NBA-SBL conference targets young lawyers’ development

The Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Section on Business Law (SBL), Olumide Akpata has said this year’s conference would focus on skills development for young lawyers.

He pointed out that the number of graduating law students every year surpasses employment quota, but added that the program would affords young lawyers the requisite training needed to be marketable.

He advised young lawyers to be goaloriented and endeavour to make themselves marketable regardless of the challenges facing the legal profession in the country.

This piece of advice came against the backdrop of this year Nigerian Bar Association, Section on Business Law, NBA SBL, which will partly focus on skill development for upcoming lawyers. The theme of the conference which holds in Lagos from Sunday, June 18 is “Law and the changing face of legal practice.”

Akpata said the conference would seek to address the global evolution of legal practice, the future of the profession, innovative trends and the impact of disruptive technology on the practice of law.

“If they diversify and focus on new areas of law such as entertainment and sports, they would be more employable. Everybody wants to be a litigator. They want to wear the wig and gown and rush to the courts, and the courts can’t even take the numbers,” he said.

He said the vision of SBL is to collaborate with the Nigeria Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS), to set up a ‘centre for commercial law studies’ that will be awarding diploma.