‘LawPavilion has Succeeded in Preaching Gospel of Technology Adoption in Nigerian Legal Practice’
The Managing Director of LawPavilion, Mr. Ope Olugasa, has said his company’s IT research tools, has helped to change legal practice in Nigeria, by traversing the length and breadth of the country, to preach the “gospel “of technology adoption in legal practice.
Olugasa said LawPavilion takes a special sense of pride that the Nigerian judiciary is now at the forefront of the drive for using technology in the adjudication process in courts.
LawPavilion is a leading legal IT Research Tools provider, whose existence serves to help Lawyers, Judges and Law firms make the most of their legal practice through the provision of cutting edge IT Solutions for the Legal Industry.
Speaking at a media briefing to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of LawPavilion last week, Olugasa said, “we are very excited to be celebrating our 10th year of being at the forefront of Electronic Law Reporting in Nigeria. We count ourselves highly favoured, to have been able to sustain our business over the past 10 years that we have been in the legal services industry. Our first commercial outing was the 2007 NBA-AGC at Ilorin, Kwara State. It is heart-warming and deeply gratifying, that we have taken giant strides upon giant strides since then, and we are truly grateful to God”, he said.
On the achievements in the last ten years, LawPavilion Managing Director said, “looking back, our achievements are so numerous, however, I will highlight a few. From available statistics, the average Nigerian business usually fails within the first 5 years, so we are pleased that we are not part of that statistic, celebrating our 10th year in business is definitely a significant milestone.
“In terms of our achievement in the legal services industry in Nigeria, oh it has been quite an adventure. I can never forget our first outing at the NBA 2007 Conference in Ilorin, where lawyers came to our exhibition stand and laughed at us, that no Nigerian court would permit a counsel to cite electronic law reports in open court or in written submissions. In fact, a particular judge was mentioned as not being receptive to such “disruptive practices”. Well, our testimony is that this particular Judge is one of our subscribers today, with electronic law reports being a permanent fixture on the landscape of legal practice in Nigeria.
“As you may already be aware, for several years we have traversed the length and breadth of Nigeria, preaching the “gospel “of technology adoption in legal practice. So we feel immense satisfaction, to see the wide acceptability from the industry now.
“More recently, we have been focusing on using technology to solve local problems, especially within the legal services industry. For example, a couple of years ago, we got the opportunity to work with the leadership of the NBA, to re-introduce online registration for the biggest gathering of lawyers in the world, that is the Annual General Conference of the NBA. Using software developers trained in Nigerian Universities and Polytechnics, we were able to design, develop and deploy a registration portal, which contained the list of all legal practitioners called to Bar in Nigeria, and particularly those who have been verified. Deploying that solution has helped the leadership and administration of the NBA, to better plan and prepare for this annual gathering. Furthermore, deploying technology as we did, checkmated the incidents of a handful of Legal Practitioners not paying the correct fees for the Conference, as was obtainable before our involvement.
“We derived a great sense of pleasure, from making that enormous contributions to NBA Conferences since 2014. It is important to state that, the registration portal and overseeing the registration process including printing the name tags, were our small contributions as part of our sponsorship towards the NBA Conferences, we never billed or charged a penny for it. Although a number of participants had erroneously thought we failed to make conference materials available, I think its important to clarify at this juncture, that we were never in charge of production of conference materials, NBA handled it themselves. We always seek for ways to add value to the legal services industry in Nigeria, and we do not intend to relent anytime soon, in spite of previous mistakes and challenges. We are a value-oriented and value-driven company, and it has been working for us from inception till date.
“Based on the success recorded with online registration for the NBA-AGC, we feel a sense of elation that the industry has now also recognised electronic voting, which was the means of voting used for last year’s election into the National Executive Officers of the NBA, and which we were opportuned to have worked in conjunction with the leadership of the NBA, to provide the portal and voting mechanisms in 2016.
“Moreover, we take a special sense of pride, that even the judiciary is now at the forefront of the drive for using technology in the adjudication process in our courts. Nowadays, it is commonplace to hear “electronic filing and service”, “electronic case management”. We have truly moved forward from campaigning for adoption of technology, now we are using technology to solve salient and lingering problems. We feel so blessed and grateful indeed, for what we have been able to accomplish in the industry.
“Today, you will find subscribers to LawPavilion electronic legal research software in the Judiciary, in big and small Law Firms, in Faculties of Law, among law school students, and more recently, in neighbouring countries and outside the shores of our great country. Indeed, we can say that we have started exporting technology. It is now acceptable, to see the citation of “LPELR” in judgements,
from the highest courts in our country, to the pages of treatise by erudite scholars and authors. It certainly has been a very rewarding and gratifying journey for us, as a corporate organisation operating in this space”.
According to Olugasa, in celebrating the ten years of achievements, apart from several events lined up towards the 2017 NBA-AGC, his company will be giving back to the subscribers and the country as a whole.
“As part of our celebrations, we will be making our latest product – a legal analytics software which we have named “LawPavilion Prime”, commercially available for our teeming subscribers. We had unveiled the prototype of LawPavilion Prime containing only about 5,000 Supreme Court Judgements sometime last year, along with our Judicial Appreciation Awards Ceremony – the Words in Gold Awards, where we recognised and celebrated Justices of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, through a compilation of their pronouncements through the years. We went as far back as the very first set of Justices, who sat in the hallowed Chambers of the Supreme Court and we enjoyed the rare privilege of having the Keynote Address delivered by his Excellency, the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN.
“But we felt our subscribers deserved the very best at all times, so we went back to the drawing board to ensure that we included Court of Appeal judgements into LawPavilion Prime, to give it the edge over mere electronic law reports. We are pleased to announce that, work is now complete on the software for PC and Android versions with iOS following very quickly, and we are poised to deploy this solution commercially at the 2017 NBA Conference. Through our patented technology for analytics, we are set to provide Legal Practitioners with over 13,000 reported cases with analytical ratings to ensure that at all times, a LawPavilion subscriber is relying on the best and highest ranked authority, on a principle of Law.
“The LawPavilion Prime, remains the most sophisticated product on legal analytics in Nigeria or dare I say, African legal services market, today. With the introduction of Legal Analytics, what we are providing for legal practitioners, is not just a compilation of reported cases.
“Moreover, we also have amazing discounts and loads of freebies for our teeming subscribers at the NBA Conference holding between the 18th -24th of August, 2017 at the Landmark Event Centre, Oniru Lagos. We look forward especially, to welcoming our subscribers who live and practice outside Lagos State to the Centre of Excellence. It is going to be a beautiful celebration, with lots and lots of gifts and prizes.
“On the other hand, we will also be celebrating with Nigerians, as we have developed a new Android App called “Know My Rights”. As a company that invests heavily in research and development, we observed that people are reluctant to consult legal practitioners due to a myriad of factors such as ignorance, perception that legal services are expensive and time-consuming, amongst others. But we know that the services of lawyers are indispensable for us to have a sane society where the rule of Law prevails”, Olugasa said.