ICT, legal resource development in 2016: An outlook by LawPavilion
Nigeria’s foremost IT, software and legal resource service provider, LawPavilion is set to take the legal industry to greater heights in 2016. While developing Nigerian legal practice through its electronic tools and automated legal services in 2015, the company did significantly well exporting made-in-Nigeria technology and selling the Nigeria brand in other parts of the world.
In this chat, Ope Olugasa, Managing Director of LawPavilion, takes an outlook on the development of the justice sector through technology and opportunities for further development in 2016.
LEGAL SERVICES INDUSTRY AND GROWTH IN TECHNOLOGY
“This is 2016. Take a look at trends around the world today. There is hardly any industry or sector that hasn’t been touched significantly by Technology, in fact, new sectors have been created and how society functions now is so different from what obtained just 10 years ago. This is principally because of the impact of Technology on all spheres of human existence.
“So to us at LawPavilion, the impact of information and communication technology on human existence is akin to a Tsunami; you either willingly go with the flow or get swept away by it.
There are several reasons why the legal industry and the justice sector should wholeheartedly embrace software solutions, e-law reporting, amongst others.
First, for the ease and speed of access to decided cases.
Through our interaction with Judges of various courts, and going by our records of cases that we receive from the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, there has been a significant increase in the number of cases emanating from the Courts. Our model allows us to be able to get these pronouncements from Court promptly and have them analysed and ready for our subscribers within 48 hours. It would be extremely difficult for other models of law reporting to replicate that.
Another reason for adopting e-law reporting would be affordability and reliability. We all know what it costs to have a well-stocked physical library. But with electronic materials, at a fraction of the costs, one can have a robust library without breaking the bank. Moreover, in the event of a fire incident or robbery or any other unfortunate incident, whatever is destroyed is lost forever. But with LawPavilion, there are multiple backup servers containing and preserving our contents so that no matter what, our subscribers are never at a loss.
And finally, I would like to also say that another reason for adopting e-solutions is the all-important attribute of efficiency. It is a no brainer that the contest of the 21st Century is not a contest of strength evidenced by physical exertion and hardwork, rather it is a contest for working smart, using smart tools to achieve exceptional results whilst still having time to pursue other interests. As i stated earlier, many of our subscribers have attested to the fact that using LawPavilion has helped them to do much more in less time than before.
JUSTICE SECTOR TRAINING, RESOURCE AND DEVELOPMENT
“We have committed a lot to advocating and promoting the immense and incomparable benefits of adopting technology in the provision of legal services.
“For us, the focus is on growing the justice sector through the development of resource e-solutions for legal practice and justice administration. To achieve this, we have had to put deploy a lot of resources – both human and financial to ensure its success. The objective is to ensure the adoption of technology by all stakeholders in the legal services and administration of justice sector.
“By God’s grace, we have successfully trained Justices of the Court of Appeal across all divisions, High Court Judges of Lagos, Ogun, Ekiti, Osun and several other States which time would not permit us to go into fuller details. We have also collaborated with some branches of the NBA to train legal practitioners on the use of LawPavilion especially and we are pleased with the response we have received over the years since we started.
However, there is still so much more to be done in the areas of enlightenment.
JUDGES RECORDING COURT PROCEEDINGS IN LONG HAND
“This process is very archaic, stressful and energy sapping. Countries like Ghana and Singapore have adopted modern technology in taking records of proceedings in court but in Nigeria our Judges and Magistrates still take notes in long hand.
“This is why we developed our Court Management System, which allows Judges to take audio records of proceedings and have such records transcribed whilst retaining the original audio recording.
“As you may be aware, while LawPavilion Electronic Legal Research software is our flagship product, we have developed other products in response to the needs we have seen in the industry. We are hopeful that practice directions would soon emerge to give legal backing to audio records of proceedings to beaten rather than burdening our esteemed Judges and Magistrates with tedious long handwriting.
PROGRESSION
“For those we have trained, we do not relent in carrying out follow up programs and plans are underway to do more of follow-up in the coming year. Our initial series of trainings influenced our decision to introduce LawPavilion on smaller mobile devices such as the iPad and Android devices.
“We discovered that by the nature of what Judges and Legal Practitioners do, a significant amount of flexibility and portability is required to enable them derive maximum advantage from the use of LawPavilion and this is best achieved by accessing the software on our iPad and Android versions.
A good number of our Judge subscribers have told us in confidence that they have been able to deliver more Bench rulings because of the availability of LawPavilion on devices like the iPad and Android.”
OUTCOME AND IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE SECTOR
“The trainings for judges and administrators in the justice sector have been quite successful, I must confess.
“With regards to training outcomes, the trainings have benefitted participants immensely, touching all end-users – the Judges, the Magistrates, Lawyers, Solicitors and Law students etc. A recurring feedback has been that LawPavilion has changed their lives and they really wonder how they were able to cope without our product. This is especially so for those who have LawPavilion products before or after the training. They have been able to derive maximum benefits from the use of our flagship LawPavilion Electronic Legal Research software.
“Even if not immediately resulting in financial gains, we have witnessed policy directives lending enormous credence to our advocacy propagated through our trainings for Judges and Legal practitioners.
“I will therefore say Rome was not built in a day. We are not solely focused on profitability in the immediate, so we know that we cannot make all the profit in one day. For us, it is a long-term investment which needs time to grow before it begins to yield, so we operate with the “farmer’s mentality”.
BEST CUSTOMERS IN THE INDUSTRY
“Naturally, you would expect that the young lawyers would embrace it more, however, many of them do not have the financial capacity but we have created more pocket friendly versions of our products to accommodate Young Lawyers.
Surprisingly though, many very Senior and experienced Legal Practitioners and Judges have embraced our products. In fact a Judge, who is elderly, still called me up recently and expressed his love for the product as that is what he uses. So from the highest cadre, to the lowest, they have all embraced it, most especially the judiciary at the Federal and State level.
SERVICES FOR YOUNGER LAWYERS
“We have introduced a version of LawPavilion that sells for just N3, 000.00 per month and the annual subscription for that version is N30, 000.00 only.
Also, in the not-too-distant-past, we have had outings where we offered 50% off our products principally for Young Lawyers and we hope to have more of such offers in 2016.
“In fact, at the moment we have a very unique package for law school students which makes it possible for them to subscribe to LawPavilion for at least 2 years at almost give away price.
“We therefore encourage young Lawyers to get LawPavilion Electronic Legal Research software. There is a saying that goes, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance”. Every Legal Practitioner needs to embrace the use of LawPavilion,” he said.
CHALLENGES
“We are quick to point out that because our trainings for Judges and Legal Practitioners are free, we have encountered a number of structural challenges.
“We will do much better if we had better structure in the society and a little support from government at various levels or donor organizations – who could help by bearing the huge costs of providing such trainings across the Federation.
“Still, enlightening the Industry about adopting and using Technology in the administration of justice is a passion for us at LawPavilion, so we will keep doing what we do best, with the hope that some day, these investments would yield returns.
STRATEGY AGAINST PIRACY
“We do have products to help us blacklist IP addresses where attempts to break into our servers have taken place. However, we have also put in place efficient security strategies to take care of this. With regards to the CD version of our software, we have been able to tackle the possibility of piracy by encrypting the data on our CDs. Even if our CDs are duplicated, it is useless for any purpose without an access code from us, and the control to the access code is limited to specific personnel within our Company.
“However, we also ensure that we keep abreast of security challenges globally and how they could impact our product, so we keep upgrading our security apparatus.”
PROMOTING NIGERIAN TECHNOLOGY OUTSIDE NIGERIA
“Our involvement and participation in international Conferences has given us access to markets beyond the shores and borders of Nigeria or even Africa.
“Very recently, Harvard Law School and a couple of other International Universities requested to become subscribers to LawPavilion. This is a testament to the quality of our products, which our attendance at international Conferences gave us an opportunity to expose to the world.
“These occasions have also been a platform for us to showcase the positive side of Nigeria, showcasing to the world that Nigeria isn’t a country of only crooks as often portrayed in foreign media.
On the other hand, it has been very challenging. For instance, we face huge challenges from the customs in trying to move our exhibition equipment/materials outside the country to be able to showcase our products and services.
Also, coming from Nigeria, sometimes there are discriminatory practices, which could be discouraging, but we keep working and moving forward, we don’t allow any challenge to take our eyes off the mark.
E-SERVICE OF COURT PROCESSES AND OTHER DEVELOPMENTS WITHIN THE BAR
“I think the e-service of court processes is a welcome development for this country, as we need to start believing in ourselves as a country. Nothing is impossible and we are always ready for new heights.
“It was in anticipation of a situation like this directive from the Supreme Court that had motivated us to develop our Court Management System, about 2 years ago. The Court Management Solution is a very robust solution and we have integrated aspects of e-service into it.
“Not only that, through our Court Management Solution, Judges and Judicial Officers can proactively manage their courts and matters pending before the Court. We have also included the National Judicial Council (NJC) Performance Evaluation Form into the Court Management Solution. So we have the competence and expertise to assist any Court that approaches us in this regard.
“We are available to work on this with any willing Court or Court administration. In fact, this directive is a further testament to our vigorous campaign for adoption of technology in the industry and we are very glad about the directive. We hope that all stakeholders would cooperate to make the operation realistic and seamless.”
VISION FOR 2016 AND BEYOND
“We will be doing a lot in other jurisdictions this year; particularly around Africa – exporting technology developed in Nigeria. We hope to be the most cited, authoritative Law report and Technology Partner to the legal services industry in Africa by 2025.”
DRIVING FORCES AND MAKING A SUCCESS OF YOUR BUSINESS
The driving motivation for any business should be PASSION. However that passion must be predicated on certain values or attributes. For us at LawPavilion, force is three-pronged.
i. The Passion to showcase the positive side of Nigeria, our ultimate goal is to export technology developed in Nigeria to other parts of the world and we are very well on our way towards achieving that.
ii. The Passion to ignite culture of innovation, integrity, and Can-do-attitude. Today’s youths need positive examples of locally grown businesses that are competing favourably on international scenes. We want our young people to see beyond the problems in Nigeria and begin to think of innovative solutions to those problems and conduct business with integrity.
iii. Passion for a reform to engineer and pioneer certain things so that when you look back, even when you have set backs, you know you will get there. Though there may be challenges, you know one day you will get there. It is just delayed gratification.