REFLECTIONS, May 7th – May 13th, 2021

A WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF LEGAL & TECH EVENTS GLOBALLY | May 7th – May 13th, 2021

THIS IS REFLECTIONS, our weekly roundup of events in the legal and technology sector, covering various topics and interesting learning points for today’s professional. If you couldn’t make an event, don’t worry, we probably made it and have all the juicy scoop for your reading pleasure and learning.

Do you have an upcoming event you would like us to know about or attend? OR do you know of one you would like to read about? Send an email to us HERE.

EVENT ONE

STRATEGIC THINKING IN CAREER CHOICES (A MENTORING SESSION ORGANISED BY THE NBA CLE)

DATE: 11^th May 2021

SPEAKER: Anthony Idigbe SAN.

MAIN SESSION

The speaker started the discussion with a pie chart that was created especially for the purpose of filtering the information given by participants. This pie chat shows that from the wide range of fields of law with 430 participants, the major aspect that seems to be in demand include

1. How to build a law career
2. Choosing the area of specialization
3. Building and sustaining a law firm
4. Retaining clientele

The speaker went on to buttress the fact that the only thing constant in life is change and the obvious fact that legal service like everything else is always changing.  He identified the drivers of change to include;

1. Changing demographics and values
2. Skills mismatch and legal education reform
3. Emergence of new forms of value creation
4. Globalization and shift of economic power
5. Legal technology development and innovation
6. Regulatory innovation and gaps
7. Panics, disasters and pandemics.

All these drivers can be categorized into 2 factors namely;

1. Market
2. Regulation.

The Learned Silk then went ahead to highlight how to respond to the change in the legal environment and how to build a law firm. These are:

1. Anticipate change- client’s needs. Costs, the court, competition and substitute
2. Be the change- adapt and create new skills.
3. Create the future- visioning and leadership, focus on your strength
4. Get a job- personal statement. Enterprise, networking, informal interview
5. Set up and build a firm

TIPS FOR GROWING WITHIN A FIRM

1. Understand the firm structure
2. Understand the partnership structure
3. What kind of associate are you- minimalist, skilled but operational, strategic?
4. Associate viewpoint- understand the vision, acquire the right skills, go strategic
5. The firm viewpoint- management, expand the horizon

The speaker also spoke about firm mentorship. The major thing to do is to create a retention environment.  This can be done by having a strong and adaptable culture, flexibility, job satisfaction, recruitment, recognizing highfliers, weeding of brand antagonist.  Personal and organization renewal can also be done by acquiring fresh skills and refreshing your brand.

He also noted that the legal service is always changing as things are always evolving and that there is a need to understand the drivers of change is in the legal space and to identify what drives these changes, and that this is how a successful career can be made. He made note of some of what causes changes in the legal space according to the IBA 2007 taskforce investigation, and these include:

1) Changing demographic and value

2) Skills meets much and legal reform

3) Images of new forms of value creation

4) Globalization and shift of economic power.

He also noted that sometimes the changes can be markets driven or Regulation driven, he noted that how a legal practitioner responds to these factors sometimes can determine how successful a lawyer he or she would be.

This speaker went on to point out to the audience that a successful lawyer needs to look at the fresh skills that are needed and this should be done due to the fact that changes would always come. He emphasised the need to anticipate what to do with those changes.

CONCLUSION

He concluded with a quote of Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent that survives but the one most able to adapt to change.”

EVENT TWO

LEGAL AND BUSINESS WRITING

SPEAKER: Chinua Asuzu

The speaker started by narrowing the topic down to important sub-topics.

EMAILS & LETTERS

Emails and letters are important in both legal writing and business writing. He noted the following points:

1. In official correspondence, one must sound like a person and not an institution, even if one is writing for an institution. Words like “the undersigned” must be avoided, instead uses words like “I” or “me”.
2. Avoid using the words “Please Find Attached”, write “I have attached” in emails and “I have enclosed” in letters instead. The speaker asked that “Find Attached” and its variants must be forbidden. Whenever one wishes to refer to appendices, attachments, or enclosures, it must be done substantively. When “find attached” are used, it begs the question “what was lost?”. The speaker stated further that “Enclosed herewith” and “Attached herewith” aren’t just ridiculous but foolish as well.
3. “Thanking you” is not English. Never write this.
4. Bizspeak refers to the jargon used in business. The speaker opined that plain language is better than bizspeak as the latter is verbose and irritating. For example, instead of writing “Please be advised that the deadline for the above-mentioned reconciliation is Monday the 17th day of July 2017”, the appropriate sentence is “The deadline is 17 July 2017”. According to him, bizspeak disrespects the reader’s time.
5. He stated the following legal correspondence pointers: (i) Use informative headings, and know when to modify or change the headings (ii) Use direct, personal language (forget “Find attached” or “Find Enclosed” (iii) Focus on the reader (start by making reference to the reader first and not the writer) (iv) Drop nebulous neighbourliness as opening paragraphs. (v) motivate the reader to act or take the next step (vi) Envelop bad news in a halo (vii) Never write in anger.
6. Present facts in historical order.
7. Present stories in chronological order.
8. The use of “The above subject refers” has neither meaning nor utility.
9. Do not insert “RE” in the subject line of any email or letter self-initiated.
10. Use standard English whenever you write
11. One email or letter, one subject. Endeavour, with most of one’s business correspondence, to stick to one subject per email. This will make the contents of the correspondence easier to grasp and remember. Keeping to one subject is especially apt for email correspondence, as it enables the recipient to conveniently delete, file, forward, or reply to each email respectively. Subject lines should enable the reader to sort and prioritize emails.
12. Choose email recipients with care
13. For messages that need to be on letterhead, use letters.
14. Begin emails with core messages
15. When responding to an email requesting some action or Information from the reader, begin replying by restating the original request. Also, restate a question in summary before it is answered.

Chinua discussed the typical purposes of business and legal correspondence to include: (i) to send documents (transmittal emails & letters) (ii) to confirm a conversation or instructions (iii) to offer advice (advice emails & letters) (iv) to issue a demand (demand emails & letters) (v) to inquire about how to proceed (vi) to obtain information (vii) to develop a relationship.

Transmittal emails & letters

A transmittal email or letter is a cover email or letter referring to and explaining the attachments or enclosures. It should be short (2-3 paragraphs) but not scanty. The first paragraph identifies, describes and lists the attachments or enclosures. The second instructs the recipient on what to do with the enclosures, how and when. Usually, you conclude with a third paragraph: “if you have any questions, please ask me”. The speaker opines that even a cover email or letter must say something substantive as such, one should never attach or enclose a document without saying anything to the body and always introduce the attachments and enclosures graciously. Also, integrate references to the attachments in the text.

Email-attachment etiquette

• It is rude to attach documents without mentioning them in the body of your email. (ii) It is even ruder to attach documents to an email whose body is empty (iii) Acknowledge email attachments received because the sender needs to be reassured that all the attachments were received if more than one.

Salutations

Salutation in formal emails and letters to British recipients include: Dear Sir, Dear Madam, Dear Sir or Madam, Dear Sirs, Dear Mesdames.

Salutation in informal emails and letters to British recipients includes: Dear [insert recipient’s first name]. one can salute Hi [insert recipient’s first name] in informal emails as well. “Dear” can be replaced with “HI” when the relationship or context is sufficiently relaxed. In informal (or even semiformal) emails between friends or work colleagues, you can salute “Hi [first name]”. Never salute “Hi [full name]”. When in doubt, salute “Dear”.

Salutations and Complimentary closes in emails and letters.

When one salutes: Dear Sir, Dear Sirs, Dear Madam, Dear Mesdames, Dear Sir or Madam; the appropriate complimentary close should be “Yours faithfully” followed by your full name (first name first) about 2 line-spaces below.

Never write: Dear Sir/Madam, Dear Sir/Ma. The slash should be forbidden.

When one salutes: Dear [first name]. The complimentary close can be either of the following: All the best, Best regards, Cheers, Kind regards, Many thanks, Regards, Take care, Thanks; followed by your first name only, about 2 line-spaces below.

Quotations

This should be used judiciously, not judicially (i.e., the way most Nigerian judges use them). One’s work should not consist of a string of quotations. Too many quotations clutter one’s writing and interrupt its flow. Use blocks for quotations of 50+ words. Lure the reader into reading the block quotations because readers often jump this. To achieve this, one should introduce the block quotation “with a teaser to try to entice the reader into” the quoted passage. Then, because one might fail, follow the block quotation “with a one-sentence summary so that if the reader skips the quote, she will at least be aware of its content”.

Give a quotation a good introduction. A forthcoming quotation is a golden opportunity to engage the reader and drive one’s point home through repetition. One makes a pint and then buttresses it with the quotation. The introduction constrains one to understand and assess the passage that one is quoting. Finally, rarely begin a paragraph with a full-sentence quotation, outgrow stereotyped lead-ins, prefer informative lead-ins, use ellipses to indicate omissions from quoted passages and stay faithful to the source.

Learning/ lessons from the event

The event brought to light the existing ridiculous practices in writing emails and letters. These practices must be reviewed and corrected in line with the principles noted by the speaker.

EVENT THREE

WEBINAR ORGANISED BY THE ESQ PRACTICAL LAWYERS ACADEMY DATE: 10^TH MAY, 2021

THEME: EXPANDING SECURITIZATION AND ITS INCENTIVES FOR INVESTORS

MODERATOR: John Sunday

SPEAKERS: Elizabeth Uwaifo, Tosin Alabi and Prof Gbolahan Elias

INTRODUCTION

The moderator welcomed everyone to the webinar and promptly introduced the speakers. The event was in form of a discussion between the panellists as facilitated by the moderator

DISCUSSIONS

Securitization is a transaction scheme, whereby the credit risk associated with certain assets or exposures are pooled, trenched and transferred to investors. A securitization transaction will have the following characteristics:

• An institution (the Originator) identifies a category of assets (e.g., credit card receivables or mortgage loans) which are pooled to create a single portfolio (the Receivables or Underlying Assets).
• A newly incorporated special purpose vehicle (known as the SPV, buyer or issues) issues securities (usually bonds or notes in several structured tranches) to investors to fund the purchase of or provide credit protection on the underlying assets.
• The subordination of tranches of the securities determines the distribution of losses during the ongoing life of the transaction.
• A typical off-balance sheet securitization involves the appropriation of defined or identifiable cash flows to or through an insolvency remote vehicle to secure publicly or privately offered securities, issued on the basis that recourse is limited to such cash flows and any related issues. 

In a true securitization, the originator sells Receivables to the SPV. The SPV pays the purchase price for the receivables from the proceeds of the securities issued to the investors.

In a synthetic securitization, the SPV provides credit protection to the Originator covering issues that may be suffered by the Originator on the underlying assets. The credit protection payments are paid from the proceeds of the securities issued to the investors.

The receivables and amounts received from the receivables are used as security to secure the SPV’s obligations to pay the investors principal and interest on the securities and any amounts due to other parties involved in the transaction in accordance with a priority order of payments specified in the transaction of documents.

The security will be held by a security trustee under a trust established by the SPV in favour of the investors and other transaction parties.

RATIONALE FOR SECURITIZATION

1. LOWER BORROWING COSTS: Through securitization, a company may be able to borrow at a cheaper rate than it ordinarily commands. For instance, a company rated BB but with AAA worthy cash flow would be able to borrow at possibly AAA rates.

2. LOWER CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS: Some firms, due to legal, regulatory or other reasons, have a limit or range that their leverage is allowed to be. By securitizing some of their assets, which qualifies as a sale for accounting purposes, these firms will be able to remove assets from their balance sheet and give themselves more headroom to generate more of such assets.

3. TRANSFER RISKS (credit, liquidity, prepayment, reinvestment, asset concentration): Securitization makes it possible to transfer risks from an entry that does not want to bear it, to one that does. Two good examples of this are catastrophe bonds and Entertainment Securitizations. Similarly, by securitizing a block of business (thereby locking in a degree of profits), the company has effectively freed up its balance to go out and write more profitable business.

4. LIQUIDITY: Through securitization, an originator may be able to generate cash from future cashflows e.g., Diversified Payment Rights (DPRs) where the collateral consists of existing and future remittance inflows processed by offshore banking channels.

CONCLUSION

The moderator gave a vote of thanks and appreciated the panellists and all attendees while encouraging all attendees to participate in the series to be held subsequently.