To Unlock Africa's Potential, We Need To Invest In Our Legal Capacity And Regulatory Frameworks

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SPEECH DELIVERED BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, IMMEDIATE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AT THE 2024 DALAS LAW DINNER THEMED: LEGAL PRACTICE AND INVESTMENTS IN SUB SAHARAN AFRICA: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS, DUOLA, CAMEROON ON THE 9TH OF NOVEMBER 2024


Protocols


It is a true honour to join you at this 2024 DALAS Law Dinner. I am grateful to my brother, President Mbah Eric Mbah, the Executive and the entire membership of DALAS for the kind invitation to be your guest speaker today. And I must say that this is also a wonderful opportunity for a reunion with some of my classmates and friends from our days at the University of Lagos 49 years ago!

This year will be 46 years since we graduated, my brothers, Ngalle Monono, Beltha Epie Sume, and Ikomi Ngongi. Just a year ahead of us was the legendary Mrs. Lucy Asuagbor, as she then was, who as you know, later became the President of the Court of Appeal, and she was the first person ever to obtain a First Class in Law at the University of Lagos.

I have chosen to speak on some aspects of the theme: Legal Practice and Investments in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Prospects.

Our world is changing very quickly, sometimes faster than we notice or can cope with. It took 250,000 years for the world’s population to achieve 1 billion. It has taken less than 20 years to add another 2 billion to attain our current population of 8.2 billion. In the past 30 years, more has changed than in the past century and in the next 30 years, more will change than in the past two centuries.

For some of us who were born in the late 50s and 60s, we have lived through analogue, digital and now intelligent systems; systems that can make decisions autonomously! Legal practice is also changing like crazy! We are holding on to the last vestiges of legal practice as we know it, in another decade at most, we will not recognize legal practice as we know it today anymore.

I was speaking to the new management of the law firm which I co-founded, from which I am now retired, Simmons Cooper Partners, they were showing me their new AI-driven tools for the work of the firm. They now have a ChatGPT interface that within minutes can sift through several legal databases and offer summarized opinions based on statute and case law. What used to take days of research can now be done in minutes! And the system can argue with you if you oppose its point of view.

They also have a tool called the Github co-pilot for legal drafting, it uses the firm’s own database and can suggest language and clauses tailored to specific legal documents, they showed me another the Work Product Character recognition tool, which ensures that all work generated by the system, all documentation coming out of the firm adhere to the firm’s professional tone and branding guidelines.

They also use a Predictive Analytics and legal strategy interface that uses historical data on case law and statute to provide advice to clients. And then they have AI chatbots for immediate response to common enquiries from clients! And these tools are getting smarter every day.

In September Chat GPT launched its oI-preview designed to solve complex problems by spending more time thinking. The incredible thing about these systems is that they are capable of critical thinking, using huge data resources faster than the human mind! It is clear that a lot of the work that we used to hire a large number of lawyers for is now done much faster and more accurately by technology.

The systems do not get tired or go on leave, they don’t ask for a pay raise! And you know these tools are now becoming cheaper and cheaper, like mobile phones they’ll be available everywhere, and will be commodified!

Second, the role of the lawyer is also changing very rapidly. You can no longer be a technistic lawyer who is a “section 2 says”, or “section 4 says” lawyer and survive in the next few years for two reasons. First, as we have seen, technology is fast replacing basic legal analysis and opinion writing. Many clients will be able to do this themselves using AI tools.


**Full speech on www.yemiosinbajo.ng**


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The official YouTube channel for Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, GCON.

Oluyemi Oluleke Osinbajo is a Nigerian Lawyer and Politician who served as the Vice President of Nigeria from the 29th of May 2015 - 29th of May 2023

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