Former Director General of the Nigerian Law School Dr. Tahir Mamman (SAN) has called on seniors in the profession to pay living wages to young lawyers in their employment to enable them develop their potentials.
Dr. Mamman, a senior partner in J-K Gadzama LLP, made the call recently in Lagos as a discussant at the official launching of the Young Lawyers Mentoring Scheme of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Lagos branch.
Dr. Mamman urged young lawyers to be creative and innovative right from the early stage of their call to the bar. He decried a situation where senior lawyers paid N20,000 per month as salary to young lawyers, wondering what such young lawyers would do with such money.
“Your future is the future of the profession because among you are the future chief justices of Nigeria, and judges and justices of superior courts and other members of the bench will definitely be recruited therefrom. Therefore you deserve to be paid living wages to preserve and promote the future of the legal profession,” he said.
He said it was because of the importance of young lawyers to the profession that J-K. Gadzama LLP embarked on a nationwide, robust mentoring programme for young lawyers of which the first batch will commence in Abuja this week.
The chairman of NBA, Lagos branch, Mr. Martins Ogunleye, stated that young lawyers were an indispensable part of the bar, hence the branch decided to support and encourage them to institutionalise the mentoring scheme.
He expressed appreciation to the pioneer chairman of the NBA Section on Business Law (SBL), Mr. George Etomi , who was chairman of the occasion, the law firm of Olisa Agbakoba Legal; and Chief J-K Gadzama (SAN) for their support to the launching of the branch’s Young Lawyers Mentoring Scheme.
The chairman of the occasion, George Etomi, said law was life and that law cut across every field of human endeavour.
“If you want to be great in the legal profession, you must work hard. If you think that you are going to cut corners anywhere, it is not going to work, the only thing you owe yourself to compete globally is hard work,” he said.
The keynote speaker who is the managing Partner of Olisa Agbakoba Legal, Mrs Prescilla Ogwemo, who spoke on the topic “ A Law Firm as a Business” took the young lawyers through the management of a successful law firm.
She urged them to be innovative and take advantage of the social media to horn their skills.
