How the Covid-19 experience should change law practice in Africa- Courtroom Mail receives thoughts from Nigeria

Courtroom Mail continues with the quest to hear the views of lawyers across Africa on how the experiences of Covid-19 should change the way we practice Law in Africa.

We have previously published views from Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia. Here we have the views from Rahila Dauda and Mustopha Balogun from Nigeria.

Dauda Rahila:

Covid 19 has indeed affected our lives in more ways than we can imagine
The practice of law for example is no exception.
The post Covid 19 era will witness the use of technology more often. This will enhance the speedy administration of Justice also.
Also, we may experience more people working from home unlike before.

Mustopha Issa Balogun:

The Covid-19 pandemic comes as a blessing in disguise for the legal profession. The intuition to embrace cyber-tech in the legal profession is not limited to court proceedings but also to the business in law technology drive. If there are effective visual court proceedings facilities in place, there may not be a need to come to courts for innocuous applications, taking of judgments, or seeking adjournments; these can be done through the internet-based-court-proceedings without necessarily coming to courts. Though, this visual court proceedings cyber-tech may not be helpful in some cases like where witnesses will be required to give evidence or tender exhibits; these will definitely require the physical presence of the parties or their legal representatives, the judges and the officers of courts.

In the same vein, cyber-tech will meritoriously strengthen the work of the legal profession. It will be unnecessary for potential clients who need legal advice of lawyers to come to lawyers’ offices for the purpose of taking legal advice or briefing. All these can be done vide cyber-tech. The Nigerian Bar Association needs to wake up and set the standard for lawyers by having a unified website which lawyers and clients can subscribe to. This will also serve as a conduit of income not only for lawyers who offer legal services to the clients through this unified website but also the Association will charge as a middleman through whose channel the legal services are provided.