Be crazy in creativity

Members of the editorial team of ‘The Young Wig’, a quarterly magazine designed to enrich the  practice of young lawyers across Nigeria, interviewed Miss Gloria Mabeiam Ballasson, Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer of House of Justice, on 10th  November, 2016 on ‘Talk to us’ for their November edition, wherein she said “…We are moving behind […]

Members of the editorial team of ‘The Young Wig’, a quarterly magazine designed to enrich the  practice of young lawyers across Nigeria, interviewed Miss Gloria Mabeiam Ballasson, Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer of House of Justice, on 10th  November, 2016 on ‘Talk to us’ for their November edition, wherein she said “…We are moving behind the clock, there are young ones across the globe making a difference, we should not put ourselves in this jacket and say, we are young lawyers, we are waiting for the years to run by, NO, we have got to make the years count…”
One has observed that some young legal practitioners are comfortable with the 8am – 5pm job, going to court from Monday to Thursdays, and wait for monthly salary. There is nothing wrong with starting in a legal structure and also earning monthly income to keep body and soul together, the downside to this, a young wig might get too comfortable that they fail to challenge their imagination to breaking new grounds in the profession.
Too much comfort in a comfort zone is not healthy for the legal practice of a legal practitioner.
We sometimes make the mistake of being too comfortable building another lawyers’ business that we neglect to build our own. For the avoidance of misconception, it is not advisable to establish a law firm immediately after call to bar, while it is not forbidden by the Rules of Profession, it is pertinent that a lawyer begins legal practice under an already established firm, this would avail a young wig with experience and exposure not taught in the Nigerian Law School.
The danger arises when a lawyer has spent quite a number of years under the pupilage of a senior colleague, and has not built a name, brand, or reputation for him or herself either as a principal partner of a law firm, or as a member of a law firm owned by another in the legal profession.
It is dangerous to wait for the years to run by without any personal development, rather let the years count by making an impact in the legal profession while we still can.
Legal practitioners most often limit their power of creativity and imagination with self-doubt or fear of the unknown, “Oh! Can I really make a difference?”
“What if I try, and fail, I would be a mockery to my colleagues” ”Can I really make the difference?”
Nothing is impossible, if the mind can conceive it, then it can be created. Like it has been rightly said, “the only real failure in life, is the failure to try”, young legal practitioners are blessed with fire burning energy that ought to be utilized in  reating new and amazing ideas in the legal profession before the mind and body gets too old for experiments. We would not always be strong in body, just as we age in the bar, so the body ages, and what a young lawyer can do at the tender years of practice, might not be possible with an older lawyer with grey hair.
Observe the legal environment both in Nigeria and beyond, find out ways to be agents of creativity.  Most young ones in the profession give up on trying new things because of the erroneous belief that the senior lawyers have occupied all the space. Give life to the saying that there are no restrictions or limitations on what a lawyer can achieve or become. Challenge yourself to be creative, being too comfortable with the 8am – 5pm office cubicle, and monthly salary all through the first few years of legal practice, most often dulls the creative mind.
Finance is not necessarily an obstacle when passion is the driving force, even though important to the success or otherwise of a project, idea, or business plan, it however should not be the primary reason for trying or creating new things. Let the driving be to make a difference in the legal profession, do not be weighed down by the success of others, we all have different paths to success.
Godspeed!
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