Professional networking: The future of the legal profession

The just concluded Nigerian Bar Association Annual General Conference held in Lagos State provided conferees at the centre of excellence the opportunity to network amongst colleagues, to learn legal practice development tips from each other. The different jurisdictions in Nigeria develop at different paces due to knowledge gap; some jurisdictions offer more opportunities in the legal industry than others. Legal practitioners in some jurisdictions are expert in novel money making areas of law outside litigation unknown to their colleagues in other jurisdiction, thus, networking provides the opportunity for colleagues to learn from each other.

Hitherto, in order to promote professional development in the legal profession, senior colleagues did foot the bills of their juniors in chamber to symposiums, conferences, seminars, etc both local and international to provide them with the avenue to network amongst their colleagues in other jurisdictions. This act of capacity building was done for the benefit of young lawyers, with the foresight that whatever the junior learns will be beneficial to the law firm in the long run.

Many senior legal practitioners are what they are today in the legal profession because of the empowerment they got from their principals years back when they were called to the Nigerian Bar. In the hay days, focus was on the professional development of a lawyer; when colleagues met the discourse engaged in was most often about career development and building the legal profession.

I do not know for certain if professional encouragement of a learned friend is still the focus of our fraternization in the legal environment today, it seems relationship amongst colleagues has degenerated to interest. We no longer socialise to better the practice of each other; we are no longer our brother’s keeper, some seniors would see a junior colleague in trouble, be it financial or legal, but refuse to help because they do not have the same political ideology.

Networking is beginning to lose relevance in the profession, when in the real sense, it is the key to the future of the legal profession in Nigeria. This nonchalant attitude towards networking in the profession has transformed to degraded treatment amongst colleagues of the same post call years; junior colleagues don’t have an idea how to engage and relate with the legal environment with the objective of helping the practice of another colleague.

In an ideal legal environment, a lawyer in Kaduna State should be able to tap from the opportunities available in Lagos, because a colleague is practicing in Lagos; a lawyer in Port Harcourt should be familiar with the happenings and developments in Kano State legal environment because he has a colleague in Kano State, and vice versa. Networking amongst colleagues from different jurisdictions in the country will bridge the knowledge gap, thereby encouraging even development across board.

The downside, however, the new generation of lawyers is oblivious of the wisdom behind ‘learned friends’ injury for one, injury for all. From this writers view point, the profession is tilting towards a direction where career advancement is losing its place as the primary purpose of networking, and this is not good for the future of the legal profession.

To restore public confidence in the judiciary, we must first look inwards and begin the cleansing from within by doing things right to one another. If you ask me, life is not a competition, but a race, it does not matter who finishes first, as we will all go out one day, the most important thing is we run the race. I see colleagues despise the progress of another learned colleague; we have friends spread across the country but don’t benefit from the connection.

It is one thing for colleagues to know each other, it is another to network for the benefit of the profession. It is my humble opinion, that the future of the legal profession rests in the hands of the juniors, hence, we ought to network not for gossip and irrelevant discuss, but for the good practice of each other, and in the long run, the legal profession.

Godspeed!

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