Raising the bar of legal education

ALL the hue and cry about the quality of education in Nigeria came into sharp focus again last week when the Nigerian Law School released the 2014 Bar Part II examinations results. The most striking ingredient was that a total of 4,000 students failed the examinations, a significant figure, considering the fact that 7,176 candidates sat for the tests. Only four graduated with a first class degree, just 96 made second class upper, while 620 had second lower division, and 2,610 finished with ordinary pass.

As could be expected, the results are generating massive misgivings in the legal community, particularly among the candidates who are feeling short-changed by the system. According to media reports, many of the students, apart from agitating for a review, are blaming the unprecedented failure ratio on the leadership of the 52-year-old school. But amid the mass hysteria, there is the need to properly situate the issues at stake.

Of critical importance is the fact that legal education in Nigeria is due for reform, which the current leadership of the NLS, led by the Director-General, Olanrewaju Onadeko, has already embarked on. In their defence of the results, the school authorities stated that the grading system had been overhauled to guarantee improved quality. Instead of the earlier practice of only one official grading the examination scripts, there are now three layers of gatekeepers. The layers are now a senior lecturer, a deputy director and a director. This is a measure that could guarantee sanity and should be encouraged.

Based on the new approach, the failure rate among those sitting for the examination a second time was even higher. “The failure rate was high among the re-sit candidates with about 1168 out of 1335 students who registered failing the examinations, while 88 students recorded ordinary pass. Also, 26 of the re-sit students recorded conditional pass,” Elizabeth Max-Uba, the Secretary to the Council of Legal Education and (NLS) Director of Administration, lamented. But 57.01 per cent of the candidates sitting for the examination for the first time passed.

As with every reform, there is bound to be an outcry. But the most important question, naturally, is whether tougher standards will lead to much improved legal practice. In a system that had been producing low quality lawyers, the NLS leadership should be vested with the benefit of the doubt in the attempt to restore the lost glory of the legal profession. The decentralisation of the law school carried out when the military was in power should not be an excuse to lower standards. Conversely, it could be a source of strength to the training of lawyers. The world is dynamic and technology is altering the practice of law around the world. The NLS should introduce modern technology into its curriculum so that Nigerian lawyers would be able to stand with their peers anywhere across the globe. At the height of law practice here, Nigerian judges were toast of sorts around the African continent.

Generally, quality education remains a major concern across the board. At present, the profession, which has produced icons in the bar and bench, is in a shambles. Most of the lawyers qualifying of late do not seem to measure up to the plate. Ethics has been eroded among lawyers, with accusations of even senior lawyers acting as the intermediary between litigants eager to buy judgement and corrupt judges. According to Okey Wali, the immediate past Nigerian Bar Association president, a total of 13 lawyers were disbarred by the body in one year over various malpractices. Two were suspended. The NLS should infuse a high degree of ethical studies into the curriculum of the law school.

With a downturn in the standard of recently-qualified lawyers, the proposal to have a first degree before studying law should be re-considered. Although this is still the practice in the United Kingdom, where law is studied as a first degree, in the United States, an intending lawyer needs a first degree in any discipline before going for a three-year programme in a law school approved by the American Bar Association.

The above narrative is a reason to embark on far-reaching reforms of the legal trade. That our present crop of lawyers finds it hard to speak proper English and file briefs is hard to stomach. But there is the need to formulate broad methodological guidelines for the development and implementation of the reform. Naturally, this will attract criticisms. But the CLE and the NLS should address this malaise by collaborating with the National Universities Commission, the body that approves law faculties in the Nigerian university system.

All the schools running wishy-washy programmes should be axed, and their programmes restored only after due diligence has been ascertained. While it is necessary for the NLS to provide quality training and development for lawyers, the authorities should put in place a transparent mechanism through which aggrieved students can seek redress.