Professor Andrew Chukwuemerie
(SAN) has called for the restructuring of legal
education in Nigeria to emphasize vocational training rather than
mere academics. In this piece, STEPHEN
UBIMAGO reflects on his submissions as recently
conveyed in the Nigerian Journal of Contemporary Law…
Before 1945,
the possession of a University degree was not essential for
qualification as a lawyer in Nigeria.
To be sure, legal training prior to
1945 only consisted in apprenticeship, articleship or pupilage
under the mentorship of a senior member of the profession, after
which the candidate will be required to sit for a qualifying Bar or
Solicitor’s examination.
In a paper entitled, “Problems of Legal Education in Nigeria,”
Honorable Justice Moronkeji Onalaja (retd.) observed in this
connection that “Lawyers trained in Britain before 1945 had no law
degrees because no British University was offering a Law degree at
the time.
“The University College, London was
the first to offer a Law degree and this was in 1945.”
But much has changed ever since. Currently, most lawyers in
Nigeria are university graduates.
By virtue of section 4 of the Legal
Practitioners Act, one cannot be admitted into the Nigeria Law
School (NLS) for professional training without the prerequisite
Bachelor’s degree in Law or an equivalent English Bar
certificate.
Clearly, unlike the pre-1945 regime,
it is now the Faculties of Law of the various universities as well
as the Council of Legal Education of the Nigerian Law School that
contribute in the production of lawyers in Nigeria.
However, many senior lawyers, who in
most cases are the employers of new wigs, have lamented that the
current regime only tend to produce persons versed in theories but
deficient in practical legal know-how.
The development has, in turn, been
blamed on their teachers, who themselves lack knowledge of the Law
in practice.
“Most law lecturers in Nigerian
universities deal with the theory of the law – the law in the shelf
– not necessarily the law as it operates in the marketplace of
life, the streets and indeed the courts.” This was the lamentation
of Professor Andrew Chuwumerie (SAN) in an article titled, “Fresh
Perspective in Lawyers’ Training: What the Universities and Law
School Fail to Teach.”
Published in the “Nigerian Journal
of Contemporary Law,” the don maintained that “The design of the
course contents and outlines in the universities pay excessive
attention to the theory of the law as found in the textbooks and
does not deliberately create space for the teaching of practical
experience and the different challenges generated out there in the
marketplace of life by the application of the law and the solution
to those challenges.”
He berated the situation in which
the Law student is made to learn all the theoretical aspects of,
say, the Law of Contract in the university or Law School without
ever sighting a contract in practice, or even made to draft one,
save and until after his/her call to bar and as an associate in a
firm of legal practitioners, or following his/her employment in the
legal department of some corporate organization.
The question that has arisen against
this backdrop is: Given that Law is basically a vocation and not an
academic discipline, why has legal education in Nigeria continued
to remain a project of long years of academic exposure at the
expense of serious practical training?
Despite lamentations that the
universities and indeed the NLS are producing barely baked lawyers,
why has only little been done to institute fundamental reforms that
would occasion the broadening of the vocational content of legal
education or that would inform a reasonable balance between the
theoretical and the practical?
Indeed legal training in Nigeria
leaves much to be desired going by the lamentable picture painted
by the professor in this respect.
According to him, “The typical
Nigerian Law student is like a medical student who has been taught
Medicine in mere theory, who has gone to a theatre only once in his
life to observe surgeries and is then licensed to go out as a
medical practitioner to practice medicine including performing
surgeries on patients.
“Such a doctor would not be a doctor
properly so called and only a reckless or ignorant patient would
patronise his clinic.
“The Law student is taught the Law
of Evidence in the university as well as Civil Procedure and
Criminal Procedure in the Law School but never gets to see a Motion
moved in court or before an arbitral tribunal or a
cross-examination conducted.”
This state of affairs has resulted
in a number of regrettable outcomes, he maintains.
For instance, many would graduate
from the Law School with the barest interest to pursue legal
practice not so much because of lack of passion as it is because
they feel a certain disconnect from the Law.
This disconnection seems to be borne
out of the fact that years spent to acquire the certificates of
qualification failed to familiarise them with the practical world
of lawyers.
It appears the new wig suddenly
realises a disconcerting dissonance between theory and practice.
Disillusioned, as a result, he or she makes a premature
detour.
Succinctly re-echoing the
professor’s thought, an American legal educator Mack McCormack
noted: “Only after graduation do young attorneys come to the
depressing realization that 90 per cent of what they were taught in
academia will never be used in practice; and, conversely, 90
percent of what they need to know was never taught them at
school.”
It goes without saying that many a
young lawyer only come to terms with the said gaps in their
training when the challenge of making a living from practice leads
them to an epiphany.
Besides, given the limited number of
established law firms on hand to employ the ever-growing number of
lawyers in the country, many are either suddenly paralyzed by their
sense of inadequacy occasioned by lack of experience, or become
venturesome, going into practice without adequate
pupillage.
Chuwuemerie terms such a move “a
gamble.”
“It has often happened that a lawyer
from the law school opens his own practice in Nigeria within a year
or less of his call to bar,” he said.
“There is no regulation requiring
this driver who has never driven a car to necessarily under-study a
licensed driver before he can pick up a car key to drive passengers
to death.
“He is just unleashed upon the
society and it is completely within his discretion to decide
whether or not he learns actual driving before setting out on
earning a living as a professional driver.
“He soon dashes out there to open
his own practice and begins to learn the Law by trial and error as
he goes on in his practice.”
As already noted, the senior
advocate deplored this state of affairs, blaming it on the
country’s faulty system of legal education.
According to him, the situation is
compounded all the more by the fact that the legal educators
themselves are mere academicians.
They parade impressive degrees from
both local and foreign universities, but lack knowledge of the
workings of the Law in practice.
He added that the misnomer is more
pronounced in the Faculties of Law, where the criteria for
employment as a Law teacher merely consist in showing off strings
of degrees short of vital experience in bar practice.
“The Law student is in most cases
taught by teachers who themselves have never had practical
experience of these things and who can only teach him bare empty
theory,” he lamented.
“Such teachers often do not have the
faintest idea of how the Law works out there in the practical scene
of everyday life and business.
“They operate in the comfortable
cocoons of the classroom where even manifestly unrealistic abstract
contemplations sometimes have prime place.”
But the anomalous situation is not
beyond remedy, says the senior advocate. He recommends a
three-pronged approach to resolving the incongruity.
First, he says, the criteria for
engaging Law teachers must change, stressing that experience in the
Bar must be deemed as important as the parade of
degrees.
“Practical experience of Law must be
a condition precedent for teaching,” he counseled.
Secondly, the situation calls for a
fundamental review of curricula, he said, stating, “The idea of
legal clinics in the universities is also highly
commendable.”
Finally, “The university training
should make more room for more practical conduct of mock cases by
the students themselves,” he said.
“A deliberate effort should be made
to relate theories to the nuances, challenges and difficulties of
the Nigerian society.”
A barrister and solicitor of the
Supreme Court of Nigeria and former Professor of Law, Chukwuemerie
(SAN) currently runs his Port Harcourt-based Okibe Lawhouse as
Principal Solicitor.
He obtained his Bachelor of Laws
(LLB) from the University of Maiduguri; and Master of Laws (LLM)
from the University of Lagos.
Professor Andrew Chukwuemerie
(SAN) has called for the restructuring of legal
education in Nigeria to emphasize vocational training rather than
mere academics. In this piece, STEPHEN
UBIMAGO reflects on his submissions as recently
conveyed in the Nigerian Journal of Contemporary Law…
Before 1945,
the possession of a University degree was not essential for
qualification as a lawyer in Nigeria.
To be sure, legal training prior to
1945 only consisted in apprenticeship, articleship or pupilage
under the mentorship of a senior member of the profession, after
which the candidate will be required to sit for a qualifying Bar or
Solicitor’s examination.
In a paper entitled, “Problems of Legal Education in Nigeria,”
Honorable Justice Moronkeji Onalaja (retd.) observed in this
connection that “Lawyers trained in Britain before 1945 had no law
degrees because no British University was offering a Law degree at
the time.
“The University College, London was
the first to offer a Law degree and this was in 1945.”
But much has changed ever since. Currently, most lawyers in
Nigeria are university graduates.
By virtue of section 4 of the Legal
Practitioners Act, one cannot be admitted into the Nigeria Law
School (NLS) for professional training without the prerequisite
Bachelor’s degree in Law or an equivalent English Bar
certificate.
Clearly, unlike the pre-1945 regime,
it is now the Faculties of Law of the various universities as well
as the Council of Legal Education of the Nigerian Law School that
contribute in the production of lawyers in Nigeria.
However, many senior lawyers, who in
most cases are the employers of new wigs, have lamented that the
current regime only tend to produce persons versed in theories but
deficient in practical legal know-how.
The development has, in turn, been
blamed on their teachers, who themselves lack knowledge of the Law
in practice.
“Most law lecturers in Nigerian
universities deal with the theory of the law – the law in the shelf
– not necessarily the law as it operates in the marketplace of
life, the streets and indeed the courts.” This was the lamentation
of Professor Andrew Chuwumerie (SAN) in an article titled, “Fresh
Perspective in Lawyers’ Training: What the Universities and Law
School Fail to Teach.”
Published in the “Nigerian Journal
of Contemporary Law,” the don maintained that “The design of the
course contents and outlines in the universities pay excessive
attention to the theory of the law as found in the textbooks and
does not deliberately create space for the teaching of practical
experience and the different challenges generated out there in the
marketplace of life by the application of the law and the solution
to those challenges.”
He berated the situation in which
the Law student is made to learn all the theoretical aspects of,
say, the Law of Contract in the university or Law School without
ever sighting a contract in practice, or even made to draft one,
save and until after his/her call to bar and as an associate in a
firm of legal practitioners, or following his/her employment in the
legal department of some corporate organization.
The question that has arisen against
this backdrop is: Given that Law is basically a vocation and not an
academic discipline, why has legal education in Nigeria continued
to remain a project of long years of academic exposure at the
expense of serious practical training?
Despite lamentations that the
universities and indeed the NLS are producing barely baked lawyers,
why has only little been done to institute fundamental reforms that
would occasion the broadening of the vocational content of legal
education or that would inform a reasonable balance between the
theoretical and the practical?
Indeed legal training in Nigeria
leaves much to be desired going by the lamentable picture painted
by the professor in this respect.
According to him, “The typical
Nigerian Law student is like a medical student who has been taught
Medicine in mere theory, who has gone to a theatre only once in his
life to observe surgeries and is then licensed to go out as a
medical practitioner to practice medicine including performing
surgeries on patients.
“Such a doctor would not be a doctor
properly so called and only a reckless or ignorant patient would
patronise his clinic.
“The Law student is taught the Law
of Evidence in the university as well as Civil Procedure and
Criminal Procedure in the Law School but never gets to see a Motion
moved in court or before an arbitral tribunal or a
cross-examination conducted.”
This state of affairs has resulted
in a number of regrettable outcomes, he maintains.
For instance, many would graduate
from the Law School with the barest interest to pursue legal
practice not so much because of lack of passion as it is because
they feel a certain disconnect from the Law.
This disconnection seems to be borne
out of the fact that years spent to acquire the certificates of
qualification failed to familiarise them with the practical world
of lawyers.
It appears the new wig suddenly
realises a disconcerting dissonance between theory and practice.
Disillusioned, as a result, he or she makes a premature
detour.
Succinctly re-echoing the
professor’s thought, an American legal educator Mack McCormack
noted: “Only after graduation do young attorneys come to the
depressing realization that 90 per cent of what they were taught in
academia will never be used in practice; and, conversely, 90
percent of what they need to know was never taught them at
school.”
It goes without saying that many a
young lawyer only come to terms with the said gaps in their
training when the challenge of making a living from practice leads
them to an epiphany.
Besides, given the limited number of
established law firms on hand to employ the ever-growing number of
lawyers in the country, many are either suddenly paralyzed by their
sense of inadequacy occasioned by lack of experience, or become
venturesome, going into practice without adequate
pupillage.
Chuwuemerie terms such a move “a
gamble.”
“It has often happened that a lawyer
from the law school opens his own practice in Nigeria within a year
or less of his call to bar,” he said.
“There is no regulation requiring
this driver who has never driven a car to necessarily under-study a
licensed driver before he can pick up a car key to drive passengers
to death.
“He is just unleashed upon the
society and it is completely within his discretion to decide
whether or not he learns actual driving before setting out on
earning a living as a professional driver.
“He soon dashes out there to open
his own practice and begins to learn the Law by trial and error as
he goes on in his practice.”
As already noted, the senior
advocate deplored this state of affairs, blaming it on the
country’s faulty system of legal education.
According to him, the situation is
compounded all the more by the fact that the legal educators
themselves are mere academicians.
They parade impressive degrees from
both local and foreign universities, but lack knowledge of the
workings of the Law in practice.
He added that the misnomer is more
pronounced in the Faculties of Law, where the criteria for
employment as a Law teacher merely consist in showing off strings
of degrees short of vital experience in bar practice.
“The Law student is in most cases
taught by teachers who themselves have never had practical
experience of these things and who can only teach him bare empty
theory,” he lamented.
“Such teachers often do not have the
faintest idea of how the Law works out there in the practical scene
of everyday life and business.
“They operate in the comfortable
cocoons of the classroom where even manifestly unrealistic abstract
contemplations sometimes have prime place.”
But the anomalous situation is not
beyond remedy, says the senior advocate. He recommends a
three-pronged approach to resolving the incongruity.
First, he says, the criteria for
engaging Law teachers must change, stressing that experience in the
Bar must be deemed as important as the parade of
degrees.
“Practical experience of Law must be
a condition precedent for teaching,” he counseled.
Secondly, the situation calls for a
fundamental review of curricula, he said, stating, “The idea of
legal clinics in the universities is also highly
commendable.”
Finally, “The university training
should make more room for more practical conduct of mock cases by
the students themselves,” he said.
“A deliberate effort should be made
to relate theories to the nuances, challenges and difficulties of
the Nigerian society.”
A barrister and solicitor of the
Supreme Court of Nigeria and former Professor of Law, Chukwuemerie
(SAN) currently runs his Port Harcourt-based Okibe Lawhouse as
Principal Solicitor.
He obtained his Bachelor of Laws
(LLB) from the University of Maiduguri; and Master of Laws (LLM)
from the University of Lagos.