The legal industry in Nigeria is relatively small with several women leading the charge today. Here are some of the women in Nigeria’s legal tech industry.
Odunoluwa Longe
Odunoluwa Longe is the founder of TLP Advisory, formerly known as the Longe Practice, a law firm focused on providing legal services to startups. Longe is also the co-founder of DIYLaw, a legal tech firm platform that provides startup founders with the tools they need to take care of certain legal requirements.
Her law firm, TLP Advisory, was one of the law firms involved in drafting the Nigeria Startup Bill. Longe is a board member at Ventures Platform Foundation and was the Regional Head of West Africa at HiiL. She was also a Legal Counsel for FBNQuest, a subsect of First Bank.
Longe has a bachelor’s degree from Lagos State University and an LLM from Northwestern University, Pritzker School of Law.
Kelechi Achinonu
Kelechi Achinonu is the founder of Techlawyered, a media-tech platform that advocates for more tech inclusion in law and highlights profiles of builders in the justice ecosystem in Africa. She is a technology lawyer passionate about the relationship between law and technology to provide access to justice.
Achinonu is the regional head of the Justice Accelerator at The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) in West Africa. There, she designs and implements programmes to make justice user-friendly, contributing to HiLL’s mission of ensuring that 150 million people can resolve their most pressing justice problems by 2030.
She is also a software engineer and has led product development efforts at legal-tech firms in Nigeria. The products she has built have made it easy for lawyers to access digitised law reports and judgements in Nigeria. She also leads Legal Hackers Lagos, a global movement of lawyers, policymakers, designers, and technologists who develop creative solutions to the most pressing issues at the intersection of law and technology.
Achinonu is a next-generation fellow at the United Nations Foundation. She has an LLB from the University of Ibadan and an Executive MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology.
Funkola Odeleye
Funkola Odeleye is the co-founder of DIYlaw, a legal technology company committed to empowering entrepreneurs through accessible and affordable legal services and business resources.
She is an alumnus of the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Programme and has a master’s in finance and financial law from SOAS, University of London. She has her LLB from the Lagos State University.
She is a Cartier Women’s Initiative 2020 Fellow, 2019 Obama Africa Leader, 2019 Sub-Saharan winner and Global Finalist of the Entrepreneurial Award of the British Council Study UK Alumni Award, 2019 Africa 35 under 35 Laureate and a 2015 Innovating Justice Fellow of The Hague Institute for the Innovation of Law (HiiL).
She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Tech4Dev, H&F Giving and Emerging Communities Africa, a Google for Startups Mentor, and a legislative draftsman of the Nigerian Startup Bill.
Adejoke Are
Adejoke Are is the co-founder and project lead of the Flemer project. The Flemer Project helps indigent pretrial detainees conclude their matters in court by leveraging technology solutions. She has her LLB from the University of Lagos, her master’s from the University of Cambridge, and another master’s degree in public policy from the University of Oxford.
Faith Obayemi
Faith Obayemi is the head of Strategy at Future Proof Intelligence. She is a digital lawyer with a specialty in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and emerging technologies. She helps projects navigate the compliance regulations in the crypto ecosystem in Africa.
Obafemi and her team contributed to the Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) section of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Payment System Vision 2030, offering valuable insights and recommendations. She also works on automating legal documents integrated with smart contracts using OpenLaw, a platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain.
Obafemi is also a research fellow at the African Academic Network on Internet Policy (AANOIP), where she conducts in-depth research on the intersection of blockchain and law. In addition to her legal expertise, she is a skilled digital content writer, authoring numerous informative and engaging articles for major global online publications.
Obafemi’s work has earned her recognition on the cover of Legal Business World, an international magazine for lawyers. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Benin and her master’s from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Rhoda Obi-Adigwe
Rhoda Obi-Adigwe is the co-founder of WeMora, a Nigerian online platform that makes legal services available to more people than ever. The platform connects families, individuals and businesses with the documents they need to protect their interests.
Yinka Bada
Yinka Bada is the lead product manager of LawPavilion Business Solutions. She is an administrative and project executive with 10+ years of experience in Team Coordination, Personnel Management, and Cost-reductive Resource Management. She has an MSc from the University of Bradford and a bachelor’s from Olabisi Onabanjo University.
