by Funke Aboyade

The technologies are now so strong, so advanced and pervasive that there’s hardly anything the various bars around the world can do concerning holding on to old tenets of professional secrecy or lawyer/client privilege which are now beginning to look dated.

Ever heard of the virtual law firm? What about the virtual courtroom? Cyber settlements? How about the whole idea of emailing your submissions to the judge and getting a ruling via the same medium?
Try: franchising a law firm? Legal tourism anyone? Lawyer e-identity?
Well I hadn’t. That is, until last week’s Annual Conference of the International Bar Association in Boston.

For me, it was great opportunity to catch up with the latest trends in the legal profession and the way law is practiced in different jurisdictions, particularly those countries whose legal systems derive from the Common Law.

It was also an opportunity to learn about the challenges – and opportunities and advantages – the profession is facing with those trends and in the face of an increasingly technology driven world.

For other concepts I HAD heard about, it was a great opportunity to learn even more about them and what challenges they throw up for the legal profession.

The cloud. Legal outsourcing. Supermarket law firms. Alternative Business Structures (ABS). Multi-Disciplinary Practices (MDPs). Full service law firms. Technology driven firms. International Law firms. Domestic Law Firms. Best friends relationships. Brand recognition. Globalisation of the legal profession. Quality Control. Alignment.

Core Values. Core service area. Flexible pricing.
And then, there were the issues which went with all these concepts. For instance, government mass surveillance – which has been in the news lately.

From that bastion of democracy, the United States, to emerging economies like Nigeria, government mass surveillance programmes are controversial and, not surprisingly, being met with stiff resistance and/or resentment by the populace.

The technologies are now so strong, so advanced and pervasive that there’s hardly anything the various bars around the world can do concerning holding on to old tenets of professional secrecy or lawyer/client privilege which are now beginning to look dated.

In Cloud computing, do we know exactly where all that data is being stored? There are major issues relating to storage of client’s data. Can a client, for instance, insist that his lawyer not store his data on the cloud because of privacy/privilege concerns? Is a private server any better? The areas are so grey that some law firms are apparently now resorting to typewriters, we were told at a Bar Issues Commission Session at Harvard Law School! With big issues surrounding cloud computing, various bars are having to make decisions; the French Bar, for instance, has simply said its lawyers cannot use the cloud.

How does a law firm remain competitive in the face of say, MDPs? Or in-House Counsel who now routinely do a large chunk of the work they might otherwise have previously farmed out to lawyers?
How does a lawyer from Nigeria for instance, with severe restrictions on advertising compete with his counterpart in Europe, North America and other jurisdictions where restrictions on advertising have long been jettisoned and are not even a hazy memory?
How does a Domestic Law Firm hire and retain talent, given that young lawyers prefer the allure, glamour and compensation package of International Law Firms?
International Law firms routinely now have hundreds of partners and thousands of lawyers in tens of law offices in tens of jurisdictions.

How does a Domestic Law Firm hold its own against these conglomerates? What about the single practitioner? How does a Domestic Law Firm leverage against the International Law Firm, its better access to local and regulatory authorities, as well as its better knowledge of the cultural nuances of doing business in its jurisdiction and local knowledge of the domestic market?
How does a law firm build international networks?

Should law firms go into franchising of their practices? If so, how should franchise control and tight management be maintained?
How do we run our law firms as businesses, rather than as liberal arts institutions?

Is Legal Outsourcing the way to go (especially for a country like Nigeria where unemployment of young lawyers churned out annually from the Nigerian Law School is staggering?) How do you maintain quality and ensure legal due diligence?

For firms with multiple offices how do they ensure quality control? How do they maintain consistency of culture or a level remuneration structure? How do they ensure good leadership and smart management which allows a degree of autonomy? In this global age when talent is much less loyal than in the staid old days, how do they retain talent? How flexible should they be to changes in the market place? How do they ensure a good partnership spirit?

For Supermarket Firms (as they are known in jurisdictions that allow them, like the UK), how do they meet challenges pertaining to upfront costs and technology investment? How do they deal with conflict of interests between lawyers and outside investors? How do they ensure quality of lawyers? How do they meet the challenge of unpredictability of the market so they don’t end up backing the wrong horse?
For Full Service Law Firms, and indeed other types of firms, how do you compensate the rainmakers? How do you ensure Continuing Legal Education? What about the costs associated with running a big law firm?
For Single Law Firms, ability to attract clients outside their jurisdiction might be a challenge. As might ability to move around to service clients.

However, the Single Law Practitioner is often able to build a local reputation faster, make decisions faster and more easily specialise.

How does he leverage on this in the face of competition from partnerships and larger law firms?
Should a Single Law Firm enter into a partnership for growth? Or stay focused on his niche market?
For a Technology Driven Firm, the advantages to leverage include driving efficiency, fast responsiveness to clients’, efficient data management.

But, is that at the expense of the personal touch?
All those and more were issues and questions to challenge and push our thinking and notions of law practice. Just a minutiae of cutting edge legal issues which were thrown up for discussion and debate at the conference. Pushing the (legal practice) envelope is now the norm in many legal jurisdictions – not necessarily a good thing, but not necessarily bad either…
We would do well to take notice in the Nigerian Bar of these trends, not all necessarily the best options but because many are seemingly inevitable.

Lest we get left behind. Just one instance: given the onslaught of globalisation of the legal profession around the world, and given its apparent inevitability on our shores (we can only hold on for so long, and besides they are already sneakily circumventing our Rules…) do we prepare ourselves for it in a phased, well thought out, non-panicky regulatory manner or do we wait to be swept away, unprepared for the onslaught of the globalisation tidal wave?

Another trend we should pay more than a passing interest in: many International Law Firms routinely now have an Africa Desk, underscoring the interest in, strategic importance of, as well as opportunities the continent holds for them.

They can smell the money and are jolly well going to follow its scent. What is our own response back home? How do our own law firms build or forge alliances? How do we also profit from these sorts of relationships so that it’s a win-win situation? Or are we going to watch helplessly as those International Firms cart all the professional fees away? They are, after all, not in the business of charity but of making profit.
Which is why I was very disappointed in, and not a little bit puzzled by, the topic, ‘Off to the Witch Doctor! Regulating African Traditional and Indigenous Medicine’ chosen by the African Regional Forum of the IBA last week.

It was neither appropriate nor relevant, nor could it be said to be a top priority when weighed on a scale of other competing and compelling interests in the legal profession.

The Forum also missed a fantastic opportunity to attract other international lawyers to its session and forge alliances and networks with them. What, after all, was the point of having a roomful bursting at the seams of mostly Nigerian lawyers who could easily meet with each other back home?
However, the Keynote Speaker, Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola SAN carried off with great aplomb, what must have been a difficult or unusual (to put it mildly) topic. As did the three other speakers.
Good enough, the three persons whose names most often are thrown up in relation to next year’s contest for the NBA Presidency were present in Boston.

As was the current President, Okey Wali, SAN.
Perhaps now would be as good a time as any to begin to set an agenda for the Nigerian Bar Association and anyone seeking to lead us. They must, simply put, be able to tell what the time is. We cannot afford to stagnate, whilst the rest of the legal world is growing in leaps and bounds and pushing legal frontiers…

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