LEGAL EDUCATION: ACT ONE SCENE TWO

The reality on the groundlevel strongly suggests that elitism (the artificial selection of leaders which ignores the individual's potential, ability and achievement) in any form slows everything down,especially profits. It is just like the monopoly that believes it knows all the uses a particular product can be put to and all the limits that the product has : in essence it knows the market limits and uses its position to keep it that way. All you have to do is introduce competition and watch prices tumble and new uses of the same product go viral.

Where you have seen the deficiencies in a system and you refuse to address them you have lost your claim to leadership and even worse, you have lost the opportunity to write your name in the history books. Immortality is quite tricky to make happen but here are two options. Solve THE legal problem or write a great book: solve the problem of the professional marketing of legal services.

This leads to our own contribution: working with lawyers to sell their legal services. Nigerian lawyers in the thousands are already bent on becoming entrepreneurs and the nature of the legal profession encourages this. So the legal establishment can choose to look upon this phase of development as a trend that it can work with to do its own work, to spread the development of legal services and to expand the market.

Solo legal practitioners are everywhere and they cannot be legislated out of existence neither should anyone even try but they are blamed for giving the law a bad name so they should not be left to their own devices. The knowledge of how to professionally sell their legal services will transform the quality of their work and really eliminate the sharp practices attributed to them. It is just like converting a destructive virus (unprofessional soloists) into a cure (professional soloists)by introducing an antibody (knowledge of how to professionally sell legal services).

This is a market reality that must be embraced in developing the legal services economy and it must be embraced. The good news is that legal largely runs its own show so it can be organized to make the pie filled with eggs and cream and currants instead of just flour. The challenge is leadership: whether by election, by achievement, by passing the bar and hanging a shingle, you are in a position to make this happen and it would be grossly remiss to abdicate this responsibility.

Some lawyers have access to certain resources that enhance their work and others have access to different resources so each one has the duty to make a contribution but at some point the limits of individual achievement must be addressed and consolidation of effort must happen so: go to the grundnorm and make the legal education system provide abundantly for the professional marketing of legal services.
Teach the lawyer that the law is a business not an opaque priesthood and most importantly teach the lawyer how to sell legal services and we all will have received a double promotion in half the time. Instead of spending 6 years before learning the facts of life, you could do it all in 4 which includes a heavy dose of how to get clients so when the lawyer gets to the jungle he is ready and able.
Let us remember, a purpose of education is to prepare you for the real world.

All the above is about addressing the systematic and structural problems in the practice of the law, in a fundamental way. It is easier and more productive to address the problem from a systemic perspective then pass the individual through the system than to try to make the system fit each individual.

Individual lawyers and firms are already hustling and will continue to do so. Making systemic adjustments and basic restructuring will really enhance their work and for those who refuse to adjust? They will be thrown out onto the streets.