- As Sam Amadi calls for the scraping Nigerian law school
- Says it has outlived its usefulness
President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Yakubu C. Maikyau has called for Igba Boyi an Igbo apprenticeship scheme to be implemented as a national mentorship policy.
This is even as a former Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Prof. Sam Amadi, has called for the scrapping of the Nigerian Law School, stressing that it no longer has any use in the society.
Maikyau, Amadi, NBA General Secretary, Mr. Adesina Adegbite, Senator Ben Obi, a member of the 5th Senate who represented Anambra Central at the National Assembly, many senior members of the Bar including Ex-Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Godwin Kanu Agabi, SAN, Chief Awa Kalu, SAN, Benbella Anachebe, SAN, Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, Chief Ikechukwu Ezechukwu, SAN, Emeka Obegolu, SAN, Iyom Josephine Anenih, the Attorney General of Abia State and others were part of the Igba Boyi Endowment Launch hosted by Otu Oka-Iwu Abuja (Igbo Lawyers Association) on Thursday.
In the Keynote address Amadi, who is also the director of Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts said the Nigerian Law School which was established to provide practical knowledge for young lawyers no longer serves the purpose.
Describing the Nigerian legal system as one of the most corrupt in the world, Amadi averred that the law school is a waste of time and resources, adding that it should be scrapped.
“So, I think that we need to rethink the whole framework of Nigeria. In my view, the law school is failing. It is no longer serving its purpose. The law school is designed to provide technical practical education. So the question I ask is, What are they providing? My view is, that purpose is best served at a law firm. Many lawyers who go to law school do not practice. Some of them go into journalism, broadcasting, or they go and teach in the university. So I would like us to strengthen the university education for lawyers in order for them to have a broad analytical competency.
“In the United States, when you finish your legal education in the university, you do a quick exam for call as lawyers. Here, we can license our universities to take three to six months special rush course for our law students to qualify to practice. After that, they go to the chambers where they learn real practice. The only way one can get pupillage is in a law firm.
“What is the law school providing for our young graduates? The law school is not rigorous, either academic or practical. So my view is we must focus on universities to give robust academic training. Those who want to practice law should go and do some crash course in the universities to get qualified as lawyers. Then they go to the law firms or corporate places to learn corporate law or legal practice.
“Law as practiced is not thought in the law school. Stop the law school and the waste of resources. Accredit universities to do three to six months, just like they do in America. After graduating as a lawyer, you go and take classes and pass the instructions and get called to the bar. Then all the learning will happen at a law firm where senior lawyers now have obligation to train those young lawyers to understand the practice,” Amadi said.
The law teacher and rights activist further described Igba Boyi as a welcome development noting that the idea of replicating the apprenticeship model in the legal circle will help young lawyers gain valuable experience at reputation law firms.
According to him, the model which he said is now studied at Harvard is a unique way of knowledge transfer and it is needed to save the law profession from moral disaster.
He said: “The idea is that lawyers will seek knowledge from the established ones and also, the established lawyers will also be generous enough to support our young people, not just knowledge but in paying them. So what the Igbo lawyers are trying to do is to provide funding to encourage young people so that with the help of the senior lawyers, the junior ones will acquire not just knowledge, and also virtue.
“Today, the law and judiciary are the most corrupt parts of Nigerian society because everybody wants to make money. So I want to say that if we can restore pupillage and make it real and provide incentive for young people to go and learn, then we can save the law profession from a moral disaster. This is a totally disastrous state. The law professional is shameful and undignified because of the behavior of lawyers and judges.
On his part, NBA President Maikyau, who described the apprenticeship scheme as the best way to transfer skills, character and knowledge declared NBA’s support for the initiative, while assuring that the scheme would be expanded to become a national mentorship policy of the federal government.
He, however, appealed that the scheme should not be limited to only Igbo lawyers.
“If you are the best of lawyers without character, there is no way that intellect is going to transfer or translate into value. So this is a mentorship model. Like I said, it is welcome into our fold as lawyers, but please let us not limit it to the Igbos. We should extend it to others. We should take it to the north and west because this is something that is going to bring benefit to each and every one of us.
“So as I congratulate you for coming up with this idea, this is something that has actually distinguished the Igbo nation across the world and you can see how effective it has been to transforming the Igbo nation to an enterprising nation. And that’s one thing you can’t take away from the Igbos.
“The Initiative is something that the NBA wholly supports. And I believe that since I am your ambassador, whatever we agree here, give it to me and we’ll pass it across the nation. I would actually be glad to receive the resolution from this meeting as I’ll pass it across to the government. We will make a recommendation that this becomes a national mentorship policy of the federal government of Nigeria.”
Commending Otu Oka-Iwu over the initiative Chief Agabi, SAN who made a donation of N15 million in support of the project however, expressed concern over the loss of ethics and values in the legal profession.
Noting that ‘hot money is a problem in our profession today”, he charged lawyers to “beware of the source of the money you bring home.”
The initiator of the project and President of Otu Oka-Iwu, Abuja Chapter, Chief Ejiofor Onwuaso said the endowment fund is a legacy project aimed at replicating the success of Ndigbo in business within the legal profession by institutionalizing mentorship and career development for young lawyers.
Onwuaso remarked that though the legal profession was originally modelled to imbibe the practice of pupillage, the exponential growth in the number of fresh graduates emerging from the Nigerian Law School yearly has made it impracticable for existing law firms and forbears to absorb such young lawyers in their law firms for purposes of pupillage.
This lack of capacity and financial resources on the part of the few established law firms to absorb the huge population of young lawyers within the profession according to him, often leads to a misplacement of priority, lack of proper mentoring, guidance, and missed opportunity on the part of such innocent young wigs who, he said often time derail from the focal point of building a career path along their chosen profession.
On the selection process, he said: “For now, the threshold is young lawyers with one to five years experience. These are the people that are most vulnerable and exposed. The most germane thing this does for them is that if you don’t have someone shaping your focus along the path of sustainable development, you may derail having spent years at the university as well as the law school. That age-long aspiration might be lost on the altar of lack of adequate mentorship and privileges of having a law firm to attach with.
“We also aim to run a model of a minimum of six months. For now, it’s subject to the availability of funds. That’s why we’re doing the endowment launch to see if we can raise funds to enable us to finance this salary. We’re proposing a stipend of at least N50,000 at the moment to see if it can cater for their transportation needs. Also, we are trying to impress upon the law firms who are our partners as well, that it doesn’t stop, start and end with the stipend we are offering. Of their own volition they may choose to augment but the focal point is to offer a platform to young lawyers to learn and to perfect the scale of legal practice.”
