NBA Lagos Branch Continuous Legal Education Committee, MTN Legal Team, Hold Mentoring Session for Lawyers
On Friday, March 22, 2019, the majestic MTN Plaza in down town Lagos was the setting for a ground-breaking initiative designed to enlighten, engage and empower lawyers as part of the ongoing commitment by the Lagos Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association towards the qualitative training, retraining and mentoring of lawyers in the nation’s premier bar branch.
Organized by the Association’s Continuous Legal Education and Mentorship Committee (CLE) under the stewardship of Tobenna Erojikwe, and tagged ‘Renovating the House: The Swelling Influence of the External Counsel,’ the event saw a fairly large contingent of legal practitioners from various law firms in the nation’s commercial capital, as well as in-house counsel from a number of corporate organisations within the Lagos branch of the NBA.
After a brief meet-and-greet session among the participants, proceedings formally began with welcome remarks by the Corporate Relations Executive of the tech giant, Tobechukwu Okigbo, who expressed his organization’s delight at the NBA’s interest in the development of requisite professional and other skill in young wigs. The NBA and MTN, he said, have, since the latter’s inception on the Nigerian scene, enjoyed a symbiotic relationship based on common goals, and sessions like this were a further means of cementing that relationship, and more particular on developing synergy between the in-house and external counsel in the work of a given corporation. He ended by urging participants to avail themselves of the sumptuous intellectual resources on offer during the session.
In his remarks, the Chief Operating Officer of MTN, Mr. Mazen Mroue expounded on his organization’s so-called ‘BRIGHT’ strategy – BRIGHT being an acronym for Best Customer Experience; Returns and Efficiency; Igniting the Commercial Enterprise; Growth and Development; Hearts and Minds; and Technology-Driven Excellency. MTN’s extensive investments across the Nigerian landscape, he asserted, are testimony to the company’s determination to remain an active player in the Nigerian economy for the long term – even in the face of the steady divestments from the country by a number of other large corporations in recent times. MTN, he assured, would be on top of its game in respect of the projected transition to 5G, just as it had during the earlier progression from 3G to 4G.
Newswire Law and Events Magazine’s correspondent in Lagos reports that the main lecture of the session was led by Ifeoma Utah, who is the General Manager in charge of the organization’s commercial legal team. In a wide-ranging and highly engaging presentation, she spelt out the work of her team of lawyers, and the various ways in which they confront challenges – both current and emerging (including spurious claims and threats of legal action, etc.) – and maximize the opportunities of their assignment. In describing the evolving role of today’s corporate counsel, she asserted that such a counsel must know more than just the law; his/her range of aptitudes must include an understanding of financial reporting; an in-depth knowledge of the company’s products and services; its work/corporate culture and customs, as well as its core values, and how to align his/her own work with the company’s overall mission and mandate. In essence, Utah went on to say, the corporate counsel wears several hats – legal adviser, gatekeeper, corporate conscience; ethical advisor, thought leader, risk manager, mentor/coach, corporate compliance export, crisis manager, among others. The corporate counsel must therefore have an extensive toolkit of proficiencies and competencies – most notably in areas such as contract management; litigation management; financial management; information governance; strategic planning; and compliance.
Rather than merely reacting to incidents and unforeseen events, Utah asserted, corporate counsel must learn to be proactive so as always ensure that the organization he/she represents always lands on its feet in any crisis – as well as the ability to mitigate adverse effects where prevention is impossible; a constant state of preparedness; and the ability to recover quickly from adversity.
The centerpiece of Mrs. Utah’s presentation was her exposition of the relative merits of a high intelligence quotient (or IQ) and a high degree of emotional intelligence (EI) in the broad range of professional, corporate and personal relationships a corporate counsel must cultivate in the course of his/her work. Disclosing that a high IQ accounts for only 20 percent in today’s high competitive marketplace (as opposed to the remaining 80% for EI), Utah therefore urged young lawyers to develop the qualities of self – and social awareness in equal measure, as exemplified by self-regulation and motivation as well as empathy and dynamic social skills (including the ability to seek out, and build synergy with, persons with whom one has that indefinable element popularly known as ‘chemistry’), as well as the willing admit and learn from mistakes – and sometimes to say sorry even when one is right, for the purpose of keeping an up-building and mutually reinforcing relationship.
Urging her young colleagues to be wary of transactional friendships and build a reputation for trustworthiness, Utah ended by recommending a formidable array of reading material by renowned writers in the fields of law, management and relationships for further study.
Further words of inspiration were offered by Okigbo, the aforementioned corporate relations executive of MTN. In a rather humorous exposition, he related to the enraptured participants his own tortuous professional and personal journey – from a reluctant legal education, to brief stints in journalism and environmental advocacy, and now back to law, albeit that of legal counseling. In the course of this sojourn, he said, he was grounded by his knowledge of the law, and his confidence in its efficacy in the good ordering of society – and the words of commerce, finance and corporate management. He therefore urged the young wigs to wear their legal education like a badge of honour.
Also urging the young wigs to never to be afraid of making mistakes, but to draw the right lessons from them, Okigbo (or Tobe, as he prefers to be known) ended on a philosophical note by saying that success tends to cover a multitude of blunders.
Tobe’s remarks were followed by an animated question-and-answer session, as young lawyers not only gave their respective takes on the IQ-versus-EI dichotomy, but also expressed their interest and concern over a broad range of issues, which Ifeoma Utah and her team proceeded to address, to the admiration of all present.
Newswire’s correspondent reports that the event was graced by a number of prominent members of the NBA Lagos branch executive, among them the chairman of the branch, Chukwuka Ikwuazom, who expressed gratitude for MTN’s involvement in this event, asserting that the premier branch has no greater friend and supporter than the tech giant. Referencing Tobe Okigbo’s earlier remarks, Ikwuazom decried the tendency by some young wigs to characterize themselves as ‘poor lawyers,’ (as opposed to lawyers working in big law firms, including Senior Advocates of Nigeria), describing such an attitude as a defeatist, self-fulfilling pronouncement and a disservice to the nobility of the legal profession. He reaffirmed the Lagos bar’s unwavering commitment to the continuous education and mentoring of young wigs.
The closing remarks/vote of thanks were offered by Tobenna Erojikwe, chair of NBA Lagos’s Continuous Legal Education Committee, as the session came to a close end on a note of optimism – not just in respect of the highly fruitful synergy between MTN and the NBA’s Lagos branch, but also in respect of the effort by both entities to empower the emerging generation of legal practitioners in Nigeria in their bid to surmount the challenges of the emerging marketplace, as well as maximize the opportunities therein – especially in the face of growing automation and digitalization, globalization and dwindling opportunities.
See photos below:
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