Transforming the Future of Law Practice

I warmly welcome our Distinguished Resource Persons, Partners and Associates, Distinguished Guest, Ladies and Gentlemen who have left their various busy schedules to join us here at the maiden retreat and workshop for members of the Liberty Semper Fidelis, LP, the lawfirm that has set for itself the goal of being ‘Faithful to the Brief’. You have come here today to add value to why we are here and this underlines the importance you attached to the goal we have set for this workshop.

Our main goal is to develop the concept of TechLaw as an instrument of opening a new frontier in legal practice in our country. We believe technology can be used to redefine the profession and make it more relevant and useful to the development of the economy. With the downturn in the economy, all professionals should put on their thinking caps and think out of the box to contribute innovative ideas that will help the economy grow and chart a new course for our people. The commitment to TechLaw is our contribution in this direction.

Major global economists make their most foreign resources by provision of services including financial services, legal services, insurance services and others.

We believe that the legal profession should burrow deeper into and borrow more from the ever-unfolding sphere of technology to use it to make justice delivery easier, quicker, and equitable.

It is our firm belief that the time has come for the law to properly play its role as the pivot of society by helping to push up the economy and the justice system. We know that it is high time the legal profession adopted a similar model in the delivery of justice as the financial services sector has used FinTech as a cutting-edge application for improved service delivery.

In the same way that FinTech has helped to uplift our economy and the international relevance of our young people in the global economy, we believe TechLaw can also do the same. There is so much potential that this new approach to the practice of law can unfold and unleash. We need to be determined to make it happen. It is not going to be an easy task and we in Liberty Semper Fidelis, LP, do not seek easy ways to make our impact felt or make a positive difference.

This training workshop is to make us understand the Nigerian technology law landscape and appreciate the import of innovations like Artificial Intelligence (AI) in law and Justice. Thus, we will learn more about digital law, technology applications in law, and using new technology to improve our services to our clients and also help the justice sector of the economy to grow and comply with global best practices.

We hope to use the workshop to set up modalities for making technology a driver for progressive change in our practice, in particular, and the profession in general. Liberty Semper Fidelis, LP, sees itself as a prime TechLaw rm in Africa. Thus, we want to help push LawTech to the front burner in the discourse about the legal practice such that it becomes a basis for all programmes that will prepare our associates and others for the current and future transformation of law.

TechLaw can help to grow the economy as well as lead to a faster and fairer dispensation of Justice. It charts the way forward for the legal practice to key into and benet from the over $7.3 trillion investments that AI contributes to the global economy. We do not believe that the justice sector in our country should be excluded from such a huge global fortune.

Also, without tapping into the huge potentials offered by technology, our various law rms and the practice generally stand the risk of being outdated, or cheated in big, multinational legal transactions and initiatives. We cannot afford to watch complacently while the law rms that we collaborate with in Europe and other parts of the world, individually invest a yearly sum of between $60 million to $70 million in research and development efforts on how to use AI to develop their practice.

As we can all see, we have selected some of the best hands from across the United Kingdom and Nigeria. Our resource persons represent the diversity in the profession. They come from universities, law rms, professional legal training institutions, NGOs, and developing partners. We do not take your presence here for granted. You are the ones who have made our gathering here worth being called a training workshop and dedicated retreat, after all, those of us in Liberty Semper Fidelis see each other from time to time. The knowledge you have decided to add to our operations is what will make the difference.

This workshop I believe will produce some of the best materials that the legal profession has generated in recent times. We assure you all that we will distill the submissions, uplift them into actionable, practical, and useful guides, and set to work on them without any delay.

We plan that we will not be selfish about the outcome of this retreat. We will escalate some of your ideas, suggestions, and strategies to our professional body, the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), and Council of Legal Education (CLE), whose personnel are part of the resource persons, the MDAs and the various relevant judicial bodies.

We cannot seek to pioneer the wholesome and widespread adoption of TechLaw by the entire justice sector while hoarding ideas about it. We are therefore convinced that we want to be a pioneer of this new idea and style of practice that will propagate its wide acceptance by getting more and more players to adopt the new method.

At this point, let me proudly announce to you the creation of what we call The TechLaw Studio which is the product of a collaboration between IPI Solutions, an Abuja-based IT company, and Liberty Semper Fidelis, LP. This initiative which is thefirst of its kind in the country will enable some specialists in both IT and brilliant young lawyers to work together and develop IT solutions that can help the development of the practice of law.

We hope to deliver a home-grown specialised ChatGPT. Let me assure you all that this is not difficult. I believe in the words of John Maeda (designer and computer scientist), that simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful and that is why all my life I have sort the simplicity of a single life.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future” John F. Kennedy (Politician).

In conclusion, I urge us to deploy our good judgement and consideration in the knowledge that, in the ever- evolving landscape of law practice, we find ourselves at the intersection of tradition and innovation. Embracing new technologies is not merely a choice but an imperative for the enhanced efficiency and functionality of law practice in Nigeria.

The advent of artificial intelligence, exemplified by tools like ChatGPT, Google BERT, and Microsoft Copilot, has ushered in a new era of legal assistance. These technologies empower legal professionals by providing instant access to vast repositories of legal knowledge, aiding in legal research, drafting documents, and even predicting potential outcomes. As we delve into the realm of AI, we position ourselves to not only keep pace with the dynamic legal landscape but to leap ahead, leveraging these tools to navigate complexities and serve our clients with unprecedented precision.

Furthermore, the integration of legal management software, such as Microsoft Planner, alongside digitised databases, is reshaping the way legal practitioners operate. By streamlining case management, scheduling, and collaborative efforts, these tools contribute to increased productivity and seamless teamwork. In a country like Nigeria, where the legal system plays a crucial role in the pursuit of justice, embracing these technologies is not just a choice—it’s an imperative commitment to delivering legal services that are efficient, transparent, and aligned with the demands of our modern world. As we delve into the discussions and workshops ahead, let us collectively embrace these technological advancements as catalysts for a more agile, responsive, and effective legal practice in Nigeria.

This must be our commitment.

We are hoping to exploit the convergence of technology and law as represented by TechLaw to provide solutions to cyber crimes, offer data protection and achieve compliance with the law. We hope to prove that the convergence of technology and law offers limitless potential for solving many problems, including the insecurity crisis in our country.

I wish all of us a good and beneficial exchange of ideas. God bless you.