The first time we interviewed George Etomi, we observed something remarkable about the way he responded to questions – all his answers were underlined by this conviction that in any modern economy, the place of commercial law practice compares to the very essence of that economy. Significantly, George Etomi & Partners stands out, as one of the leading firms that are engaged in commercial law practice in this country. So, when at the creation of the Section on Legal Practice and the Section on Business Law, the Nigerian Bar Association appointed Etomi as pioneer chairman of the latter, “appropriate,” was the word employed by many a lawyer to describe the choice. How can this novel body enhance the practice of law? Etomi tells Onyema Omenuwa.
As always, it’s the enthusiastic George Etomi pontificating on his passion. Excerpts:

Q: Why do you think the Nigerian Bar Association appointed you the chairman of the Section on Business Law?

A: I suppose it’s the confidence the Nigerian Bar Association, through the president, has in me as a person and the reputation our firm has built in this area of commercial law practice. Besides, I was personally involved in pushing for reforms within the Bar association, to allow for the creation of sections; so that we could have lawyers beginning to go into specialized areas of practice, with a view to raising the overall standard of practice in Nigeria.

Q: What change do you think you were not able to effect when this section wasn’t created, which you could now effect?

A: There was quite a fair amount of things. First of all, by not [creating the section], we were left behind, in terms of the worldwide trend in the area of specialization. There is a lot of reform going on in the economy, probably well beyond even this regime – principally, the privatization programme that is going on requires expertise in various fields. And as I mentioned in various other fora, the BPE, very conveniently, decided to hire foreign lawyers because “Nigerian lawyers were not so versed in those areas” and all that.

So whilst on the one hand we argued that the BPE should not have taken that position, we also were aware of the fact that had we ourselves reinvented ourselves much earlier than now, that issue may not even have arisen in the first place. In fact, the Bar would have been taken into confidence, they would even have had a seat on the Privatization Council, to advice on the legal aspect of it.

Now there are so many other things happening now in the economy, in the area of transport, port reforms, aviation; you can see what’s happening now with the advent of Virgin Nigeria, the Continental Airlines and all that; oil and gas, LNG; so much is happening for the Bar to pretend that it can continue as though nothing was happening. And to remain relevant in this process, you got to reinvent yourself, which is why we said that if you have specialized arm within the association to look into these things that are going on; one, you take interest in these areas.

Two, you raise the standard of practice. Three, you actually create a lucrative practice for lawyers because it will help many law firms even develop by reinvesting a lot of their earnings in research, training more lawyers….

Look, we can only win. Otherwise, we can be pursued out of the game. For example, the council members of the Section on Business Law are drawn from various industries – oil and gas, banking and finance, tourism and all that. These are people, because of the way the Bar was structured in the past, just didn’t have any kind of accommodation. And suddenly, by simply creating a section on business law, they get instant relevance. So they’re back in the fold. And these are the type who will lead in privatization because they’ve been working in these industries for so long, acquiring experience. For example, one of our council members, Dr. Kachikwu is an executive director of Mobil. Apart from that, on his own merit he’s an exceptionally brilliant scholar. Then, to work in a multi-national corporation like Mobil, with the sort of complex transaction they have to handle, is a sort of experience the Nigerian Bar Association should tap into. And he kindly agreed to serve in the council. Same thing with Mrs. Azinge in Union Bank. She’s been in banking almost since she left school; she’s at least 27 years at the Bar. That’s a phenomenal experience, which the Bar would have otherwise missed out on, if we didn’t create the section. And we look forward to the valuable contribution these people can make towards this question of specialization.

Q: I have spoken with quite some junior lawyers and even senior ones, who have some misgivings about the creation of these sections. They think these are just avenues for a few privileged lawyers to further enhance their practice, by monopolizing whatever contracts or cornering the big briefs, as it were. Now how do you think the creation of these sections can benefit junior lawyers?

A: First of all, let me just tell you one thing. Every association is formed to protect the interest of its members. Even the main Bar association is there to protect its own interest. So why should it be peculiar that the Section on Business Law or the Section on Legal Practice is there to…. It’s members of the association who will be members. There are no restrictions.

But for the point you’ve made about younger members; whether or not you have a section on business law, the issue of encouraging and creating room for younger members to grow is a peculiar challenge the Bar must rise up to. And I’ve always been in the forefront. Even the way we run our practice, what we’ve done generally, will truly…

I have lamented, first of all, the declining standards of practice. I mean, the reasons are [too] plenty for me to go over. But we spend enormous amount of resources retraining a lot of these lawyers, after they leave Law School, to make them relevant. And I know this is replicated in so many of the top law firms. They do it. So saying you’re trying to create a clique for yourself….

In fact, I personally pushed some firms to be members of the [section]. And what informed my position was that the larger law firms, if they were members, and they paid a bulk annual fee, it could then encourage all members or most members of that practice to automatically gain access to the section, which means the younger lawyers automatically become members.

Q; Is that the position now?

A: No, because right now our bylaws forbid firms to be [members]. That’s the point I’m making. I’m hoping that at some future date we can convince the main house to see the wisdom in being a little bit relaxed. But let me quickly explain the position. The Nigerian Bar Association constitution itself allows for only individual membership. Their own argument is that a sub-body under the main body can’t have firm membership when the main body can’t do it. I mean, that is solid argument.

But when you look at practical realities of the time and everything, I think it will make a lot more sense if a section, especially the Section on Business Law, will be allowed to… because I know some top law firms today are prepared to join. And they can join as firms and pay bulk sum. And it [will be] even great to have firms like that because they can then agree on what the minimum, the threshold, of qualitative legal practice should be. I mean, quality delivery of service because abroad it’s the major law firms that determine the quality of delivery and what the standard should be. Now, if you happen to be a junior in that firm, you’re on, which then means that more firms will be allowed to grow; new firms will come. You actually get better control…

Q: With the position as it is, I hope junior lawyers can afford to pay the dues?

A: Right now, membership dues have not yet been announced but I can just imagine that for these sections to really attain what they want to do, the membership dues ought to be high. So that instantly poses a problem for the junior ones. How do they come in? That’s when the suspicion that perhaps we’re trying to form a clique may begin to hold water. So we must also come up with a scale by which we can allow these juniors to come in.

What we want to do in the section is to encourage knowledge. If we can lower [the hurdle], such that juniors can have access to that knowledge, we’ll be doing a lot. But then the truth is that, knowledge doesn’t come cheap. But maybe what some of these juniors can do is, if they truly believe they will acquire knowledge by joining these sections, then they will have to sort of reorder their priorities and give up one or two things. Then they go and choose a narrow area of law and begin to pursue it. In another two, three or four years, people will begin to know you’re there and then you begin to reap the benefits in the area.

Let’s not forget that at the end of the day, the primary beneficiary of qualitative practice is the client. And the client is not going to be sentimental about whether [it’s] a junior lawyer or a senior lawyer. They just want service delivery. The standard is international standard. And international standard does not care about whether you’re giving room for young lawyers or whatever. What they just want is they give you a job, they expect you to deliver it to the maximum quality acceptable internationally.

Even now, without even the sections, a lot of the top law firms, I can tell you, send junior lawyers abroad on training courses; even on English for lawyers. There are special courses like that, that are held every summer, in Cambridge and Oxford. The top law firms do that. Even here, week in week out, there are courses held by various bodies here which we [facilitate] for juniors because it’s in our own interest to make sure that every member of the firm delivers good quality, so that when you go to a particular firm, you know that this guy can never deliver below a certain level.

I agree that we should try and drive a balance but let’s try and, maybe, depart from too much sentiment. The truth is, if we had the foresight, this section would have been created like ten years ago. This argument would have become less and less because the true benefits would have long come out.

Q: I don’t know whether you’ve always been an active member of the Bar. If you have, why did it take the NBA this long to create these sections, if they were so beneficial?

A: It goes back to the issue that I raised. The Bar, prior to now, had not been as proactive as it should have been. Otherwise this idea should have gained ground a long time ago. If you look at the peculiar history of the Bar, it was made up of political activist and at that time, the focus was on the war for independence and most of them were earlier Bar [leaders] who later became political leaders, and the forum to exhibit their knowledge was the court.

So the Bar tended to lean heavily in favour of what you might call litigation law, which is still very important. We’re very proud of the pioneering role a lot of these lawyers have done in this country and still continue to do. However, the world is moving on, and suddenly commercial activities are becoming emphasized. To sustain a democracy, you need to feed the people. To feed the people, you need to encourage commerce. To encourage commerce, you need – it just goes on and on and on.

And so as commercial activities started getting more and more prevalent, new areas of law started featuring. In a more developed economy, they move rapidly to accommodate it. Unfortunately, when you’re not too quick to jump on it… and at the time a number of us started calling for these sections we met resistance, in the sense that old habits don’t change too quickly. It took close to four years of convincing your colleagues that you don’t have anything special to gain, that the law is expanding. In any case, a lot of these commercial lawyers had started different mini-associations of theirs. You have Nigerian Maritime Law Association, taxation and all that.

They cater for their own interest and the loser was the Bar. Because you, unwittingly, have alienated a very qualitative group of your members. But as they say, better late than never. At least, it’s now here. Let’s now begin to make it work. I am hoping that during the two-year tenure that we have, we can move very quickly to lay the foundation, so that those who will take over subsequently will [build on it]. But believe you me, the Bar can only be the beneficiary; if we attempt to turn the hand of the clock back, we can only be the losers. Look at cases like the BPE, which I have mentioned earlier, over this question of foreign lawyers or no foreign lawyers and all what not, if we had had our acts together, the issue would not even have arisen in the first place. The war is not totally won [because] there are other areas in which no Nigerian lawyer has been considered.

And yet, I can tell you that a lot of us who have over the years remained in commercial law practice have been practicing at the highest international level. Because your clients don’t care whether… they just want the work done. So we, on our own, in any case, have been investing and benchmarking our practice in international standards. So the case now is, throw this into the Bar so that you can then widen the ambit. A standard Bar leads to a better protection for lawyer. Globalization is making the world a village.

Q: So far, what’s the response like to the creation of your own section?

A: Very good.

Q: But that must be from established lawyers, not junior lawyers?

A: No, no; it’s been very good generally. Enquiries, especially at the secretariat of the NBA; they’re inundated with phone calls. We’ve not yet come out with the newspaper announcements, the application forms and all that. The council is meeting to shape all those things up.

Q: You have only a two-year tenure. Do you think you can achieve something meaningful within so short a time?

A: Yes, in terms of foundation, I think we can lay the foundation. And happily, under our bylaw the immediate-past chairman of the section remains a member of council. So you can stay for another two years and with that you’ll still be around to lend your experience to the new team. But the key thing is just to make sure that you have people who can buy in to the philosophy. I’m very concerned about undue politicization of the section.

I think the politics of the NBA should be left in the main house. These sections should just be left alone to drive knowledge and if we’re going to do that, there should be less emphasis on positions. Which is why we’re going to operate three committees, and the chairmen are going to be people who are going to be selected based on their knowledge in specific areas. If we need somebody in ‘X’ area, the council will actually go to him and plead with him. Because it’s one thing to be knowledgeable in an area, it’s another thing to have the interest to serve. And, at times, interest to serve can be determined by how much time you can afford. A lot of the people we know are very busy. But for some of them, even if they can lend us their names and a little bit of their experience, it will help us a lot.