In its quest to further enhance
quick delivery of justice by covering the Bench and the Bar, Judiciary Editors
Forum of Nigeria (JEF) led by its Chairman, SAM POPOOLA, was at the office of LAWPAVILION, a private organisation saddled with the responsibility
to reduce the burden of Judges and Lawyers, making it less tedium, but
attractive and ensure optimum performances in the course of dispensation of
justice. The Managing Director, LAWPAVILION,
MR OPE
OLUGASA, who received
the editors during the visit, said there is still so much more to be done in
the areas of enlightening even more Judiciaries and legal practitioners about
the immense and incomparable benefits of adopting technology in the provision
of legal services. Excerpts:
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| LawPavilion MD, Ope Olugasa stressing a point during the interview |
Your Company has dedicated a lot of
resources to train Judges in the use of Technology to their work. You have
conducted these trainings across several States of the Federation, so what has
been the attitude of the Judges and the Legal industry at large? What response
have you received from the trainings? Have you done any follow-up programs?
Indeed,
we have expended a lot of resources, both human and financial to advocate for
the adoption of technology by all stakeholders in the Legal Services and
Administration of Justice sectors. By God's grace, we have successfully trained
Justices of the Court of Appeal across all divisions, High Court Judges of
Lagos, Ogun, Ekiti, Osun and several other states which time would not permit
us to go into fuller details.We have also collaborated with some branches of
the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to train legal practitioners on the use of
LawPavilion especially and we are pleased with the response we have received
over the years since we started. However, there is still so much more to be
done in the areas of enlightening even more Judiciaries and legal practitoners
about the immense and incomparable benefits of adopting technology in the
provision of legal services.
For
those we have trained, we do not relent in carrying out follow up programs and
plans are underway to do more of follow-up in the coming year. With regards to
training outcomes, the trainings have benefitted participants immensely,
touching all end-users the Judges, the Magistrates, Lawyers, Solicitors and Law
students etc. A recurring feedback has been that LawPavilion has changed their
lives and they really wonder how they were able to cope without our products.
This is especially so for those who have LawPavilion products before or after
the training. They have been able to derive maximum benefits from the use of
our flagship LawPavilion Electronic Legal Research software.
Our
initial series of trainings also influenced our decision to introduce
LawPavilion on smaller mobile devices such as the iPad and Android devices. We
discovered that by the nature of what Judges and Legal Practitioners do, a
significant amount of flexibility and portability is required to enable them
derive maximum advantage from the use of LawPavilionand this is best achieved
by accessing the software on our iPad and Android versions. A good number of
our Judge subscribers have told us in confidence that they have been able to
deliver more Bench rulings because of the availability of LawPavilion on
devices like the iPad and Android.
How have you dealt with the problem
of piracy, especially in a place like Nigeria, where people break into servers
to access your content?
We
have our security strategies in place and we also have products which help us
blacklist IP addresses where attempts to break into our servers come from.With
regards to the CD version of our software; we have been able to tackle the
possibility of piracy by encrypting the data on our CDs. Even if our CDs are
duplicated, it is useless for any purpose without an access code from us, and
the control to the access code is limited to specific personnel within our
Company. However, we also ensure that we
keep abreast of security challenges globally and how they could impact our
product, so we keep upgrading our security apparatus.
How do you assess the success of
the training of Judges? And do you feel discouraged, while investing huge
amounts and getting low success rates?
The
trainings have been quite successful, I must confess. Even if not immediately
resulting in financial gains, we have witnessed
policies and directives lending enormous credence to our advocacy
propagated through our trainings for Judges and Legal practitioners. I will
therefore say Rome was not built in a day. We are not solely focused on
profitability in the immediate, so we know that we cannot make all the profit
in one day. For us, it is a long term investment, which needs time to grow
before it begins to yield, so we operate with the “farmer’s mentality”.
However,
we are quick to point out that because our trainings for Judges and Legal
Practitioners are free,if we had a better structure in our society perhaps
Government at various levels or donor organizations could have assisted in
bearing the huge costs of providing such trainings across the Federation. Yet,
enlightening the Legal Services Industry about adopting and using Technology in
the administration of justice is a passion for us at LawPavilion, so we keep on
doing it without being discouraged, knowing fully well that the investment
would yield returns at the end of the day.
Why do you think the Legal Industry
should embrace e-Law reporting?
I
prefer to look at this question from the perspective of what is happening
around the world. There is hardly any sector that hasn't been touched
significantly by Technology, in fact new sectors have been created and how
society functions now is so different from what obtained just 10 years ago principally
because of the impact of Technology on all spheres of human existence. So to
me, the impact of information and communication technology on human existence,
is akin to a Tsunami, either you willingly go with the flow or get swept away
by it.
Now
in response to your question about why the legal services industry should
embrace e-law reporting, I will propose a few reasons. First is ease and speed
of access to decided cases. Through our interaction with Judges of various
courts, and going by our records of cases that we receive from the Court of
Appeal and Supreme Court, there has been a significant increase in the number
of cases emanating from the Courts. Our model allows us to be able to get these
pronouncements from Court promptly and have them analysed and ready for our
subscibers within 48 hours. It would be extremely diffucult for other models of
law reporting to replicate that.
Another
reason for adopting e-law reporting would be affordability and reliability. We
all know what it costs to have a well stocked physical library. But with
electronic materials, at a fraction of the costs, one can have a robust library
without breaking the bank. Moreover, in
the event of a fire incident or robbery or any other unfortunate incident,
whatever is destroyed is lost forever.
But with LawPavilion, there are multiple back up servers containing and
preserving our contents so that no matter what, our subscribers are never at a
loss.
Lastly,
I would like to also say that another reason for adopting e-law reporting is
the all important attribute of efficiency. It is no brainer that the contest of
the 21st Century is not a contest of strength evidenced by physical exertion
and hardwork, rather it is a contest for working smart, using smart tools to
achieve exceptional results whilst still having timeto pursue other interests.
As i stated earlier, many of our subscribers have attested to the fact that
using LawPavilion has helped them to do much more in less time than before.
It is good that LawPavilion is
bringing Information Technology into the Legal Profession with all the Company
does and you had earlier mentioned that it is a Tsunami. Do you see your role
as more of Complimentary? We observed that Judges still write in long hand
during Court proceedings. Is there anything in LawPavilion to change that?
Well,
when I mentioned that it was a Tsunami, it was to illustrate the pervasive
nature of modern technology. In some way, the role played by LawPavilion
Electronic Legal Research toolis complimentary, yet not completely
complimentary because the rules of engagement in the industry are changing and
giving more prominence to electronic legal research resources, of which
LawPavilion is a frontrunner. If you do a comparison between Encyclopedia
Britannica and Wikipedia, it is obvious that Wikipedia has overtaken the
Encyclopedia.
With
regards to Judges still recording proceedingsin long hand, it is very archaic,
stressful and energy-sapping. Take for instance countries like Ghana and
Singapore,they have adopted modern technology in taking records of proceedings
in court. But in Nigeria our Judges and Magistrates still take notes in long
hand. This is why we developed our Court Management System which allows Judges
to take audio recordsof proceedings and have such records transcribed whilst
retaining the original audio recording. As you are aware, while LawPavilion
Electronic Legal Research software is our flagship product, we have developed
other products in response to the needs we have seen in the industry. We are
hopeful that practice directions would soon emerge to give legal backing to
audio records of proceedings to beaten rather than burdening our esteemed
Judges and Magistrates with tedious long hand writing.
Which category of people would you
say has embraced your product LawPavilion the most?
Naturally,
you would expect that the young lawyers would embrace it more, however, many of
them do not have the financial capacity but we have created more pocket
friendly versions of our products to accommodate Young Lawyers. Surprisingly
though, many very Senior and experienced Legal Practitioners and Judges have
embraced our products. In fact a Judge, who is elderly, still called me up
recently and expressed his love for the product as that is what he uses. So
from the highest cadre, to the lowest, they have all embraced it, most
especially the judiciary at the Federal and State level.
Do you foresee a situation whereby
a staff, knowing all your passwords and data, pirates your products in
collaboration with outsiders to make money?
Well,
in this company, we are blessed with good, exceptional, hardworking and honest
members of staff. As a corporate organization, we also have very strong value
system and work ethics. Life is give and take. The School of thought I
personally subscribe to is that what goes around comes around. Whatever you do
to someone else’s business is what will be done to yours because you will reap
what you sow. So as much as possible, we try to uphold our strong value system
and when you have that, along side the passion for what you do, then you will
understand that everything is not about money. We have also ensured that our
members of staff are aware of situations where we walked away from a lucrative
transaction because of requests for kickbacks. We do our best to run and
operate our business with integrity, so it is transmitted to our members of
staff as well.
I’m sure you are aware of the new e-Service
of Court processes. What do you think about it? How can LawPavilion be a part
of that? Have you also tried to train the members of the Nigerian Bar
Association (NBA)? Even if you cannot train everyone at once, have you
attempted training at the branches?
We
are always available for training and we have trained some at the branch level.
A couple of NBA Branch Chairmen have called us for trainings and we have also
been at all the Law school campuses to train the Law School students. We also
participate in seminars or workshops organized by the NBA Section on Legal
Practice (SLP). We are always available, subject to invitation to come and
train them.
On
e-Service of court processes, I think it is a welcome development for this
country as we need to start believing in ourselves as a country. Nothing is
impossible and we are always ready for new heights. It was in anticipation of a
situation like this directive from the Supreme Court that had motivated us to
develop our Court Management System, about two years ago. The Court Management
Solution is a very robust solution and we have integrated aspects of e-service
into it. Not only that, through our Court Management Solution, Judges and
Judicial Officers can proactively manage their courts and matters pending
before the Court. We have also included the National Judicial Council (NJC)
Performance Evaluation Form into the Court Management Solution. So we have the
competence and expertise to assist any Court that approaches us in this regard.
We are available to work on this with any willing Court or Court
administration. In fact, this directive is a further testament to our vigorous
campaign for adoption of technology in the industry and we are very glad about
the directive. We hope that all
stakeholders would cooperate to make the operation realistic and seamless.
How has your participation in
international conferences affected your business?
I
can say very positive things about our involvement and participation in
international Conferences. It has given us access to markets beyond the shores
and borders of Nigeria or even Africa. Very recently, Harvard Law School and a
couple of other International Universities requested to become subscribers to
LawPavilion. This is a testament to the quality of LawPavilion which our
attendance at international Conferences gave us an opportunity to expose to the
world. Our participation at International Conferences have also been a platform
for us to showcase the positive side of Nigeria, showcasing to the world that
Nigeria isn’t a country of only crooks as often portrayed in foreign media.
On
the other hand, it has been very challenging. For instance, to move our
exhibition equipment/materials outside the country to be able to showcase our
products outside, Customs would think we are doing something else and make
demands for gratification. Also, coming from Nigeria, sometimes there are
discriminatory practices which could be discouraging. But we keep working and
moving forward, we don’t allow any challenge to take our eyes off the goal.
As the foremost I.T Service
provider in the Legal industry in Nigeria, for others who want to do what you
do, what would you say was your motivation from the beginning?
In
one word, the driving motivation for any business should be PASSION. However
that passion must be predicated on certain values or attributes. For us at
LawPavilion, what fuels our passion are three-pronged as follows:
i.
The Passion to showcase the positive side of Nigeria, our ultimate goal is to
export technology developed in Nigeria to other parts of the world and we are
very well on our way towards achieving that.
ii.
The Passion to ignite culture of innovation, integrity, and Can-do-attitude.
Today's youths need positive examples of locally grown businesses that are
competing favourably on international scenes. We want our young people to see
beyond the problems in Nigeria and begin to think of innovative solutions to
those problems and conduct business with integrity.
iii.Passion
for a reform to engineer and pioneer certain things so that when you look back,
even when you have set backs, you know you will get there. Though there may be
challenges, you know one day you will get there. It is just delayed
gratification;
What is your vision?
A-
To be the most cited, authoritative Law report and Technology Partner to the
legal services industry in Africa by 2025. We are not just focused on Nigeria
alone, we are looking at Africa as our chief focus.
How do you report conflicting Court
decisions when you are reporting?
This
is a very serious issue which we have also observed over the years that we have
been in the industry. Thus, our new product to be launched next year takes
adequate care of this lingering issue of conflicting judgments. The new product
also goes further to highlight cases that corroborate the case under review and
other indices are also provided. A lot of work has gone into this new product
which we will unveil early next year by God’s grace. It is indeed a revolution
in how legal research will be conducted going forward.
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