ADOPTING A LIMITED LIABILITY PARTNERSHIP FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION: A CRITICAL REVIEW FROM NIGERIA’S PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Legal profession/practice has for a long time thrived in Nigeria basically as a sole proprietorship and generalpartnership in some cases. Under these two forms of business organizations, the sole legal proprietor or eachpartner in a general partnership may be personally liable to third parties for any damages caused in the courseof rendering professional services. Efforts to limit the liability of partners in such a partnership by professionalsled to the emergence of limited liability partnership. The paper is a comparative study of the different forms oflegal practice business in Nigeria as exemplified by sole-practitioner-ship, sole proprietorship and partnership,with a view to ascertaining the relative advantages and disadvantages inherent in each of them. The paper findsthat with the introduction of limited liability partnership under CAMA 2020, legal practitioners can now formlimited liability partnership so as to maximize the benefits of flexibility of a company. In this paper, we adopt thedoctrinal method of legal research approach. The paper finds that limited liability partnership confers liabilityprotection on partners of a firm of legal practitioners. The paper concludes by recommending that limitedliability partnership as a new form of business organization be adopted as one of the ideal forms for legalpractice in Nigeria.