Global Firms Compete with African Law Firms

The Global Legal Post reported today that 90 per cent of legal fees paid on matters that arise from Africa are paid to law firms not based in Africa. At conference with UK based lawyers last year, many of the energy and infrastructure  lawyers confirmed this saying that their 70 to 90 per cent of their work comes from Africa.This is  a statistic that will pique African lawyers. The assumption is that African firms will enhance capacity to compete with foreign firms that take all this money (and that is a lot of money) away.

So far that has not happened, not because the African firms cannot compete (Nigerian and foreign firms all have African trained legal geniuses). The real question is whether firms will build up true partnerships, attract and keep the best human resource and begin to work to have active multi-jurisdictional practices. Until this happens foreign lawyers will see more of a case for setting up shop here to gun for the remaining 10 per cent.