Career Opportunities For Lawyers in Nigeria (2024)

The legal profession is one of the best careers to undertake in Nigeria. The major reason for this is that opportunities are vast for their graduates, as they can seek to work in government offices and in other alternatives like corporate law, patent, and so forth. With a law degree, it opens professional choices in various different fields of managerial, corporate and legal administrations.

There are numerous openings for law graduate as they can either work in the law court or can likewise work with corporate firms, in the Public Service, as a Solicitor General or a Public Prosecutor. Working with circular newspapers or Radio/TV media or teaching law in schools is another of the opportunities available in the profession.

Professional Career Opportunities Available For Lawyers In Nigeria

Public Service

The government Civil Service offers opportunities to lawyers who are willing to replicate their legal skills in offices. Their job description involves working with various ministries and also with the extended agencies.

This career is better due to the fact that you will be employed with the government rather than going on a private enterprise as the case for most lawyers in the country.
Also, lawyers in the public service are employed to teach the profession in schools of learning.

Legal Publisher

A law degree can open entryways in becoming a distributor of legal publications. What’s needed here involves efficiency, research and the ability to meet what the users and readers need.

Looking at this career in a broad way, it is a good way to display your legal prowess if you want to excell with ease in the legal industry.

Management Consultant

The management and board of any institution requires diagnostic consultant who can work with the company in exercising and executing the consulting functions in the work place. To become a legal consultant, great research abilities are fundamental.

Your customers anticipate that you should find a workable pace with their industry and business in record time. Nonetheless, this career path is as lucrative as it bring you to the power of the enterprise.

Solicitors

A solicitor is a legal expert who manages more issues in the court of law. A aspirant who wishes to see into being a solicitor must have legal characterized capabilities. They will have to study the law course in the college before going to the law school to be trained.

Barrister

A Barrister is more like a legal advisor and they have special functions which involves: taking cases for courts and councils, drafting legal proceedings, looking into thinking, theory and history of law, and offering master legal thoughts to the law court. This profession is more than the basic law experience, as it requires more knowledge from the former.

Company Secretary

The company secretary, which is often referred to as a corporate secretary, is liable for keeping up important records for businesses and for Board of Directors. This legal professional has law experience and is answerable for prompting the board on legal necessities for the organization just as for marking lawful records. Company or corporate is secretaries does just as a normal secretary but differs in the aspect of handling legal recordings for the institution.

Legal Analyst

Legal is yet another career opportunity in the law industry. These lawyers are legal experts who back or help attorneys or groups of lawyers in exercising their functions. They lead legal research, collect archives and proofing, keep up databases and track, arrange, survey and record reports of the cases.

Legal Advisor

A Legal Advisor is basically a legal professional who gives legal direction or advises to an enterprise. They additionally give general legitimate exhortation about corporate choices in regards to corporate development, mergers or different practices. Legal Advisors work in the branches of the courts as a private adviser.

Stockbroker

A stockbroker is an expert in the legal profession who executes purchase and sell orders for stocks and different protections for the benefit of customers. Simply referred to as ‘broker’, they broke the stock of the business for their clients. A stockbroker may likewise be an investment adviser for the institutions they work with .

Government Lawyers

Having a career here is preferred for one reason that government lawyers work with the government in formulating legal issues. They work for state lawyers general, open safeguards, head prosecutors, and the courts. And at the federal level, they examine cases for the Ministry of Justice and other government lawful organizations.

Legal Data Analyst

In the law industry, Data Analysts are legal authorities who back and assist in conducting research, utilize lawful information, records and evidence, keep up databases. The work of analyst is also extended to track, compose, survey and document archives of legal records.

Chartered Accountant

As a Chattered Accountant, your work will be to take on various explicit exercises inside the range of accounting. Their work includes reviewing of financial and fiscal summaries, documenting of corporate expense forms and money related prompting among other work related to the office.

Judge

This is the highest job in the legal profession. Becoming a judge entails spending more effort and time in the law industry before making it to the top. A judge by definition is a legal personnel who directs court proceedings, either alone or as a team.

The duty of the judge is to settle a legal cases in a last and open way, and hence attest the standard of law which his or her judgment will be the final. These category of legal practitioners has legislative force and powers.

They can order the police, military or legal authorities to execute, look, capture and detain culprits who are found guilty. Interestingly, judges are the most paid are employed by the government.

Lawyers Salary Structure In Nigeria (2024)

One of the advantage of being a lawyer is that they have vast variety of jobs, but however, their stipends may not be much compared to what medical doctors collect as salary in Nigeria.

Legal practitioners in Nigeria are paid based on the duration of working experience and also dependent on the type of organization they are working for. Their salary may be low as N50,000 for new intakes but will rise as the duration plus experience continues. A senior lawyer, barrister or a judge earns up to N5 million monthly depending on the above factor.

How to Become A Lawyer In Nigeria

Making it into the legal profession in Nigeria requires seriousness, patience and determination.

First, you will have to study the law course in any of the Nigerian universities offering law as a course and afterward proceed for an additional course in the Nigerian Law School.

Screening for admission is done upon entry into any university to study law. The applying candidate must have at least five credits at his or her level; and should get a score from 250 to maximum 400 in the UTME examination, so as to stand a chance. Having fulfilled these prerequisites and successful passing of screenings, the candidate will be offered admission to study law for the duration of 5 years.

Still in the process of becoming a lawyer, you need to go on a course at the Nigerian Law School for professional training in the legal practice. This is always after completing the graduate level course.

However, in the legal profession, there is a body which regulates the field, which is, the Council of Legal Education. The body makes it obligatory for all intending to have a career in law, that they must go to the graduate school, which is the law school. Through there they will have more knowledge of the discipline.

Conclusively, the legal profession is the most lucrative and respected discipline in Nigeria. The reason for it is their widen knowledge which emerge after going through a decade before becoming a certified lawyer. This has been complemented by the numerous career openings in the legal profession. What’s your thoughts on the various career opportunities available for legal practitioners in the country.