Legal Profession in a Digital Era: Balancing Tradition and Transformation

Description

ABSTRACT

Legal Profession in a Digital Era: Balancing Tradition and Transformation

Prof. Joseph E. O. Abugu, SAN*

Traditional legal practice had revolved around a physical office, complete with bookshelves filled with law reports, a typewriter, stationery, and professional robes. Beyond the office, the lawyer’s operations were within the sphere of the courts and associated legal drafting. That was the third world, fast receding. Today, it is rare to find a law office without a computer and a printer. Even young lawyers without these, resort to business centres. The advent of the internet and modern telephony has exposed individuals and corporations to an admixture of freedom of expression and data breaches. Legal transactions are now carried out on phones and tablets with unimaginable speed and efficiency. Digital law reporting is fast obliterating the need for physical law reports. Furthermore, the incursion of artificial intelligence into the execution of legal jobs has opened new horizons in the practice of law. This paper reviews and extols these developments and points out the trajectory of legal practice and its frontiers. It extols legal practitioners to quickly adapt to the changing landscape to ensure relevance and maintaining the role of the legal profession in the modern society.

Keywords: Legal Practice, digitalization (Digi-Tech), the Internet of things, artificial intelligence (AI).

INTRODUCTION
A lot has been written about the legal profession in Nigeria. It is not my object to define the profession, its structure, regulatory organs and scope. Suffice it to say that it is the noblest of professions and the NBA, its principal association, is the bastion of the rule of law and its members, advocates and defenders in the sacred temple of justice. Other regulatory institutions include the Council of Legal Education and the Body of Benchers. It is also not my object to discuss these institutions in this presentation. Instead, I intend to discuss the practice of law, its challenges and how this is impacted by the advent of digitalisation.

Traditional legal practice had revolved around a physical office, complete with bookshelves filled with law reports, a typewriter, stationery, and professional robes. Beyond the office, the lawyer’s operations were within the sphere of the courts and associated legal drafting. That was the third world, fast receding. Today, it is rare to find a law office without a computer and a printer. Even young lawyers without these resort to business centres. The advent of the internet and modern telephony has exposed individuals and corporations to an admixture of freedom of expression and data breaches. Legal transactions are now carried out on phones and tablets with unimaginable speed and efficiency. Digital law reporting is fast obliterating the need for physical law reports.

* SAN, PH.D, FCIArb (UK), FNIM, Professor of Commercial & Industrial Law, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria. The original text of this paper was a Keynote Lecture delivered at the maiden Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association, Surulere Branch, Lagos held at the Eko Club, Bode Thomas Road, Surulere, Lagos on Monday 17 February 2025.

THE GRAVITAS REVIEW OF BUSINESS & PROPERTY LAW VOL.16 NO.2