization of information, have transformed every profession - yet the legal profession, bound by precedent and tradition, and some bad habits, has still remained stubbornly resistant to change. Our profession needs a new vision, a new set of tools for a new era - we are in a vastly different era from when the tools we use today were designed. Let me begin with legal education; how we teach law and what we teach law students. But before I do so, I will attempt to describe what legal practice already looks like and what it will look like in the next few years so as to prescribe what sort of legal education we need.

I was speaking to the new management of the law firm which I co-founded and from which I am now retired, Simmons Cooper Partners. They were showing me their new AI driven tools for the work of the firm. They now have a ChatGPT interface that within minutes can sift through several legal databases and offer summarized opinions based on statute and case law. They also use a predictive Analytics and Legal Strategy interface that uses historical data on case law and statute to provide advice to clients.

What used to take days of research can now be done in minutes! And the system can argue with you if you oppose its point of view. They also have a tool called the Github co-pilot for legal drafting, it uses the firm’s own database, and can suggest language and clauses tailored to specific legal documents. They showed me another tool, the Work Product Character recognition tool, which ensures that all work generated by the system, all documentation coming out of the firm adheres to the firm’s professional tone and branding guidelines. And then they have AI chatbots for immediate responses to common enquiries from clients, this works even when the office is closed for business. There are also AI contract review tools like Luminance, Kira Systems, or Spellbook, that can highlight risky clauses and suggest amendments, compare clauses to existing precedents, and translate legalese into plain English. And these tools are getting smarter everyday.

In December 2024, ChatGPT launched its 01-preview designed to solve complex problems by spending more time thinking. The incredible thing about these systems is that they are capable of critical thinking, using huge data resources faster than the human mind! Even judges using these tools can literally input facts, evidence and submissions of counsel and let the tools do the application of case law and statutes to the facts and evidence, analyze the submissions and come to conclusions, write the judgments or rulings including consequential orders. It is clear that a lot of the work that lawyers do can now done much faster and more accurately by technology… the systems do not get tired or go on leave, they don’t ask for a pay raise! And you know these tools are now becoming cheaper and cheaper, like mobile phones they’ll be available everywhere and to everyone! The laws we practice, the tools we rely on, the institutions were largely conceived in a pre-digital, pre-AI, pre-globalized world.

Thirty years ago, lawyers were gatekeepers of specialized knowledge. Because we were the only ones who knew what to look for in a law library and how to apply the cases and statutes we find to the problems our clients brought to us. Now with AI, you don’t need to go to a law library or know what books to look for you only need to pose the problem to your AI tool it will go into the library, search all the right cases and materials faster than any human can and give you an opinion in minutes!

The role of the lawyer is also changing very rapidly. You can no longer be a technistic lawyer, that is a “section 2 says, section 4 says” lawyer; and survive in the next few years. For example, the commercial lawyer today, must be a man or woman of affairs, a global professional with an understanding of how the global financial industrial complex works. He must in fact be able to put the deals together and not just be an adviser. This is because as we have seen, technology is fast replacing basic legal analysis and opinion writing, a big part of our cake has been bitten off by technology and more will be eaten up very soon and very quickly!

Years ago, you could make money from writing a learned opinion on doing business in Nigeria. Today your client can do that himself or herself using ChatGPT. Besides, globalization has made legal expertise easily available in real time. What is happening now before our very eyes is the most profound revolution that our profession has ever experienced, a revolution that will radically change the delivery of legal services and even adjudication forever.

We are no longer the gatekeepers and custodians of basic legal knowledge, but more importantly we are no longer the custodians of legal reasoning and legal opinions. So how and what should we be teaching law students now? We now need an enhanced curriculum for legal training. Aside from teaching core legal subjects, we must also integrate legal technology and AI into the curriculum, learning how to critically assess inputs from systems like ChatGPT, Harvey or Case text. We need to have more cross disciplinary training for lawyers, law, data science and design thinking. Law students and lawyers must now learn about data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the design of legal tech systems, we must also integrate skills in computational thinking and logic into our legal education curriculum.

And because AI systems will increasingly take over tasks like legal research, drafting, and even basic reasoning, the true value of human lawyers will no longer lie in their ability to find the law or summarize it, machines can already do that faster and more accurately.

Instead, lawyers must now focus on the aspects of legal practice that machines cannot replicate, or at least not yet, with the same nuance and responsibility, developing skills in determining what ought to be done in the client’s best interest, ethical reasoning, and interpretation skills. From the point of view of teaching methods, we need to adopt simulation-based learning, for example, mock AI assisted litigation or contract review.

The training of lawyers must meet the new realities. We must now train lawyers to work with generative AI tools and interrogate the tools for maximum results, train lawyers to ask critical questions from generative AI. Legal education must now emphasize problem solving and critical thinking. Law teachers must also embrace change. It is incredible that a law teacher is still dictating notes today with all the resources available to students. In phones and other devices whole libraries can be stored. All the volumes in the Elias library in UNILAG that I used as a student and lecturer and more are now on my iPad. I also have a law Pavillion, a local electronic database of Nigerian law reports and legislation, the platform now also has an AI legal assistant designed to help lawyers navigate civil procedure rules. Most judges, many lawyers and law firms subscribe to this or some other digital legal platforms.

Teachers, all over the world, not just law teachers, are battling with what to do with students using AI to write essays, academic papers with the increasingly sophisticated and intelligent generative AI tools now available. Many of the tools are excellent for research and some universities are investing in reliable detection methods and or working on rules for ethical use of generative AI. But it is unlikely that we can do much about this tool which was launched only in 2022, and it is by its iterative learning processes becoming smarter and more difficult to detect daily. This might be how calculators were initially resisted but today working out stuff mentally sounds really archaic.


Bar training is also bound to change. The mandatory one-year law school with students in residence must now be re-examined. One institution trying to teach thousands of students in classrooms are simply holding on to an anachronistic past. Even multiple campuses can’t address the challenge because you then need to provide high quality faculty in each campus. Any jurisdiction that has large numbers of students for bar exams should have a standards board that certifies training providers who may use a hybrid format, in person and online and the exams also may be online.


If I want to teach a student how to move a motion or cross examine a witness, a good video showing how it’s done will be more than sufficient. So many learning platforms have excellent virtual courtrooms where you can learn faster than any teacher can teach. It is my view that the days of the in-person law school are over. We must embrace online teaching accessible from anywhere in the world, in addition license training or coaching organizations to conduct preparatory training for bar exams, attachment to chambers should still be retained, while examinations can be online, or in person at various centres locally or abroad.

Let me speak briefly to the state of our profession. The legal profession in Nigeria and the system of administration of justice is perhaps one of the oldest of the professions. It has created reputations, dynasties, enormous wealth and modest livelihoods for generations. But its integrity, credibility and relevance are gravely threatened and have been so for many years now. There is no doubt that there is a grave decline in the prestige and importance of our profession. There is at least anecdotally a sense that our profession is crumbling under the weight of corruption, ethical violations, and poor standards. The stories of counsel, senior and junior alike, acting as conduits for the giving of bribes to judicial personnel is rife, it is worse of course when such are senior counsel.

As I said, a lot of evidence is anecdotal, but the problem with reputation is that it is damaged by mere perception, in this case a perception that our system of justice is corrupt and that the bar and the bench are culpable. We are already hearing people say “better to know the judge than the law”. Once your clients get to the point where they believe that justice can be bought or influenced, you no longer need good lawyers, you don’t even need lawyers, all you need are middle men. There are, admittedly, selfish reasons to uphold the integrity of our craft. A thriving legal system, rooted in credibility, creates greater opportunity and wealth for its practitioners.

Also, the competition among countries for foreign investments is getting fiercer. Nobody wants to invest in a country that has a reputation as a corrupt judicial system. But there are higher reasons too - altruistic, even timeless ones. If we are to be more than mere beneficiaries of legacy, we must become its authors.

We must leave behind a profession that continues to confer honour, dignity, and livelihood to generations we will never meet. To do so, we must regulate ourselves - we must enforce discipline not merely to punish, but to protect the patrimony. Creating and maintaining efficient disciplinary structures and rules is a huge challenge. In the end, the difference between elites who build enduring legacies and those who squander them is not brilliance or ambition.

It is the capacity for self-restraint, the willingness to sacrifice personal comfort for collective good, and the seriousness with which they honour the obligations of privilege. The British legal establishment stands out as the exemplar in self preservation and preservation of the common wealth by the recognition of the obligations of privilege. By strict enforcement of discipline, strict rules of entry into the profession, preferment to the rank of Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Counsel) and even stricter in the judicial appointment process, they have maintained the integrity, prestige and relevance of the British system of justice from generation to generation.

Such is the absolute trust in the British legal system that today by the creation of extraterritorial jurisdiction for their courts commercial disputes from all countries of the world can by agreement of parties be tried in the royal courts of justice in London. It is important to point out that the British legal profession attained this enviable position by rigorous self-regulation. While serving as Attorney-General of Lagos State, I was called upon to write a mitigating reference for a senior Nigerian lawyer in practice in England who was on the verge of losing his license to practice.

Why? He was before the court of appeal in respect of a criminal matter. In the course of arguing the appeal, the court hinted him that his position was unarguable, but he stubbornly continued the argument. In the end he lost the appeal. But the court wrote to the regulatory body seeking that he be penalized for pursuing an unarguable point. He was at the point of being disbarred when he came to me to ask for a character reference. Our profession like the British profession must protect itself by rigorous process of training of lawyers, appointment of judges and discipline of the bar and the bench. Finally, let me spend a moment on another issue touching on the credibility of our courts and the certainty of legal outcomes.

This is the spate of inconsistencies that we see today in the decisions of our courts. Almost all levels of courts now appear afflicted by the disease of conflicting judgments. But when these are judgments of the Supreme Court, then we have a greater challenge. Let me give three examples of such situations. In Benjamin V Kalio 2018 and Abdullahi v Adetutu 2020. The Supreme Court in Benjamin V Kalio held that an unregistered registrable instrument is inadmissible to prove title, but it can be used for other evidentiary purposes.

But in Abdullahi v. Adetutu 2020 without distinguishing Benjamin V Kalio, the Court refused to admit an unregistered registrable instrument for any purpose, including evidentiary value, suggesting that such documents are completely inadmissible.

The second is Owners of MV Arabella v NAIC and Akeredolu v Abraham. In MV Arabella, the court took the view that procedural defects (like wrong or missing parties) are jurisdictional issues, requiring strict compliance. But the court adopted a different approach in Akeredolu, holding that not all procedural defects affect jurisdiction and that courts should focus on justice over form. This was clearly more progressive but implicitly overruled MV Arabella.

Then in another two cases, on the powers of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC), Okike v LPDC, and Akintokun v LPDC. In Okike, the Supreme Court held that the LPDC’s proceedings are sui generis and not strictly bound by the technical rules of criminal procedure or evidence, as long as the rules of natural justice and fair hearing are observed, whereas in Akintokun v LPDC, the Supreme Court insisted on strict compliance with formal rules of procedure and evidence, effectively narrowing the LPDC’s autonomy.

These inconsistencies make it difficult to advise clients, one more obstacle in an already fraught system. The doctrine of Stare Decisis is fundamental to our case law-dependent system of justice. Once precedent is not respected, legal outcomes become a game of chance.

Let me conclude by saying that the future is here unfolding around us - faster than our rules, bolder than our traditions, and far more demanding and unforgiving of inefficiency, corruption and uncertainty on the state of the law. We have entered a new era - one that demands not only a new toolkit, but also renewed commitment to discipline and integrity, these must be the pillars of our renewed vision.

Thank you for listening.