Legal Business Sunday personality

This week we feature foremost corporate commercial lawyer, Funke Adekoya, SAN as our Sunday personality.

Called to the Nigerian Bar in June 1975, Adekoya obtained an L.L.M from Harvard Law School, Boston Massachusetts U.S.A by course work and dissertation; and went on to re-qualify as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales; where she was entered on the Roll of Solicitors in England and Wales on July 2004.

She has maintained a practising licence in the UK every year till date; which keeps her grounded with developments and issues which the Law Society of England and Wales is handling on behalf of the English legal profession.

Back home, Adekoya who has been in private legal practice is very aware of the issues that confront lawyers in private practice in Nigeria over the years and continues to contribute to the development of the profession in Nigeria. She established a dispute resolution practice called Adekoya and Company in which she headed the firm as Principal Partner for 14 years. In 2001, Adekoya was elevated to the Inner Bar as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

In pursuit of her vision to raise the standards of legal services available within Nigeria, in 2004 she merged her practice with three other law firms to form AELEX – a full service commercial law partnership, where in addition to heading the Dispute Resolution department, she also served as the pioneer Managing Partner for an initial term of two years. In recognition of her management skills her tenure was unanimously extended by the board of partners for a further term of two years.

The learned Senior Advocate has been an active member of the Nigerian Bar Association(NBA), having served in various capacities since 1979. She was drafted into the National Executive Committee as the First Assistant National Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association when the then incumbent was appointed as a High Court Judge. Between 1984 and 1986 Adekoya also served as Secretary of the Lagos Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association and became a member of NEC at the time. She has remained so till date.

In 1989, she was nominated one of the members representing the Nigerian Bar Association on the Consultative Assembly on the Reform of Company Law in Nigeria and thereafter, was again nominated a member of the Editorial Committee which produced the Companies and Allied Matters Act in 1990. In 2002-2004, under the presidency of Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN Adekoya contested and won election as 1st Vice President of our Association. In her capacity as 1st Vice President she was the Chair of the National Human Rights Committee which existed at that time, and which later evolved into the Human Rights Institute.

Between 2006 and 2008, she was the Chair of the Section of Legal Practice [SLP] and in 2007, was appointed by the Council of Legal Education to chair its Legal Education Review Committee. Her recommendations resulted in a change in the mode of teaching with an emphasis on clinical education, e-learning and a more structured chambers attachment programme for law students. Under the current administration, Adekoya was appointed to chair the Branch Capacity Building Committee, charged with directing branches on how to build institutional capacity. This committee under her leadership has conducted a country-wide survey of all the branches, identifying the lack of funds as a major constraint hindering branch development. She continues to work diligently; participating fully in all branch activities, sponsoring and moving not just motions but ideas where necessary.

Below she shares her views on Nigeria and the bar with LEGAL BUSINESS…

“We are not a nation, but a collection of tribal groupings” she says

  1. Tell us about your views on the state of affairs in the nation today?

I think we need to focus on the state of the nation. We have very obvious challenges facing us. They are storms on the horizon. I am not sure we are giving these issues as much attention as they should get. Unless we address these problems frontally and discuss them, this country may be torn apart.

We must begin to discuss the issues that have a hindrance to our becoming a nation.

2. Can you explain this?

Yes, we are currently not a “nation.” We are a collection of tribal groupings, and until we agree on the modalities of being and acting as a nation, “the house will fall.”

3. The justice administration system in Nigeria has suffered a number of setbacks in the recent past; does it give you any comfort at all, knowing that a woman now oversees our justice sector?

Indeed, I have a lot of comfort knowing a woman is now there, because the truth is that in any profession; be it law, medical or engineering, politics, women have had to work harder and longer just to get to the point where the man is. And as a result of this, we are more committed to making things work, and to making a success of whatever appointment we receive.

Because of the length of time, that it has taken justice Mukhtar to get to the head of the judiciary in Nigeria, I think she’s going to put everything into it to make sure that her tenure is successful. I have a lot of hope, even though I know she may have to face a number of challenges, as there will always be entrenched interests, but i believe women are strong enough and diplomatic enough to manoeuvre around some of those entrenched interests to achieve their objective. So indeed, I have a lot of comfort knowing she’s there.

4.The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has had no female president since 1992 (the tenure of Priscilla Kuye), and we all know how that came to be. You however did contest for this position a while back, what is it about the Office of the President of the Bar that makes it difficult for men to relinquish that position?

I think the men have held on to it by default, because as in anything else, if a woman wants to get to top, she must have ‘staying power’. Whether you want to become a  female Senior Advocate of Nigeria, whether you want to be the Chief Judge of your state, or head a company, you must have staying power.

The challenge in some cases however, is a conflict of our roles as wives and mothers. This might in some cases, affect our power to stay and commit to a career for the length of time required to get to the very top.

This is however a handicap that women are working with; and within the NBA, many of us haven’t committed to it long enough for the generality of members to acknowledge that we are a candidate for that position.

Then we get into the issue of ‘MONEY POLITICS’, and of politics generally, a game many women are not exactly prepared to play all the way. And these are only a few of the many things that allow the men to hold on to power in the bar.

5.Where does that leave the women? Would we indeed see another female president of the bar?

Well, having said that, I think we have come to the stage where every member of the bar is yearning for a change, in the way things are being done, and with that in mind, I am hopeful that maybe the time is ripe now for this change to also come…And I am ready for it.

THEODORA KIO-LAWSON