You are known as the foremost Insolvency and Bankruptcy practitioner in Nigeria. What got you interested in this area of practice? And what did you do to become the expert that you are today?

I got in by coincidence. I have always thought about buying businesses, adding value and selling for profit; for some reason I have always thought about that for ages and I didn’t know what it entailed or anything. But one day when I started out practice I did a receivership matter for NIDB and found it extremely interesting. I did about three more of those sometime in 1987 and that was it. Suddenly when we started Akinwumi & Busari we got a call from UBA trustees asking us to get an injunction for them on a matter which turned out to be an insolvency matter – a very big receivership. The original plan was to get an injunction but the matter sort of grew up to 17 cases in court. It included meetings with trade unions, workers, polices, insurance, the whole gamut. And we’ve been doing that matter in one way or the other for over 10 years. That matter itself was with regard to 5 star industries and acting for UBA Trustees – trustees to 17 banks. It was an MA in insolvency for me and boiled my interests and revived my earlier thoughts on business. Since then I have been involved in one way or the other in over 200 insolvency matters.

With the present economic climate, a lot of young lawyers would be interested in Insolvency and Bankruptcy practice. What do they have to do or what particular qualifications are necessary to be an Insolvency Lawyer?

At the moment, the law allows anybody to practise insolvency, except those excluded specifically by law – the legally underage, insane, and bankrupt. Therefore there isn’t any specialization yet. My advice would be that they equip themselves with the law of secured credit because that is at the heart of insolvency. We are hoping as an association (BRIAPAN) to start workshops and training sessions in the next few years we believe we will be in a position where we can organise pre-qualification exams for young persons who want to leave school and become insolvency practitioners whether they are lawyers or not as happens in other jurisdictions At the moment they could come to our workshops or do a Masters in secured credit.

By the way, The Law Event is going to organise later in the year, a course or programme known as “So You want to specialize” and the idea is that various specialist lawyers could talk to young lawyers about how to specialize in veracious fields. There would be Insolvency practitioners there who would also speak about insolvency.

Could you please give a brief description of what insolvency and bankruptcy is all about?

In brief, insolvency essentially in the case of corporate insolvency is pretty straight forward in Nigeria because that’s what most people know. This is where an individual (corporation) is unable to meet its financial obligations and therefore in the case of an individual is deemed bankrupt and in a corporation insolvent. In some jurisdictions, bankruptcy is used to describe both but in the UK there’s that differentiation.

The bankruptcy law in Nigeria is quite elaborate and what doesn’t make it work is not just the law itself which obviously needs some tweaking, but more of the culture and the reluctance of those that are in the position to declare people bankrupt to do so. This has a lot to do with our culture and the extended family system. With corporate insolvency it is much easier because for one, you owe and the person being owed has no problem demanding for wind up.

The Company’s and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) says that if a company cannot pay N2, 000.00 (Two Thousand Naira) 21 days after a demand letter has been written, you can file a petition for winding up.

However, there are various indices from various jurisdiction and various schools of thought of what actually depicts a company as insolvent. For example, a negative balance sheet might say a person is insolvent but it may not be so; it might just be like in the case of many banks, that there’s a provision for bad loans. This doesn’t mean they cannot survive.

It could also be seen when a company is downsizing. Most people think that the fact that a Company is downsizing and letting people go means that company is insolvent but it might just be restructuring. The initial definition above was the law but it could also be used to describe other situations.

In your many years as a Bankruptcy and Insolvency Practitioner, there must have been quite a number of opportunities and challenges. Could you share some with us?

The opportunities have been essentially for me, the knowledge I have garnered and the people I have met. I have met numerous people in this job who have been beneficial to me; I wouldn’t like to mention the clients but I’ll mention 3 people, practitioners who I’ve learnt a lot from: Prince Adesubo Adetona; Prince Babington Ashaye; and Mr. Tunde Ajayi – the last one is actually an accountant and a lawyer and is my contemporary. We’ve done a lot of work together. The other 2 have been my mentors in this field of practice.

Challenges… where do I start from? I’ve had a gun to my head by the police; I’ve had a gun to my head by the owner of a company; been locked up in company premises for 24 hours; have had to learn how to deal with extreme fraudsters, and I mean EXTREME fraudsters. The challenges really have been in the latter years, with some of my clients and I have had to convince them that there is a point to restructuring instead of selling off assets. A challenge in convincing them of the need to pay all staff their entitlements before it gets to the financial institutions. I am glad to say that I have succeeded in convincing those with the guns to put their guns down; those locking me up to negotiate and banks to restructure.

The greatest problem I have encountered has been a very sad one, where through no fault of ours, there was a death at the company when one of the buildings collapsed and killed a worker. Luckily for us, we had not even taken over the premises.

Has the recent economic meltdown created more work for you?

I wonder why everybody asks that; to answer your question not necessarily. It has not created more work because there’s always been. What it has created is a new avenue of work for practitioners. This means that a lot more companies are willing to come forward and seek help; they don’t wait for the bank to take them over. So to that extent there has been a new avenue. But even the banks now are a bit wary of taking over companies and winding down; but there has been more awareness.

In October of 2008, the Legal Services Bill in the UK gained Royal assent creating the Alternate Business Structure (ABS), which allowed for the creation of multi-disciplinary legal services firms. This is a huge break from the traditional method of practising law. Do you think this is a threat to the law practice and do you foresee duplication in the Nigerian legal system?

It does threaten the profession because where you are going is the dilution of the profession, probably ultimately leading to its non existence as we know it today. The opportunities there are that you are able to go to a one-stop shop and get all your services. I personally do not think it is a good thing. I think that lawyers should be lawyers and accountants should be accountants – those are the two professions that are likely fused – you are not likely to get a doctor with a lawyer except in medical negligence. I think competencies will be diffused. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has resisted and I think they should do more to resist otherwise what happens to the Forty Thousand lawyers and our traditions? A firm which is fused will lose so many of the traditions which distinguish us as lawyers.

You are very passionate in canvassing for better legal support services in Nigeria. It is obvious that we are lacking support services for legal practitioners in various areas but could you mention one area that is particularly glaring to you and the overall effect on legal practise in Nigeria?

The main areas I see are development of the young lawyer. I’ve always thought from the first day I started practice after Law School that the Law School is inadequate. Therefore it is not by coincidence that we have pupilage in the UK. But since we don’t have that here, it is imperative that we have support services to teach the Young Lawyer what the practice of law entails. This is why the Law Events positions itself to have successful young lawyers’ trainings for mentoring.

The second area is in recruitment: a lot of time, lawyers are recruited by word of mouth and because I know the person’s father or brother, I employ him. The bigger law firms have tried to fashion out a way of interviewing and selecting but there is no formal recruitment agency that knows the need of lawyers and appreciates what is required; an agency that will also promote mergers and help with business management or management of the law firm or legal dept as a business. These areas are very fundamental because the strength of the profession is with the youth. We need more people to get involved in this.

The Law Events is an organization which offers support services to legal practitioners. What is the philosophy behind this and of what benefit is it to the young lawyer?

LE is a service company who work professionally to support the profession. One of our main focus is the Young Lawyer; we believe we need to empower, educate and strengthen the Young Lawyer in order to strengthen the profession. While we are supporting the professional we are focused a great deal on developing and training the young lawyer.

Currently we have no mega law firm in Nigeria; however, we do have some really big firms. What hope is there for the Solo Practitioner? Is the role of the Solo Practitioner gradually being eroded by these bigger law firms?

First there is no mega law firm in Nigeria. At all. I had a meeting with a law firm in the UK – White & Case a few weeks ago and in that premises alone, I think they had over 400 lawyers. The month before that I was in New York and White & Case occupied almost a whole building. I suspect they have offices in no less than eight other countries. Those are mega law firms so I don’t think we have any in Nigeria yet and it might not happen for a very long time. However we have bigger law firms by consolidation and partnerships.

There’s room for the solo because not everyone can afford the big firms. Their overhead makes their fees quite high and as a result their focus is different. One man who works as a bartender somewhere and needs to file a divorce petition – someone must do it for him. Someone must deal with the smaller issues. I think that there are various phases. The solo is a crucial aspect of the practice of law. However I think we need to grow the economy so that it can take mega law firms. There are economic and cultural limitations.

I noticed that Akinwumi & Busari is quite technologically forward, which isn’t the case with a number of law firms in Nigeria. With huge online libraries like Lexis Nexis, the internet plays an increasingly important role in effective law practise. How far behind, technologically are we in Nigeria and what should be done to help lawyers keep in tandem with global practices?

Frankly, I’m not very confident to talk about practice generally because I don’t poke into other people’s offices and many other places I go to are like mine. I went to an office a few months ago, an older lawyer who insisted we had a meeting in his office and it reminded me of an office where I did my holiday job about twenty six or twenty seven years ago where you have the main principal’s office which is bigger than the rest of the office, filled with a lot of files and a secretary with a type writer. I could not believe that in 2009 that would happen but apparently it does. Many people didn’t seem as surprised when I told them about it.

Even those of us who have these tools are not up to scratch. Recently I was teaching one of my colleagues, a respected lawyer how to mark up and make comments on a document without having to first print it. He later sent me a text message and this was what he said:

“Thanks Seyi for your training last week, I have since been able to mark up my amendments and make comments on docs without having to first print them; it has revolutionalized my lifestyle. Thanks again.”

A lot of people have computers in their office but don’t know how to use them. Most lawyers can use words. The Law Events has also assisted in training and Odade Publishers of Lexis Nexis have been very involved in training Lawyers how to research on the internet. I’ve been on that training and recommend it for all lawyers.

You seem to be a very social sort of person; open and friendly. Could you give us a glimpse into the real Seyi Akinwunmi, the man behind the lawyer?

With me, I think I work very hard but I also play quite hard and I’m an ardent football fan (a Man – U fanatic). I’m a music buff and into all genres of music except classical music and Kanye West. I love dancing. I don’t go out as much as I used to. You say I’m a social person, and yes, I have a lot of friends and socialize a lot but only when I feel like. I’m the kind of person who makes sure I go to a wedding, spend only 20 minutes but makes sure I see the couple. I am very friendly and averse to snobs. I do not like lawyers calling me SIR – especially lawyers because I believe we are all colleagues. I think I’m pretty straightforward. I try to be thorough in all my work; always willing to try out new frontiers. I see the law as a business and not a social calling. I’m married with 3 children – 2 beautiful girls and 1 handsome boy – like his father.

Finally, what is the one technological gizmo you absolutely cannot do without?

None. I hate the thought of an addiction of any kind. But if I am to pick a gadget I’d rather not live without, maybe my television during the football season

Seyi Akinwunmi: On the Recession and other Matters originally appeared on The Nigerian Lawyer on December 18, 2009. Feel free to forward to a friend.

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