Akeem Nafiu 
The Nigerian Bar Association Section on Business Law (NBA- SBL) has launched an initiative to encourage young lawyers’ participation at this year’s annual International Business Law Conference. The arrangement tagged; ‘Young Lawyers Sponsorship Opportunities’ initiative’ is open to lawyers with 0 to 5 years of post-call experience and below 25 years of age. Sponsorship benefits for the successful applicants include conference registration fees, acommodation and feeding, as well as transportation logistics around the conference venue.
Speaking on the motive be- hind the sponsorship support for young lawyers, Efeomo Olotu, Chair, Media and Publicity Sub- Committee, said: “We realized that these are indeed challenging times for Nigerians and there may be young members of the NBA-SBL who desire to attend, but are unable to due to financial constraints. This is our way of encouraging them to attend and recognizing young lawyers as veritable members of the NBA- SBL community.
“Interested young lawyers should visit all social media handles of the NBA-SBL to obtain more information on how to get qualified for the sponsorship”. The 17th edition of the NBA- SBL conference also has an added layer of fun and excitement with the introduction of the ‘Lawyers Got Talent competition’.
All registered participants automatically qualify to participate in the contest which is geared towards showcasing lawyers’ unique skills and abilities beyond legal practice. Interested contestants have till Thursday, June 15 to indicate their interest to participate and submit their entries.
They are to make a 2-minute video showcasing their talent, save it in a Google Drive folder and send an email with the link to nbaseconbusinesslaw@gmail.com. The winner of the Lawyers Got Talent will receive a cash prize of N1,000,000, while the second and third-place win- ners will receive N750,000 and N550,000 respectively. Registration for the con- ference which holds between July 5 to July 7, 2023 at the Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Is- land, Lagos, is still ongoing. While the early bird regis- tration ended on Wednesday, May 31, 2023, interested participants still have up to Wednesday, July 5, 2023 to reg- ister to attend the landmark event. The theme for this year’s conference is “The Nigerian Business Landscape: Priori- ties for Law, Policy and Regu- lation”. Since its commencement in 2004, the NBA-SBL confer- ence has served as a platform for decision-makers, policy formulators, regulators and industry practitioners to deliberate on pertinent issues and seek solutions to the nu- merous challenges impacting the Nigerian business terrain. The conference is a gathering of over 1000 lawyers, corporate institutions, regu- latory authorities and visitors.
