Personality of the Week - 2nd to 8th May, 2011

Oba Nsugbe QC

Professor Oba Nsugbe was born in Lagos in 1962, the son of a University Lecturer and Nursing Sister, Philip and Patricia Nsugbe. He was brought up in Nigeria and Zambia before attending secondary school in Oxford and University at Hull.

He was called to the English Bar in 1985 and the Nigerian Bar in 1986. He practices in the UK and Nigeria in areas of fraud, business crime, commercial litigation and arbitration. He has worked in jurisdictions as disparate as Germany, Cayman Islands, Malawi, Tanzania and of course Nigeria.

In 1999, he was appointed a part-time judge of the Crown Court of England and Wales, (a Recorder), aged only 35, (the youngest in the country at the time). He was promoted to the rank of silk in 2002, aged 39, (amongst the youngest in that year), and enjoyed the distinction of being the first Nigerian practising abroad to be awarded the coveted senior rank of the legal profession. For the past eight years

he has been listed in the "Chambers Guide to the UK Legal Profession" as one of the leading barristers in the UK. The 2004 edition citing him as a "rising star" of the Bar of England and Wales, and the 2009 edition stating that "...peers and solicitors were keen to sing the praises of this .true gentleman who deserves his fabulous reputation."

He was promoted to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 2005, and elected

to the Body of Benchers in Nigeria in the same year. He is also a Bencher of Gray's Inn and one of its approved advocacy trainers. In 2009, he was appointed an Honorary Visiting Professor of Law of City University.

Professor Nsugbe has been appointed to a variety of high level legal Committees in recent years, such as the highly influential "Glidewell Committee" under Sir Ian Glidewell, whose report on Judicial Appointments and Silk led to the Government's introduction of radical reforms on the manner in which Judges and QCs are appointed, including the proposed formation of the Judicial Appointments Committee, which lay at the heart of the Committee's recommendations.

For seven years he was a member of the Judicial Studies Board of England and Wales, the body responsible for the training of both newly appointed and experienced judges in this jurisdiction. In 2005 he was a member of the Bar Council Committee, led by William Blair QC, which worked with the Government and the Law Society in reforming the process for appointment to silk.

As a former member of the Bar Council Professional Conduct and Complaints Committee, he has chaired professional disciplinary panels and tribunals adjudicating on misconduct allegations against barristers. In September of 2003, he ran seminars with English Judges for the Lagos State High Court Judges on the new Civil Procedure Rules shortly to come into force. In 2007 & 2008 he devised the itinerary for the week long educational visit to the UK of a number of Lagos State High Court Judges (an initiative which continues to this day).

Other work in Africa includes four months in Malawi advising the Malawian DPP on the backlog of homicide cases under the auspices of a British Council project and acting as an arbitrator in 2004, (on the appointment of the Government of Zanzibar), to determine a major commercial dispute between an American company and the government. He has spoken at numerous major conferences, including the "Commonwealth Lawyers Association" 50th Anniversary conference in 2006, and the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Business Law conferences in 2007 and 2008.

In 2007 he was awarded the "Minority Lawyers Achievement Award" for outstanding contribution to the Legal Profession in the UK, and in 2008 he was honoured with a "Lifetime Achievement Award" by the Black Solicitors' Network. He appears in the Law Society of England and Wales's Black History Month exhibition 2010 : "Modern Legal High Achievers".

He is a past Chair of the British Nigeria Law Forum, an elected member of the Royal Society of Arts, a Legal Assessor for the General Medical Council and a Fellow of the Nigeria Leadership Initiative ("NLA"). As a founder member of the Central Association of Nigerians in the UK, ("CANUK"), he was responsible for drafting its constitution. He is passionate about Nigeria and Nigerians, and keenly involved in initiatives, both inside and outside the country, aimed at supporting a progressive and fair nation of Nigeria. He appears in "Who's Who in the UK" and also in the 2010 "Black Powerlist" published by Powerful Media, which lists the "100 most influential black people in the UK". He is presently Head of Pump Court Chambers, a leading Common Law set based in the Temple with over 80 barristers.