CIO Bulletin

Fred-Young & Evans LP — A full-service commercial law firm in Nigeria

Legal services are an essential consideration for any business owner, especially for small business owners, who often face several legal hurdles. The high costs of retaining a lawyer often make legal services out of reach of most small business owners. But there are reasonably priced methods for getting such services, such as pre-paid plans and legal software. Fred-Young & Evans LP is one such full-service commercial law firm in Nigeria, offering an array of legal services supporting its clients. It consistently proffers commercially focused, time and cost-effective, and result-oriented legal advice to challenging commercial transactions and disputes. We interviewed Emmanuel Ekpenyong FCIArb., the Managing Partner of Fred-Young & Evans LP, to know more about the firm and the services offered. Here are a few excerpts of the interview:

Q. What are your practice groups and practice areas?

Our practice groups are Dispute Resolution Group, Intellectual Property Group, and Corporate/Commercial law Group. While our practice areas include Business and Corporate, Commercial Litigation, Arbitration and ADR Proceedings, Real Estate and Construction, Intellectual Property, Debt Collection, Labor and Employment Law, Adoption, Matrimonial Causes, and Probate, Sports and Entertainment Law, Due Diligence Investigations and Process Servers, and Foreign Investments.

Q. How do your practice areas benefit your customers?

Our clients benefit from our boutique services as well as our experience in our practice areas. While giving our clients business advice or drafting their agreements, we anticipate a problem before it becomes a concern or results in a dispute and help our clients avoid the problem.

We are genuinely interested in our clients’ business. This is why we take out time to understand our clients’ business and concerns as well as their business policies and customers in order to devise a tailor-made solution to their legal problems. For some legal issues, we advise negotiation, while in others, we advise mediation, litigation, arbitration, or other dispute resolution proceedings.

The essence of this is to effectively solve our clients’ problems within a reasonable time and costs to enable them to maintain their business relationships and concentrate their efforts on growing their businesses. This has in no small way contributed to the growth of our clients’ businesses over the years and made them trust our services.

Q. Does your organization’s corporate responsibility strategy match the availability of your current resources?

The increased use of technology in law and the adoption of online services as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is a blessing to our practice. Many Courts in Nigeria, especially appellate Courts, now conduct fully virtual hearings. The Court system has integrated electronic means of filing and serving of processes. Even the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) responsible for the registration of businesses in Nigeria has incorporated online registration procedures and post-incorporation filings and email services. This makes it possible for us to conduct our businesses from our offices and even homes. This has led to better use of our resources and enhanced our service delivery and productivity.

Q. How efficient is your organization from an operational standpoint?

Our vision is to continually groom leaders in the field of law to understand and apply modern technology and extant legal principles, trends and techniques as well as international best practices in solving legal problems. Each lawyer is trained to have the foresight and think independently. Our team anticipates the effect of various outcomes and proffer different options to meet our Client’s legal needs. Our clients benefit from a robust team of industry experts and experienced legal practitioners whose mantles have been proven over the years.

Q. How often does your organization analyze the competition to understand competitive advantages and disadvantages and identify areas for investment or needs for improvement?

Our membership of many international law networks has made it possible for us to measure our services with other industry experts across the globe. This has made us to continually strive to meet international standards by researching on new principles and trends in our practice areas, investing in both local and foreign law books, and participating in international trainings in diverse areas of law in order to improve our service delivery. This exposure makes us to render excellence services and offer similar standard of legal service as industry experts in any part of the world.

Q. How well does your organization strategically differentiate from the competition in terms of the capabilities of its product? How clear is your organization’s strategy for this?

Though we strive to develop our service delivery in all our practice areas, it is only natural for us to concentrate on our core competence practice areas. This is by channeling more resources in building the competency of our lawyers on areas of law such as foreign investments, commercial litigation, real estate and construction, intellectual property, due diligence, enforcement of foreign judgments and awards, debt collection, and other areas in which our services have been tested and trusted. This strategy has worked because it has created more opportunities for us and made similar industry experts across the globe to recognize our potentials.

Q. How many established connections to other businesses does your organization have?

Our membership in reputable law networks such as The Lawyers Network, Advisory Excellence, Leaders in Law, The World Law Alliance, Startupoverseas, Global Law Experts, International Credit Exchange, amongst others, has connected our firm to other industry experts in other continents who refer their clients who require legal representation in our jurisdiction to us. It is refreshing for clients who are satisfied with the standard of our work to refer us to other businesses.

Q. Enlighten us about your international publications.

We have published more than 120 articles on diverse areas of Nigerian law on Mondaq. We have published as an expert in Getting the Deal Through on Restructuring and Copyright, in Corporate Livewire on Intellectual Property and Litigation and Dispute Resolution, and on Lexology on Mergers and Acquisitions and Cross Border Insolvency in Nigeria. Apart from these, we have also been featured in international magazines such as Silicon Valley, Finance Monthly, Financial Worldwide, Al Magazine, CV Magazine, Global Business Magazine, amongst others.

Meet the Managing Partner

Emmanuel Ekpenyong FCIArb. is the Managing Partner of Fred-Young & Evans LP, a full-service commercial law firm in Nigeria, and Fred-Young Recoveries, an international debt collection firm. Emmanuel has studied law at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria-Nigeria, and the Nigerian Law School, Lagos. He is currently working on his thesis towards the award of LLM Degree in International Business Law by the University of Liverpool.

Emmanuel is a Member of the Nigerian Bar Association, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitration, United Kingdom and Fellow of Nigerian Institute of Management Consultants. He has authored several scholarly works in different areas of law in both local and international journals and engaged in prominent arbitral proceedings and public interest litigations in Nigeria.

Emmanuel has been a Specialist Contributor on the topic “Enforcement of Arbitral Awards and Foreign Judgments in Nigeria” to the book “Contemporary Issues in Law and Society: Legal Essays in Tribute to the Hon. Justice Chinwe E. Iyizoba JCA” of the Court of Appeal. His recent books include “Impact of Nigeria’s Legislations and Business Practices on Foreign Investments.” Apart from these, he is currently working on a thesis titled “Arbitration! A Bane to Prompt Resolution of International Commercial Disputes; A Case of Nigeria.”