2019 SBL Confab: Tales Beyond the Bar – ‘Variety Night Celebrates Trained Lawyers Excellence in Other Careers’
The Ones Who Got Away.
That would be an appropriate title for a book or movie about trained lawyers who abandoned the legal profession to pursue careers in such fields as the arts, media and entertainment – and apparently got away with it.
Increasingly these days, the nation’s professional and vocational landscape is littered with young men and women who studied law in university (usually due to family, peer or societal pressure, especially in the case of those whose families boast of a generation or two of lawyers) but then decided after graduation (or way before then) that a career in law was perhaps not the most fulfilling way to attain their true potential, or fulfill their destiny in life – and opted instead for other careers. Usually – in these parts, at least – the loss to the legal profession has become the gain of the creative industry – the visual arts, media, and entertainment, and in one or two cases, the culinary arts, or the fashion and beauty industries.
Far from begrudging such departures their success, the legal profession in Nigeria has chosen to celebrate them, as well as hear their stories – as to their motivations in abandoning the ‘noble’ profession, as well as their experiences so far. And rightly so, as their successes reflect well on their legal training (for it is a reflection, for the most part, on the rigour, discipline and attention to detail they had imbibed in university and in law school). The Variety Show, held on the first full day of the 2019 SBL annual conference, was one such occasion. Hosted by the duo of Koye Kekere-Ekun, an actor and event host, and Bukki Olabiyi, a Partner at the law firm of Odunjinrin & Adefulu, the evening brought together such stars as the internationally-acclaimed photographer Kelechi Amadi-Obi; Nnamdi Patrick-Onuh, also a award-winning photographer; Ogo Okafor, Creative Partner/Founder of Autumn & Spring (a fashion and couture house); Afoluwake Ogunkeye, a radio personality, television host, actor and producer popularly known to her teeming fans as Folu Storms; and Modupe Emmanuel, the head chef at Salt Lagos. These stellar personalities inspired
the crowd with their stories of epiphanies occasioned, in the case of most, by a bout of self-doubt, quickly dispelled by early success or disenchanted with the status quo. Their success so far is a reflection of their tenacity, intelligence and no doubt, some bit of good fortune along the way (what Amadi-Obi described as the universe ‘re-arranging itself to meet you at the point of your need’).
One of the highlights of a highly entertaining evening was a model parade showcasing designs from Ogo Okafor’s Autumn & Spring fashion outfit; a so-called Game of Taste (a play on the zero-sum world of the TV show, ‘Game of Thrones’), and a food-sampling contest with delicacies from Modupe Emmanuel’s Salt Lagos restaurant. At the end of it all, Kelechi Amadi-Obi weighed in with a few useful photography tips as the night wore to a close.
See photos below:
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