By Henry Ojelu
The Legal Education Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, has called for urgent reforms in Nigeria’s legal education system, citing challenges such as backlog at the Nigerian Law School, inadequate funding and infrastructure deficits in law faculties.

The call was made during the Southwest Regional Townhall Workshop on Legal Education held at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lagos (UNILAG).

The workshop forms part of ongoing efforts by the NBA to improve legal education and professional training in the country.

Recall that the NBA President, Afam Osigwe, SAN, inaugurated the NBA Legal Education Committee under the leadership of Damilola Olawuyi, SAN, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, with the mandate to promote functional legal education through training programmes and conferences on modern teaching approaches.

In furtherance of this mandate, the committee introduced the Regional Townhall Workshop Series on Legal Education, coordinated by Chimezie Kingsley Okorie, SAN. The first edition was held in the South-East at Imo State University, Owerri.

The UNILAG edition attracted about 200 participants, including the Dean of UNILAG Faculty of Law, Abiola Sanni, SAN, the Dean of the Faculty of Law at Lagos State University, Olatayo Kareem, as well as legal academics, practitioners and students.

Five universities — UNILAG, Lagos State University, Redeemer’s University, Fountain University and Olabisi Onabanjo University — presented reports on the state of legal education and challenges confronting law faculties.

Speaking at the event, Olawuyi, who was represented by Folasade Abiodun, Alternate Secretary of the committee, emphasised the need to review the legal education curriculum and leverage technology in teaching to produce practice-ready lawyers capable of competing globally.

He noted that the workshop was designed to provide stakeholders with a platform to identify areas for innovation and improvement in legal training.

In his remarks, Sanni said the last major reform of legal education in Nigeria was carried out in 1962 when the country began training its lawyers locally.

He stressed that despite several calls for reform since then, little progress had been made, noting that the current backlog at the Nigerian Law School remains a major challenge.

Responding, Osigwe commended the committee and UNILAG for organising the workshop and assured participants that recommendations arising from the discussions would be considered for implementation.
Participants also raised concerns over infrastructure deficits, poor remuneration of law teachers, heavy workload, limited access to legal resources and underfunding of law faculties.

They further called for reforms in the admission process, expansion of Continuing Legal Education for law teachers and swift implementation of the NBA Legal Education Endowment Fund to support infrastructure and technology upgrades in law faculties across the country.