Increasingly, there are talks about the introduction and use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, especially in legal research, which is expected to further improve the speed, accuracy and quality of legal research, as well as help legal practitioners better advice their clients, draft documents or handle cases.
In a 2019 Forbes article, “Will A.I. Put Lawyers Out of Business?”, for instance, Neil Sahota quoted Tom Girardi, renowned civil litigator, as saying, “It may even be considered legal malpractice not to use AI one day. It would be analogous to a Lawyer in the late twentieth century still doing everything by hand, when this person could use a computer”.
At the 15th Annual Business Law Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Business Law (NBA-SBL) which held at the Harbour Point, Victoria Island, Lagos, the physical venue of the Conference on Wednesday and Thursday, one was left without a doubt that the organisers are fully abreast of technological advances, and the challenges and opportunities they present to legal practice.
The theme of the two-day Conference, “Re-tooling Businesses for Change: Leveraging the Tech Explosion”, was clearly not accidental. The Chairman of the NBA-SBL, Ayuli Jemide, said that much in his welcome remarks on Wednesday when he commented
“The theme of this year’s Conference has a call to action – Leveraging the Tech Explosion – which is a clarion call to Business Lawyers and the business community to get in the tech craft, fasten our seatbelts and enjoy the ride to places that only a tech enabled person can travel to; a world made faster, smarter, yet smaller by the transcendental changes induced by Technology.
Further buttressing this, NBA President, Olumide Akpata, said that the Conference theme was “as topical as it is critical, especially in the context of the extraordinary times which the legal profession and indeed, the Nigerian society have faced in the past 18 months”.
He said the choice of the topic erases any lingering doubts about “the continuing relevance of the NBA-SBL to the overall attainment of the aims and objective of the NBA, as outlined in the 2015 NBA Constitution(as amended)”.
It was a Conference of Many Firsts
First, the Conference took a hybrid form, with virtual and on-site content to ensure maximum reach, which, according to Adeleke Alex-Adedipe, Chairman, Conference Planning Committee, “is a testament to how technology marches us forward”.
But, unlike the 14th Annual Conference in 2020 which took a virtual format as a stop-gap arrangement in keeping with the Covid-19 health and safety protocols, Alex-Adedipe said the choice of a hybrid form for the 15th Conference was deliberate and strategic. The hybrid nature of the Conference also foretells a new and exciting beginning, demonstrating new possibilities that are available when society embraces innovation, he said.
“On the one hand, it allows us to enjoy the best of both worlds – getting back the irreplaceable value of good old human contact, and joining in on the refreshing excitement of borderless interactions. On the other hand, this Conference gives us an updated picture of what business rooms increasingly look like”, he said.
For the first time, the breakout sessions held in a silent mode. The about 300 attendees at Harbour Point were connected to the three breakout sessions (a total of six topics), using headsets provided by the organisers. It was a highly innovative approach that allowed the participants to switch between sessions, simply by adjusting a button on their headset.
Another first was the Whova app, which enabled participants from anywhere in the world to navigate the event agenda and logistics, even without Wi-Fi or data; access useful information like ridesharing and local attractions through the Community Board; network effectively (plan whom to meet by exploring attendee profiles and sending out messages), and participate in event activities through session likes, comments, ratings, live polling, tweeting, and more.
Other topics were “Technology and International Arbitration”, “Techpreneurs: Building Nigeria’s Talent Pipeline”, and “Technology and the Future
of Elections in Nigeria: E-Voting, Mail Voting; Are we ready?”.
