Experts identify setbacks to growth of legal business in Nigeria

Foremost electronic research and law reporting company, Law Pavilion has identified three key setbacks to the growth of legal business in Nigeria.

Speaking to the media at the just-concluded Annual General Conference (AGC) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Owerri, Imo State, where Law Pavilion was official ICT partner of the conference, the Managing Director of the company, Ope Olugasa identified these challenges to be, the lack of power supply, lack of ICT skills by lawyers and the cost of acquiring the technology.

According him, a recent research conducted by LawPavilion, revealed that while the use of ICT globally has increased productivity by 400%, less that 50% of Nigerian lawyers are yet to fully appreciate and embrace these global trends in technology.

“More than 85% of Nigerian Lawyers still use yahoomail as official email addresses and one wonders how such lawyer will conduct cross border transactions and do reliable business with colleagues and clients in other jurisdictions. Communicating with yahoo mails does not portray a good brand, neither does it reflect a high level of professionalism in this age of technology,” Olugasa announced.

He further disclosed that the partnership with the NBA was aimed at developing the individual practice of Nigerian lawyers, whilst bringing about the much-desired change in the profession.

“We have just unveiled our new android app, which can be used with smart phones and androids and includes a law and case management system. To this end, the challenge of having to learn how to use a computer as well as the learning cost attached to this has been dealt with.

“With android devices, lawyers and judges can download, record, write and transcribe documents without the complexities of a computer, making information gathering and documentation process an almost seamless operation for lawyers who find it difficult to use computers,” he informed pressmen.

Also earmarked as growth strategy, is a drive to bridge the ICT knowledge-gap currently weighing down the industry. Thus, issues such as cost and other ancillary matters have been taken into consideration.

We are working closely with Samsung to unveil public support for young lawyers and we enjoin all senior lawyers to take the advantage of this rare opportunity to empower their juniors.

Much emphasis was also laid on the leadership role of law firm owners (Principals) and their contribution to the growth of ICT with the empowerment of junior lawyers as support structure. According to Olugasa, ‘management by shouting’ (as he describes the practice of some senior lawyers) must be discouraged. Noting that the right tools of work will bring growth and expectations will be surpassed.

“We are really troubled about the slow pace of justice administration. We are consistently trying our best to ensure that we employ the best ICT tools applicable to in all developed world, bringing them into Nigeria to ensure that the legal industry is well equipped to speed up processes.”

 The Electronic law reporting giants announced that they have gone beyond partnering the conference, to becoming the ICT partner of every lawyer in Nigeria with the hope of offering premium digital experience.

“We have worked extensively to ensure that we give them the best platform that is available anywhere in the world and that is why they need to go for premium package, as we move to every location in Nigeria,” Olugasa stated.

The Lawpavilion electronic law report is currently the official electronic law report of the judiciary in 17 states. This includes, the Court of appeal, the National Industrial Court, Federal High Courts etc. Confirming this, the Managing director said, “We are extensively cited in 16 courts, Court of appeal and LPLR. We have been partnering with the Court of Appeal since 2012. We are the only paginated and paragraphed law report in Nigeria, with 45 citations. We have now partnered with the NBA, providing them with free internet access.

“We also plan to launch a training campaign for every lawyer in Nigeria, after this conference, we will be round branches to see branch chairmen and secretaries on the adoption of ICT and help them acquire this to help them compete and be a per with their colleagues in other developed places. Having taken all of this into consideration, I don’t see what can stop any lawyer or even a judge in Nigeria from accepting and embracing ICT,” he said in conclusion.

OPE OLUGASA, is the Managing Director of LawPavilion, one of Nigeria’s foremost electronic and digital law reporting company.