VP’s Virtual Remarks At The Nigerian Bar Association Legal Education Summit

• Share:

REMARKS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, AT THE NIGERIAN BAR ASSOCIATION LEGAL EDUCATION SUMMIT HELD ON 30TH MARCH 2022, AT THE ALFA BELGORE HALL, AFE BABALOLA UNIVERSITY, ADO-EKITI, EKITI STATE

PROTOCOLS

Let me begin by thanking the NBA and the Afe Babalola University for providing the platform for this important reflection on legal education in Nigeria. We must also specially commend Chief Afe Babalola SAN who will be 93 years old in October but remains an undiminished light in the legal profession. That he has devoted his resources to establishing a world-class university and a Faculty of Law that has attained such distinction in a few short years, is truly remarkable and worthy of praise.

The theme itself: “Re-imagining Legal Education in Nigeria” has encapsulated the mood of stakeholders in the legal profession as to the current state of legal education in the country and the need for re-evaluation, revamp and transformation.

Over the years, we have witnessed how other nations have transformed their systems of legal training through developed structures of periodic review. They have recognised that first legal minds must be developed for analytical and critical thinking, that this type of education does not have to be confined to the traditional four-wall classroom; a system we have been operating in the main since the 1960s.

Legal education, like many other branches of learning, is designed to evolve with and be responsive to the development of society. Needs for legal services depend on the general dealings and operations of society.

Having been a law teacher for some years, I fully understand that a chief problem of our style of legal education is learning by rote, as opposed to learning for problem-solving.

In the latter (learning for problem-solving), the emphasis is not on memorising case law and statutes but on understanding how to use them to solve real-life legal problems. I taught the Law of Evidence at the University of Lagos and a few other universities, but it struck me one day while teaching documentary evidence that students will learn faster if I was able to give them copies of what an original document is; what secondary evidence of it would look like, and what a real-life public document is, and what a certified copy looks like.  So when I taught the complex issues of proof of documentary evidence, they already had a good mental picture of what I had in mind.

Also by posing a problem and asking them to search out the rules to apply, I found that even the least interested students got involved.  This is a snippet of what is called Clinical Legal Education, and it is the new and right way of teaching law.

The next question for me is how to deal with growing numbers of students, especially in the law school where we have a population explosion – overcrowded classrooms and hostels, inadequate library facilities, limited pool of qualified law teachers, among others. But these problems are not peculiar to our jurisdiction, other jurisdictions have encountered (in varying degrees) and successfully tackled these challenges. Nigeria’s candidates for law school averaged 10,000.

A 10-year review of the admission list of the Nigerian Law School, from 2010 to 2020, shows that, on average, the various campuses of the school can accommodate only about 6,000 students.

In the United States of America, from 2015 – 2017, between 16,000 to 20,000 lawyers join the pool annually.  Similarly, high numbers are trained in the United Kingdom (21,000)  and Australia (8,499).

What do these countries do differently? First is the decentralisation of Law Schools and Non-Residential Bar Examinations. As of 2020, there were 202 American Bar Association (ABA)-fully accredited law schools that after the award of the JD award, the Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree (equivalent to Nigeria’s LL.B), candidates engage in private preparations which is called the Bar Review for the Bar Examinations set by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) and administered by agencies under the authority of States’ Supreme Courts.

There are no requirements for residential stay in any formal school setting for the Bar Examination. Applications are completed online and the examination, computer-based, is administered at designated centres. A character and fitness investigation is conducted on applicants prior to issuance of the license to practice law.

The second is that all of these other jurisdictions have a long period of practical training as a condition precedent for the call to the bar. Our profession is called “the practice of law” for a reason. Whether the focus of a lawyer is advocacy or solicitor’s work, mastery of the intricacies of the profession comes with the practice which is greatly enhanced by training under established mentors.

While in Nigeria, students are exposed to barely two months of both court and law office training before call, in other jurisdictions, practical training takes between 12 to 24 months. In Singapore, for example, qualified persons who pass the written examinations will need to complete a 12-month training contract before they can obtain a practising certificate/license.

In the United Kingdom, candidates undergo mandatory 12-month pupillage for aspiring barristers and a 24-month training contract for aspiring solicitors.

The third is the extensive use of technology for teaching. Even before the advent of Covid-19 pandemic, which in a number of countries fast-tracked the adoption of technology in tutoring, other jurisdictions have adopted and institutionalised the use of technology in tutoring, examinations and even their courtroom systems.

The fourth is the inclusion of relevant aspects of managerial skills in the curricula. Legal education must be both socially relevant to society and economically profitable for the practitioners. Law, even in the context of offering pro bono services, is a business. Managers of such businesses are expected to be fully equipped with, not only practical legal skills but also entrepreneurial and business management skills.

To be effective, the pedagogy must reflect these realities and the changing demographics of people joining the profession. Several UK universities now offer law and business degrees or law and management science degrees. Some take a period of 4 years to enable the student to get a qualifying degree in law, a regular law degree and a business degree.

I think this summit offers a unique opportunity for more in-depth introspection on relevant, contemporary curricula for both the law degree and bar qualification.

I wish to commend the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association for its consistent efforts at improving the legal profession through sustained investment in continuing legal education, in particular and advancement of jurisprudence, in general.

I wish you very successful deliberations and look forward to receiving the recommendations of the Summit.

Thank you very much for your attention.