As we stand on the cusp of the new year of 2022, and give God thanks for his mercies this year and reflect on this year various challenges, problems, difficulties, mourning our loved ones who has passed on, we are reminded yet again of the true reality that change is still the only constant life offers.

With the current bill before the National Assembly to expand Law school campuses, Legal education training has been in the news a lot lately with differing opinions and views expressed, and I have previously expressed my views on that, notwithstanding the view I have already expressed, there is also an alternative. There is another way. A new paradigm is needed. A new radical change to the way we train lawyers.

So, as we enter into 2022, this new paradigm has arisen after evaluating the current totality of our process of training of lawyers and this new approach appears to be far more fit for purpose and will produce lawyers who would be equipped with the requisite skills and knowledge to serve our country and its citizens well for generations to come.

This new paradigm for training of lawyers can be phased in gradually, I suggest, over a time frame of the next 10 years.

Currently, for the past 100 years the training of lawyers has been split between a 3 or 4 years course at the University, depending on the University, and which is followed by one year at The Law School.

The result of this separation has produced students unprepared fully for legal practice and without a mastery of the legal procedural and technical skills and experience required for success in legal practice.

In addition, once qualified these new lawyers are let loose into society and struggle to find their feet for the first few years and suffer severe hardship as a result.

This happened to me and happened to many of my friends and colleagues. For some years after graduation, many colleagues struggled to make ends meet.

From feedback from many lawyers, this experience still holds true of many lawyers called to the bar in the past few years.

Feedback obtained pinpoints that this has been one of the reasons, many newly qualified and some older lawyers charge less than the right fees because they want the work and need to feed their families.

Whilst not condoning this, one can have some sympathy with their plight as we all went through the same many years ago.

In addition, the landscape of society is changing, new technology driven practice is now coming to the forefront and with the challenges of Covid and Global warming, can we afford to produce lawyers and leave them exposed to this new landscape without giving them the best chance at success?

We need a new nimble training program that will produce lawyers with mastery of the legal procedural and technical skills and experience required for success in legal practice so when they are called to the bar, they are already equipped and will find their feet immediately and able to earn a reasonable living.

It is to redress this inequality and imbalance that I therefore propose a new training program paradigm.

I propose that the current Nigerian Law School merge with Universities and be situated within every University in Nigeria.

The idea is then we can have The Nigerian Law School, University of Jos, The Nigerian Law School University of Maiduguri, The Nigerian Law School University of Lagos etc etc.

Politically, this new paradigm will satisfy every state clamour for Nigerian Law School campuses and therefore represent true federalism as enunciated by The Constitution of Nigeria and assure every state of equal representation without them having to expend billions of naira in building new Nigerian Law School campuses or their constituents travelling to far away places for their Nigerian Law School Education.

This bold move in one master stroke is estimated to result in savings of over N6bn annually in costs and infrastructure. Students will no longer need to go anywhere. They will start their legal education in the University and finish it in the same University.

This make lawyers training easier to administer and enables all parties to work together in a unified manner and this working together will only help to achieve success and improve the standards and quality of Legal Education across the board.

This new paradigm is also estimated to result in savings of billions of naira in the future as the current drive to build more Nigerian Law School campuses in different states will not be needed anymore. That funds would be ploughed back into outfitting and enabling the smooth integration of The Nigerian Law School into the Universities.

Furthermore, the Universities already has infrastructure which can accommodate The Nigerian Law School offerings. So, all parties benefit.

With this new paradigm, I propose that all Law courses at Universities be changed into a new 4 course designed around a spiral curriculum focus resting on the two interwoven pillars of substantive law and procedural law.

These courses will remain comprised of the usual courses of Legal Systems, Tort, Equity, land law etc etc but skills of procedural law will be woven into them so the student will not only be able to learn about the law but also learn how to commence and defend originating summons, interlocutory applications in that area of law.

Within each year of study, students should be required to do mini pupillages of at least three weeks and court shadowing with regular mooting which will expose them at a very early stage to the actual practice of law, court room pedagogy and the ethics necessary to ensure a successful legal practice.

The last 4th year of The law course should then be courses that will pull together all the different strands already encountered by the students in years 1, 2, 3 and now focus them on legal practice, courtroom practice and pupillages and upon passing the University now hosts a Call to Bar and awards the Law Degree and call to The Bar to successful students at the same time.

This new paradigm once implemented will save over estimated N5b annually across all the Universities and reduce carbon footprint as there will be no need anymore for two sets of graduation of one at the University and then a different call to bar ceremony at The Nigerian Law School.

I am not advocating for Nigerian Law School to be scrapped nor am I advocating for Universities to replace The Nigerian Law School either.

I am advocating a new paradigm. One where The Nigerian Law School and The Universities join together by the re-situating and or creation of Nigerian Law School campuses within every University to create a new robust platform for training of lawyers.

This will improve on how we were trained by getting the knowledge and practical technical lawyering skills to the students right from year one and continue getting it into them until they qualify and are called to the Bar.

Will there be problems? Of course, there will be problems. One problem would be what do you do with already established Law Schools? The answer is that you would simply integrate them into the Universities situated in that state.

How do you do that? The Nigerian Law School governing body as present constituted, meet with Universities governing body and agree to situate The Nigerian Law School within the campuses and agree a time table with a committee formed to implement the same.

Would it not cause duplication? No, because most universities do not have a Nigerian Law School campus and by situating the Nigerian Law School within the University campuses, you have not duplicated anything. It is just a complementary integration offering a synergistic pooling of resources to build a new future proof platform for lawyer training.

My expectation is that if this can be done, we will thus create a new generation and breed of excellent lawyers well equipped and confident to serve our nation and its citizens very well and assure the future of lawyers in Nigeria for generations to come and we will have left future legal profession and practice better than we found it.