THE President of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Austine Alegeh (SAN), yesterday in Vienna, Austria, urged African lawyers to elevate their standards and skills to cope with the challenges of a globalised profession.

Alegeh, who made the remarks in his speech at the African Regional Forum at the ongoing International Bar Association (IBA) conference in Vienna, Austria, said African lawyers cannot shot out competition by legislating others out of their jurisdictions, but they should rather compete favourably by improving on their skills, upping their ante as well as improving the quality of legal services delivery to clients.

His words: “If we come here on a jamboree every year listening to how they developed, without taking steps to uplift ourselves, then we fail our people. Our laws are the same and we come here to listen to how they develop new laws and move up, yet we go home and keep marking time without developing our own laws.

“We need to develop a judiciary that supports investment, develop human capital and critical infrastructure. We need to close the gap. We come here to take home how other people develop their laws and close the gaps.

“We still have laws in most parts of African continent that impede development and we come to the IBA to research on new laws and go home to implement our old laws. This is not doing us any good. It makes us look like orphans in IBA.”

He, therefore, said that the NBA would call African Bar stakeholders’ meeting before the end of this year to discuss those issues.

Click here to read from source.