Legal education as twin streams that flow

No meaningful examination of the topic above can be made without dealing with the subject of legal education, the repository of both academic and professional legal knowledge and skill, which make the lawyers who they are. Legal education in Nigeria is in two dimensions. There is the University Education leading to the award of a degree in law (LLB), that is, Bachelor of Laws. There is also the Law School which is involved in the vocational training of the Nigeria Lawyers. It must be pointed out that the university education basically provides academic education, the theories and definitional aspect, while the Law School provides the vocational education of an apprenticeship nature leading to the practice of the law and the award of the degree of (BL), that is, Barrister at law. This system is different from most other common wealth nations, where such institutional distinction are not practicable.

The Nigerian system is fashioned and modelled after the English system. In England, the twin system of legal training of lawyers is practically obtainable. From this foregoing therefore, a line of distinction is made between the academic aspects of legal training and the purely vocational or occupational aspect. This arrangement is useful to the mental orientation of the would-be-lawyers, essentially, in a situation where the courses offered are so arranged in these twin institutions responsible for the training of the lawyers in embrayo. It has to be noted that the first set of faculties of law were establish in Nigeria between 1961 and 1962, the Council of Legal Education was established in 1962, by virtue of the council of the Legal Education Act, which in turn established the Nigeria Law School.

The Nigeria Law School admitted its first set of students in 1963. Where a student has passed the Bar Final Examination conducted by the Council of Legal Education in the Nigerian Law School, he/she is issued a Qualifying Certificate by the council of Legal Education and the Body of Benchers issued him/her a certificate of call to the Nigeria Bar on the day of call. Automatically, a lawyer becomes a member of the Nigerian Bar Association immediately he/she has been called to the Bar. A learned colleague as popularly known, the fact is that, upon call to the Bar, Legal Education Continues practically for a lawyer who is in active practice of the law.

Recently, my application for joinder of parties in a land matterswas refused by the court simply because the counsel to the claimant/Respondent drew the attention of the court to a certain provision of the Ekiti State High Court Civil Procedure Rules which I omitted to observe with total compliance. Therefore it can be safely submitted that legal education is not limited to the classroom; it continues even in the courts. I shared the experience with a colleague, Barrister Oladimeji G. A and he said: law is unlimited, nobody can claim the monopoly of its knowledge, it is so unlimited, no practitioner knows it all!!!. The rules of various courts is the bible of the courts as well as the live blood of every proceedings before the courts and go a long way to determine the sustenance or otherwise of the matters before the courts; the courts themselves are highly meticulous and fastidious in the application of the rules of courts, failure of which may frustrate the effort injected in doing justice in a matter before the courts.

Oluwanisomo, a legal practitioner, is based in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State.