2019 SLP Conference: Experts Share Thoughts on Future of Legal Practice, Workplace Dynamics, and Economics Crimes
The first panel discussion of the opening day explored the topic: “The Future of Legal Services in Nigeria – Opportunities & Threats,” and was chaired by the Hon. Justice U. I. Ndukwe-Anyanwu, a Justice of the Court of Appeal. The star-studded panel contained the likes of Hon. Justice Biolele Georgewill, JCA, who was the lead speaker; Mrs. Funke Adekoya, SAN, who is the head of the dispute-resolution practice at the law firm of AELEX; a university don, Prof. Oyelowo Oyewo; Mr. Adekunle Salau, the CEO/founder of Automata Associates Ltd.; a banker, Mr. Raymond Mgbeokwere; the MD/CEO of Law Pavilion, Mr. Ope Olugasa; and Julian Hardy, who heads JUST Commercial Vehicles Ltd.
The lead speaker, Hon. Justice Georgewill was concerned with the moral and ethical behavior of legal practitioners, which in his view has deteriorated with the widespread obsession for quick wealth among the value-addition in the legal profession, he said in reference to the conference topic, if lawyers themselves have no value or integrity. While lawyers must innovate and adapt, he added, the real innovation must be moral, and ethical.
Virtually all the panelists, however,concerned themselves with the disruptive effects of new technologies on a traditionally conservative profession such as law, but stressed that while things like digital disruption, globalization, the current economic downturn, the country’s largely negative ease of doing business index, and delay in transactions (including justice delivery), etc. may chip away at the ability of lawyers to stay relevant the service market, they also presented many opportunities for lawyers to innovate and retool their skill sets for better performance and profitable outcomes. It was time, Prof. Oyewo said, to see the practice of law, not as a mere profession, but as an industry. This theme of law as an industry was also taken by another panelist, Mr. Adekunle Salau, a consultant on SMEs and startups, in his presentation ‘The Business of Lawyering.’ Salau lamented that the majority of law were not really businesses (in the manner of their international counterparts) for a number of reasons – among them most law firms’ disregard for the Pareto Principle, which holds that 80% of outcomes are achieved with only 20% of resources, and vice versa. On his part, Hardy simply called for greater respect for due process and, more importantly, the value of time as a component of success and national growth and development.
The second plenary session of the opening day was devoted to the topic: Emerging Trends in the Workplace: Culture, Outsourcing, and Triangular Employment.’ Chaired by the Hon. Justice Danjuma (the representative of the Presiding Justice at the Court Of Appeal, Akure Division, Hon. Justice Omoleye), the discussion panel included the following persons: Hon. Justice B. B. Kanyip, who is the presiding justice of the national industrial of Nigeria, Abuja Judicial Division, who was the lead speaker; his counterpart at the Akure Division of the court, Hon. Justice ; a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Bode Olanipekun, who is the managing partner at the law firm of Wole Olanipekun& Co.; and Mr. Folabi Kuti, a partner at the law firm of Perchstone & Graeys. Their discourse centered on the question of who was an employee or employer in the fluid and ever-changing world of work, and who bears responsibility for liability, compensation and pensions, etc. in a triangular employment situation. Olanipekun, in particular, lamented the inadequacy of legislation, where it exists at all, in respect of emerging work trends, but ventured a set of ground rules and laws designed to ensure that so-called middlemen companies/employers bear responsibility for liability.
The third and final plenary session of the first day centered on the vexed issue of money laundering, tax evasion and other economic crimes, and the lawyer’s duty of disclosure in the quest to combat these scourges. It was chaired by Mr. Olalekan Ojo, the principal partner at the law firm of Olalekan Ojo & Co. The 3-man panel assembled to discuss this topic included Dr. James Agaba, head of the Kano campus of the Nigerian Law School; Mrs. Halima Wushishi, a partner at the law firm of Lawmatic Consult Limited. Rounding off the panel was Mr. Sylvanus Tahir. Together, the trio discussed the implication of money laundering and tax evasion on the individual, corporate organisation or national. They agree that laundering in particular, gave the initial crime the impetus and the motivation for further crimes – as was seen by the sequence of events that followed the 9/11 attacks the United States of America in particular, which was financed by laundered money, and the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq that followed the tragic events of 9/11.
Mr. Tahir’s remarks brought the activities of the opening session to a close, as delegates awaited yet another day of intellectual exchange, socializing and networking.
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