‘What NBA can learn from IBA’

Mr. Paul Usoro (SAN) is Nigerian Bar Association
(NBA) President. He was at the International Bar Association (IBA)
conference in Rome. He unveils the impact of the conference on him
and how he intends to improve the well-being of Nigerian lawyers.
Legal Editor JOHN AUSTIN UNACHUKWU met him.

Did you observe
any significant difference between the way the NBA organises its
conferences and the way the IBA organises its own? Any
lessons?

Ok, let me tell you one of the significant differences, which I
hope to bring in to our own conferences. People  here keep to
time. If a session is to start at 10.00 am prompt, it starts at
10.00. on the dot. Another thing that I observed was that we heard
the voices of people introducing speakers but you didn’t see them.
So, that business of having to have a Master of Ceremony is
something that we could cut out because it saves time and it looks
more business-like. The third thing that a lot of sessions were
actually organised by the committees, mainly of the LPD, which has
so many committees. The human rights committee institute also has
its own session. The different fora, they also had their own
sessions. The Young Lawyers Forum, etc, all had their own
sessions.

You see that the different committees and fora are the ones who
organise the content. The advantage of that as I had always
mentioned to every  one is that it makes the conference
participatory for every one because literally everyone who is here
at this conference belong to one of these committees or the other.
You see that the sessions are very informative, very interesting,
very participatory and very educative.

One other thing I can mention is that if you look at the
programme, you will see that the venue for the next IBA conference
is already decided. So, everybody now knows, then comes in advanced
planning. It is not only where the next conference is going to hold
or the date for it, but the planning in regards to the
speakers, the theme, the topic, the different committees
starting to plan things very early. It is not a three-month sprint.
That is something that we also need to imbibe.

What is your impression about the registration process
and collection of material at the conference?

Now, because there is an advanced planning, what you find is
that they also had prepared the materials very early. That is also
why they have a fast-track process so that the people who had
registered early, all you needed to do  was to go to the
fast-track desk and then in seconds, they confirm your details and
just give you your materials and everything that you need. That is
one of the significant things that I noticed but let me also
mention the other thing that I noticed. The materials, that is, the
papers that were presented at various sessions were not given to
you in hard copy during the conference. You can download them, it
is made easy for you to simply get them from the internet so you
simply download them. So, what you actually have in that your
conference bag is the schedule and the list of participants may be
one or two other things which is like a momento and nothing more
than that.

That means that people must also get used to electronic
communication for them to be able to download the conference
materials from the net. You don’t find people going  round
with the conference papers. Even the council meeting  that I
will be attending much later in the conference, all that they did
was to send me the link and I downloaded those materials
myself.

There is no doubt that you are  ICT compliant,
having made your mark in telecommunication law. How is this going
to impact the average Nigerian lawyer? Is the
NBA website functional?

I have segmented the things I want to achieve within the next
two years into the respective years. This first year, one of my
plans is that we should have a completely revamped website, that
would definitely aid what I have just said about posting materials
and then downloading materials. So, that is one of the things I
plan to do and by Gods grace, I will achieve that, get a completely
revamped website that will also be interactive. It will be modern
and by the way, once you have a very good website for the
association, there is really no need to say that we are setting up
a separate website for a conference. It doesn’t make sense.

How will you do it?

All you need to do is to do one very good website for the
association. That is one. Second, one of the things that I have
decided to do, which is also a take away from IBA, is that by the
next NEC meeting, which by God’s grace should be  next
month,  we are going to have the committee  that is going
to coordinate and prepare the Annual General Conference. Even
before that NEC meeting, I am going to have meetings with all the
sections, the fora, because I need to revamp them; I need to open
their eyes to the possibilities and the responsibilities that they
have and how they  can help us and help themselves in
organising the next Annual General Conference. I hear people say:
‘Paul you need to appoint us to committees,’ ‘You need to appoint
us to different other things’. My own take is if most of these
people are really serious about developing themselves, all they
need to do is to find their ways into the various committees of the
sections, that is really where the intellectual work is done, that
where the Continuing Legal Education is going to be done; that is
where the development of your brain and your intellect really will
be achieved and the more people we have to be there, the better the
quality of legal practice will be and the development of skills. I
want to revamp those sections and also the fora and give them the
responsibility to help us content-wise as far as the planning of
the annual conference for next year is concerned. And then
what you have the committee do is to help us coordinate between
them and the secretariat that will be responsible to manage and
sort out the logistics issues.

What is your plan for the NBA Human Rights Institute
which is under the chairmanship of the NBA First Vice –President
?

I intend to study the Human Rights Committee of the IBA
structures. I want to understand exactly what their governance
structures and procedures  look like, what their procedures
are, what they are set up to achieve, how they are achieving those
things and I think I will learn some lessons from there in
revamping  our own Human Rights Institute. We’re we trying to
do the same thing the IBA. Are we fashioned, modeled the same as
they are? Are there certain things that we need to do differently?
Those are critical issues that one needs look at and then see how
best to revamp it and see how best we can achieve the essence of
that very institute.

How can Nigerian lawyers benefit from IBA?

It is a good thing to attend conferences. Another thing is to
actually benefit from those conferences. There are two ways to
benefit. The first is intellectual, having to join the sessions.
You could also ask questions. You might also find some of your
issues resolved. The other part that I will encourage them to do as
part of that intellectual development is to download the papers for
those sessions so that you have a reading material. You download
them onto your system and that way, they become reference
materials.

You could also network. You would meet people and in the process
of networking, people get to know you, and who knows, they might
have some matters out there. I just met a friend of mine who is
practicing in Hong Kong. We were discussing and they said something
and they mentioned Igbo. I teased the fellow. I said: ‘You are
actually quite versed about my country’. They said to me most of
their clients are Nigerians; that they have quite a number of
Nigerians who do things for them.

Through networking, we should be able to represent different
people and some of the delegates who come to do business in
Nigeria. That is how businesses develop and that is how
relationships develop.

The third one at the level of the Bar Association, how we can we
can have a strong voice in IBA to influence things and how we can
help our people. That is what I am working on and I will keep
working on it.

Culled from TheNation