The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has called for a fundamental restructuring of legal practice in Nigeria, urging lawyers to shift away from founder-driven firms and adopt models that can survive beyond their founders.
NBA President, Afam Osigwe, made the call on Friday in Abuja at The Convergence Africa Masterclass 26 for Law themed, “Beyond the Founder: Designing Multigenerational Law Firms that Endure and Scale.”
He said the legal profession must embrace institutional partnerships, shared leadership, and proper succession planning instead of firms that depend entirely on a single individual.
According to him, many law firms in Nigeria struggle with continuity because their survival is closely tied to the founder’s presence, health, or lifespan.
He said, “We have a situation where most of our practitioners are sole proprietors who set up businesses, and the life and the health of the businesses are oftentimes tied to the life or the health of the owners.”
He added, “We seek a new paradigm, a shift from what is at the moment, where we build businesses that endure, leverage on the strength of those who work there, and allow the older lawyers to come in as partners to create synergies so that even if the founder dies or is sick, the businesses can operate.”
Osigwe explained that adopting partnership-based structures would help law firms combine intellectual strength, improve service delivery, and attract more skilled professionals while ensuring long-term stability.
He also said, “To fashion a business model where lawyers will come in from businesses that have endured not only decades but for centuries, and build law firms that pull resources together to make the best.
“Not only in gathering different intellectual contributions from different members, but in leveraging their business acumen to grow businesses that give first-class services, endure, and can continue to give dividends to the family of the members, the founders, even when they are dead.
“We will never know whether they are ready until we start practicalising it. But lawyers are listening and I can tell you more law firms are going into partnerships. They are going into business models that will uplift them and move away from the current way of doing things, which is mine, my own sole proprietorship.”
The convener of the masterclass, Patience Olusuyi, said the programme was designed to encourage the creation of legal institutions that can outlive their founders.
She noted that while some firms operating under partnerships have remained successful, many others collapse once their founders retire or die.
She said, “I’ve seen law firms that partnered and are thriving. Globally, we’ve seen that some law firms are over 200 years old. And I ask myself, in Nigeria, how old is the oldest law firm? There are legends in the legal practitioner that we’ve seen before with amazing law firms. But their law firms are no more because they’re now old and no longer in practice.
“I’m saying this shouldn’t be the trend. And so, for young people like us, it is time for us to harmonise our energies and come together to build formidable firms that can outlive us.
“I believe that great law firms are not those that write thousands of pages on newspapers after the death of the founder of the law firm, but rather a great law firm is one that still has its signposts a decade after the founder is dead and still serving people. That’s why I started this.”
Also speaking, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Paul-Haris Ogbole, stressed that long-lasting law firms depend on strong internal systems, shared vision, and planned succession rather than publicity.
He said, “It’s not essentially about advertising. It’s about having an internal structure where the firm is able to transcend beyond the current generation of the founders to generations after.
“It’s about having an internal structure where lawyers are recruited into the firm, have a sense of belonging, and know that they can be part of that firm beyond the generation of the founders.”