Re-Designing Legal Services In Africa By Ashlin Perumall – TheNigerialawyer

By Ashlin Perumall, Senior Associate, Corporate/M&A
Practice, Baker McKenzie Johannesburg

Investors in Africa face an increasingly complex business
environment, with numerous geopolitical and economic risks to
consider, as well as having to comply with varying legal
requirements across the continent. There is no denying that doing
business in Africa in the current economic and political
climate is difficult, and this is especially true in the legal
market. Navigating the disharmony of African regulatory regimes can
make or break deals and projects, and is a source of relentless
frustration for investors in the continent. Nonetheless, the
opportunities remain and many African regions are ripe for new and
innovative ways to address these challenges.

However, such innovation in legal services needs to be real and
tangible and requires the creation of conducive environments and
strategies. One way to instil the attitude necessary for such
innovative solutions to emerge is to follow a service design
approach, and start with the core needs and experience of the user
of such services: the client. This means placing the client’s user
experience (UX) at the centre, empathising with their wants, needs
and pain points, and iterating solutions based on identified
problem statements in a process referred to as ‘design thinking’.
Founded in the methodology developed by Stanford University, the
aim behind this approach to service design is to co-create
solutions and services with clients from the ground up,
so that new and different perspectives and approaches can be
identified.

This design thinking methodology was recently applied in a
series of workshops at Baker McKenzie’s African Transactional
Summit, which was held in May 2019 and attended by members of its
African Relationship Firms (ARFs) from more than 20 countries in
Africa, as well as the firm’s Africa specialist lawyers and its key
clients. Via a process of brainstorming and collaborating, the
pain-points with regards to legal services in Africa were
identified and broken down into clear problem statements, and
solutions to these problems were identified, explored and
developed.

Stemming from this process, the following were identified as
some of the challenges, or ‘pain points’, related to legal services
in Africa:

• It was found that key to addressing the challenges of investing
  in Africa is the ability to navigate uncertainty across the African
  market. Investors in Africa increasingly require real knowledge and
  cannot rely on market perception, particularly for markets where
  there is lack of reliable, industry-specific information and
  accessible data.
• African dealmakers need better ways to understand the fast
  developing global trade trends through the lens of their African
  operations, and how and where these could impact their
  businesses.
• The speed of project implementation is critical to any deal. As
  such, dealing with onerous government approvals and complex
  legislative frameworks adds considerable time to deals, and even
  stalls them.
• Communication in multi-jurisdictional matters and deals, can
  also sometimes be overwhelming for investors in Africa,
  particularly where differing terms are used in different
  jurisdictions, making it difficult for investors to understand the
  large volumes of communication coming in from varying advisors, at
  the same time. Not only do investors want more information, but
  they also need better ways of streamlining this correspondence
  across various stakeholders on multi-jurisdictional transactions.
  They are looking for ways to standardise these communications so
  they can quickly digest, and process key information and readily
  understand the impact on their businesses.
• There is also a need for a better understanding of the culture
  of doing business in jurisdictions in Africa, particularly where
  local nuances are relevant and in areas where local regulation is
  still being developed. Where investors enter new or unregulated
  business models in local markets (particularly in the TMT space),
  they need solutions on how they can interact with the public sector
  in order to understand the approach taken by local government, as
  well as act as a stakeholder in the development of new regulations.
  New and innovative ways to manage stakeholder and local advisor
  engagement requires greater focus.

Using information gathered in the design thinking workshops,
Baker McKenzie’s Johannesburg office is aiming to build and
implement solutions to these identified challenges. This aim is to
be focused on the clear need to re-design and re-invent how legal
problems and challenges are solved in Africa, and how the
experience of investors in Africa can be improved.