By Chidinma Ewunonu-Aluko, Ibadan
Prof. Yusuf Ali (SAN) has urged lawyers to balance innovation with integrity, warning that innovation without integrity could destroy confidence, while integrity without innovation destroys relevance.
He made the call on Monday at the opening of the 2025 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Ibadan Law Week, themed “Law, Ethics and Innovation: Sustaining the Future of Legal Practice.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ali delivered the keynote address at the event also tagged “the Owolabi Afuye Memorial Lecture.”
Speaking through his representative, Mr Adebayo Ojo (SAN), Ali noted that the future of legal practice would not be determined by technology alone, but by how lawyers use it.
He urged lawyers to embrace relevance, innovation, ethics, competence and above all, progress.
Ali emphasised that the future of law in Nigeria must be shaped through deliberate action, ethical leadership and fearless innovation.
“Let us embrace the future with clarity, courage and conviction.
“Let us innovate with integrity, modernise with discipline and lead with vision so that the future of ethical legal practice can be sustained.
“We must strengthen ethical infrastructure, update the rules of professional conduct, invest in capacity building and promote responsible innovation.
“We should also preserve the human essence of the law and build a future-oriented judiciary,” he said.
The Chairman of the occasion, Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour (Rtd.), said the theme was apt in view of prevailing societal and technological changes.
He expressed confidence that the keynote speaker would do justice to the theme and urged members to participate fully in the programme.
The Matriarch of the Bar, Chief Folake Solanke (SAN), emphasised the need for the association to return to the golden age of the profession, when lawyers and judges enjoyed public confidence and trust.
The 93-year-old SAN enjoined the NBA to eradicate corruption within the profession and restore the era when judgments were delivered strictly in accordance with the law, without bias.
The Oyo State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr Abiodun Aikomo, urged lawyers to conduct themselves with maturity, considering the profession’s importance in society.
He added that the theme should be taken seriously by everyone concerned about the future of the legal profession.
“It is in our collective interest that the legal profession thrives and maintains its standing in society,” he said.
Also speaking, the Oyo State Chief Judge, Justice Iyabo Yerima, represented by Justice Rachael Akintola of the High Court, said that the profession must remain dynamic rather than stagnant.
“However, in the process, it must not lose its learned identity. We must uphold that special status through our language, appearance, and conduct,” she said.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Ibadan NBA, Mr Ibrahim Lawal, noted that ethical issues had become central to the profession, alongside innovations shaping legal practice and the often-blurred lines between ethics and innovation.
He, however, urged members to unite in addressing these challenges, with a view to finding practical and lasting solutions.
“A number of social events are lined up to complement the Law Week, the major one being the dinner, during which two new patrons of the Ibadan Bar will be decorated,” he said.
The Chairman of the Law Week Planning Committee, Mr Oluseun Abimbola (SAN), said members’ ethical conduct in the boardroom, marketplace or courtroom remained the currency of the profession’s relevance.
“The future of legal practice is being shaped by artificial intelligence, specialised software and new data privacy regimes; we must not be spectators in this evolution.
“We must be architects, integrating these tools responsibly to enhance efficiency; we should remember that as we embrace the change, ethics must be our immutable compass,” Abimbola said. NAN
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