Making the Legal Practice Attractive to a Young Lawyer – Any Lesson from Nigeria?

Abstract

In Nigeria, the desire of every young man and woman, who gained admission to study law at various Universities, is to go to the law school and eventually qualify for call to the Bar as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Indeed, it is a great pride to those students, their parents, guardians and well wishers to become members of the noble profession. People respect and adore lawyers not because of the abundance of cash in their accounts but, because of their knowledge of the law and ability to fight for their rights and the right of others any time, any day within the confine of the law. Some people believe that been a lawyer in Nigeria is synonymous to becoming rich. To those who share this opinion about the legal profession, as soon as a person becomes a lawyer, his big pocket would become exposed to the hard reality of having to accommodate too much amount of cash. Funny enough, this is also the view of most young lawyers. Little do they all know however, that there are so many challenges awaiting an average young lawyer on arrival to the profession.1 In this paper, the writer attempted to identify who is a young lawyer, what are the challenges facing him and what he could do to help himself to success in his sojourn within the procession. The paper also identifies the practical solutions introduced by the Nigerian Bar Association and the Nigerian Law School in making the legal profession attractive to young lawyers in the overall interest of the profession and the consumers of its services.