OPEN LETTER TO NON-LITIGATION NIGERIAN LAWYERS

“OPEN LETTER TO NON-LITIGATION NIGERIAN LAWYERS: A MATHEMATICAL JUSTIFICATION FOR THE NIGERIAN BLUE SILKS RANK OF SENIOR COUNSEL OF NIGERIA-SCN FOR THE OVER 133,000 NON-LITIGATION NIGERIAN LAWYERS OUT OF THE OVER 67,000 LITIGATION NIGERIAN LAWYERS.

By Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja, Senior Counsel of Nigeria-SCN.

Dear NON-LITIGATION NIGERIAN LAWYERS,

It is common knowledge that the Nigerian legal profession copied or is a replica of the legal profession of the United Kingdom.

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The Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) which commenced in the year 1975, is one example of a replication of the King’s Counsel (KC) tradition of the United Kingdom.

However, in our attempt to replicate a system of reward for legal excellence, we seem to neglect the principles of equitable access to the rank and rewards for legal excellence for members of the legal profession who are not litigation lawyers.

In the United Kingdom, there are adequate provisions for non-litigation lawyers to be conferred with the rank of King’s Counsel and other relevant ranks of legal excellence.

For example, there is a category known as Honorary King’s Counsel for legal academics who are not Barristers for whom the King’s Counsel (KC) rank was originally meant for.

Also, for non-litigation lawyers who are specialists in drafting of Bills and providing legal advice to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, there is a Register for Parliamentary Agents categorised into Category A, By and C. This is a long-standing tradition since the year 1869 when the Office of Parliamentary Counsel of the United Kingdom was formally established.

The Blue Silks rank of Senior Counsel of Nigeria-SCN has evolved as an initiative to address this gap in the Nigerian legal profession.

It seeks to create an objective criteria for conferement of the rank of Senior Counsel of Nigeria-SCN upon non-litigation lawyers in Nigeria who satisfy the criteria of ten years post Bachelor of Laws-LLB degree and 35 verifiable non-litigation transactions.

The non-litigation areas of law in Nigeria are covered by areas of law that are not specified under the Legal Practitioners Act, 1962 which states that for any lawyer to practise as a legal practitioner, such a lawyer requires both an LLB degree in addition to a call to Bar certificate issued by the Body of Benchers.

Contrary to the provisions of the Legal Practitioners Act, 1962, which requires a call to Bar certificate as a pre-requisite, there are other legislation in Nigeria that permits holders of LLB degree to undertake legal services.

Examples include the Notary Public Act, 2023, the Arbitration and Mediation Act, 2023, the legislative drafting lawyers under the National Assembly Service Act, 2014, the professional agents under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020, the data controllers under the Nigerian Data Protection Act, 2023, just to mention a few.

The Blue Silks rank of Senior Counsel of Nigeria-SCN provides an objective criteria for assessing and conferring a mark of excellence upon non-litigation lawyers in these sectors of the Nigerian legal services industry.

Ironically, the number of Nigerian non-litigation lawyers (133,000) are by far more than the litigation lawyers which currently stands at 67,000.

From a statistical point-of-view, if litigation lawyers in Nigeria have their own scheme for rewarding legal excellence namely the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), scheme it is only logical for non-litigation Nigerian lawyers to also have their own.

Furthermore, in the interest of equity, it is logical that the idea of reward for legal excellence which we inherited from the United Kingdom must cater to both litigation and non-litigation lawyers.

Below are the figures to justify the Blue Silks rank of Senior Counsel of Nigeria-SCN.

In the United Kingdom, the percentage of Litigation Lawyers that hold the rank of King’s Counsel is significantly higher than in Nigeria.

It is 12.8685714% which is 2,252 Barristers that hold the rank of King’s Counsel out of the total 17,500 Barristers in England and Wales.

In Nigeria, as of January 2026, it is 934 is approximately 1.39% of 67,000 litigation lawyers, out of the over 200,000 lawyers.

Based on the foregoing, the Blue Silks rank of Senior Counsel of Nigeria-SCN for non-litigation Nigerian lawyers is long overdue.

Yours faithfully,
Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja,
Executive Director, Nigerian Law Society (NLS) for Non-litigation Lawyers.
+234905676119