AELEX Law Firm, one of Nigeria’s largest and successful commercial law firms, has marked its 10th Anniversary. In this interview with Legal Editor John Austin Unachukwu, one of the firm’s founding partners Mr. Soji Awogbade, speaks on the challenges of sustaining a large practice, legal education, arbitration and sundry issues.
What are some of the challenges in forming and sustaining a large law firm, such as yours, in Nigeria?
Sustaining a practice of this size and at this level, particularly with your touted strengths, means that you have to keep adding to your skill sets, because you have to meet the needs of your clients.
What we say to the clients as the basis of our initial decision to merge, was that we thought that the legal market required more skills sets than was resident in any of the existing firms. And if we were not going to fall into the trap of just growing by numbers and not skills set, then we had to do some integration along those lines, specifically.
Coming along now, I think that we have made a difference to how the business of law is done. We probably are the only firm that still practises specialisms. Partners stick with what they are known for, and that seems to be the way to go.
Does that really count for an industry that has become so diverse with practitioners expanding their skills and specialisations to embrace emerging markets and trends?
Well, it is going to count more and more, because the size of the market that we service is expanding, the kind of investors coming into our market now are not doing so in briefcases or suitcases. They are coming with global establishments, wanting to take advantage of what the economy offers. To that extent, they are going to require not just legal services, but all sorts of services to back them up. Because whether it is legal or physical constraints, they have to do some shopping here, which is in consonance with that development.
What is difficult, is actually finding the skills.
What do you mean?
Our system has not completely escaped the concept of “My empire,” “Your empire”. The prevailing circumstances around here shows that by the time skill sets begin to mature in law firms with a need to up the antics, associates pack up and leave to set up shop else where.
What is the place of one man practice in this scheme of things?
Without disrespect to their readiness to take on tasks out there and face the world, I’d say most of them are unprepared for the level you and I are describing now. The level where a client says I need 20 people on a transaction. If you are a ‘one man’ firm, short of taking a holiday from other clients, how would you meet this demand? How are you going to get 20 people? This is the kind of Push and Pull that exist here.
There is always going to be a market for boutique-sized type firms, who are smart enough to confine themselves to their areas of specialisation and strengths and sell out other parts in which they do not have the required skills or expertise to other suppliers of labour or services. The fact remains however, that for you to be a full service law firm, you must possess the complementary qualities that make you one.
How effective are our laws as tools for economic developmet?
Let’s face it, this is the subject of a dissertation because first and foremost, you must ask yourself, is Nigeria constituted as an environment? Are the standards the same across board? What you may not get away with in Ogun State, you may likely get away with it in Imo State and this goes all the way across the country.
Secondly, what is the process of law making in Nigeria? How reflective of our thinking are the laws? How dynamic are they to cater to realities around us? I agree that we are still young as a nation, but the same basic elements that other countries have used as touchstones for development are the same settings that we have right now.
It is bound to be a collective decision to do things differently and to change things around here; at least to the best of our abilities, better than not trying at all. Many of us have given up trying while others don’t even bother trying.
Have you ever heard one public official give you a coherent reason why the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) has not been passed into law? Not one! Instead of telling us what the problem is, they continue making one promise after another. In other countries, a decent office holder would simply say “you know what, I can’t do this anymore, please appoint someone else to do it.” This is because, where he/she fails to do this, someone will ask for his head and before this machete-man comes, they’ll simply say, “I’m sorry I cannot deliver, here’s the job.”
When you get to a society where no one asks you to account, no one audits what you do? you simply carry on with business as usual. This is the society we live in today and even the law isn’t sufficient to grapple with the challenges we face today.
There have been concerns that despite some admissions into the partnership of the firm from within, no woman has been considered for such an elevation. Are the women falling short of the firm’s high standards?
I assure you, that this would happen very soon. As a matter of fact, I can tell you for nothing that it nearly happened not too long ago, but the candidate left just about that time.
That is the nature of the industry. Chances are, if I think I am good enough to stand on both legs, I’d simply ‘WALK’. We are used to these patterns in the professional services sector. We don’t expect anyone to plant themselves like a tree. However, at AELEX if you are very good, you may not be let off and that’s how you become a partner. This is the ordinary method by which this happens.
When you are very good, you are spotted early and given responsibilities. If you are passionate and in love with the work you do and the achievements you’re making, you don’t just leave and walk away. You aspire higher and make better progress until you get to the top. So it is simply a coincidence of right time, right choice!
What reforms would you suggest for legal education in the country to enable law firms compete favourably in the global legal market?
The curriculum needs to be more streamlined. We must ensure that people are not studying law for the sheer heck of it. In the UK, even as we speak, you don’t need a law degree to be a lawyer. There are other channels. And though these other channels mean harder and longer work, it is a choice that one has to make. By the time all of this hard work is done, the finished product would have been tried and tested either way.
Here in Nigeria, students possess an examination mentality. We memorise, reproduce, and get a first class. You should come in here when I conduct interviews for first-class graduates for employment and you’d have a field day. Some of these graduates were forced to study law and as far as they are concerned, this obligation has been fulfilled. They have no passion for the law. During quantitative aptitude tests, first-class graduates fall flat on their faces. How would such a person solve problems? I have liabilities if I give wrong advice and I cannot take that risk.
We must streamline our curriculum and teaching methods, to steer us away from rote learning. We need a country and a leadership that knows what it really wants to achieve.
Despite the introduction of fast- track procedures in our courts, the judiciary is overburdened and cases are still being delayed. The impact of this on foreign investments cannot be overemphasised. Is there any solution to this setback to justice delivery?
The answer is supply and demand. I don’t go to court any more for these reasons. I haven’t been in a law court for the past 28 years. In any society where there are no consequences for anything, there will be trouble. The reasons that cases are adjourned are scandalous. The number of times they are adjourned is unearthly, usually at the drop of the heart. But guess why? We have so many lazy lawyers. Corruption is not the only issue plaguing our judicial system today. More often than not, it is the combination of one lazy lawyer and one lazy judge. A judge should be able to say, “No adjournment, I’m going on,” so that cases are resolved expeditiously, rather than give in to the whims and caprices of lazy and mischievous lawyers.
Are you saying judges don’t do this?
Only a few actually put their foot down against this indolent and ill-intended act. This is because there are quite a handful of lazy ones in the bunch. Every professional in Nigeria has five other engagements or businesses other than what they are paid to do; and judges are not exempted from this act. They are always in a hurry to leave the courts to go take care of other businesses – workshops, lectures, luncheons, meetings, and several other activities.
Some of those appointed to the bench lose sight of the fact that when you accept to become a judge, you have made the decision to take yourself away from social scenes. You become dead to social activities. Most of them don’t realise what they set themselves up for and so they carry on with business as usual and this has its effect on our justice delivery system.
With regards to corruption in the system, some judges go to the bench with set plans. They work to be posted to the right courts and would do anything to be posted to the right courts, and then they work to be assigned the right cases. A lot goes on; on this altar of justice as we call it. However, if you must resolve your disputes by litigation, then by all means go to court.
Looking back to 2004, when the firm AELEX launched out, how does it feel to be marking the 10th anniversary?
It sure feels good. The expression is that one couldn’t foresee what the nature of the journey would be, or forecast some of the obstacles we met along the way.
Whether the vision was bold or brave, brash or rash, we couldn’t really say at the time. I have led a practice that was big, but it was never an integrated partnership, it just happened to be big in numbers. The difference with the Aelex partnership was the fact that we combined our strengths. Ten years later, we are still trying to acquire more skill set and that I think, is the nature of the development itself.
Employees are known to work harder and give more in organisations where they consider themselves stakeholders of the business. What sort of structure does Aelex have to instil such confidence in its employees?
When we started AELEX, it was very clear in our minds what we wanted to do, who we wanted to be and where we wanted to go. Starting with the name of the firm, Aelex, it is not the true name of any of the partners, though we all came from backgrounds where we had our names in the firm’s logo, etc.
We were clear in our minds that it was not going to be, “my firm” or “your firm”. Rather, it would be a firm where you would come, prove yourself and grow up. This is the way we have kept it. We have made partners as we moved along. It is one place, where no one partner can sack an employee. By the time you are ripe for sacking everyone would have seen it.
If you look at the way we appraise our people, it is almost a 360-degree thing. You cannot be that good and I would think that you are not good at all. I may not think that you are as good as my partner thinks you are, but that you are not good at all should not be the case. All of these kinds of elements we have eliminated at Aelex and so, it is not a firm where you can leverage on relationships with partners or anyone for that matter to rise to the top. It is also not a place where you can leverage on your gender. You have to roll up your sleeves and dig in the trenches with everyone else. This is one thing I think we have succeeded in establishing.
How do you develop skills to cope the ever-changing legal environment?
Truly, this is one thing we have been successful at, speaking of formal training and development. We are probably the leaders in what you may call, development spending. We invest massive alot of money on training and developing our team. Unfortunately, having regard to what I said before, there is no guarantee that these skills would remain with you, as they make their way out into the market and away from you, after these trainings. I think in this country, if you talk about a community called the ‘Aelex Alumni’, it is a substantial pool of very sharp minds; who have given themselves a brand in the market. That kind of value addition to the industry and market, is one of the significant achievements we can point to in the last 10 years.
Do you think this will pave the way for a successful Arbitration practice in Nigeria?
Arbitration is getting more and more grounded in Nigeria. First, the selection process is prolonged. It is much slower than the selection process of the courts, and it can set you back some huge sums. We are in a large arbitration at the moment; a process we kicked started one year ago, and we still haven’t moved. Beyond that, someone can still go to court to halt the entire process and there is little you can do about that at the moment, because access to justice must always be guaranteed. But if you do this in a few other jurisdictions, you will pay dearly for it.
What I’m saying is that it is not always going to be the most appropriate solution, because if you are talking about judicial enforcement as a pronouncement, this is infinitely more powerful than an arbitral decision. Also, the simplification of an arbitral process, sometimes turns out to be an oversimplified process. Arbitration used to entirely time- efficient but today, the time is not that superior over litigation. Still, as with litigation, people make their choices with regards to these processes.
