Olaniwun Ajayi LP has appointed Adenike Adeyemi as its Chief Executive Officer. She will lead what the firm calls its next phase of institutional development and strategic growth. Adeyemi ran FATE Foundation for more than a decade, expanding it across four African countries. Before that she worked at KPMG Advisory Services on corporate strategy, restructuring and organisational design. She is a 2021 Eisenhower Fellow and a Senior Fellow at Lagos Business School.
Managing Partner Dr Tominiyi Owolabi said the firm “must complement our legal excellence with world-class business leadership”. Her published qualifications are in public administration, diplomacy and international relations. The announcement does not describe her as a lawyer.
Why this appointment matters
Nigerian commercial firms have long hired chief operating officers, finance directors and heads of business development. A chief executive title at a top-tier firm goes further. It points to a management board run by a business leader alongside the partnership, a model common in London and New York but rare in Lagos.
What the Rules of Professional Conduct allow
The Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2023, in force since 1 January 2024, do not ban non-lawyer executives. They set three boundaries that shape any law firm CEO role:
Get the next Meridian Briefing. Every Thursday at 11:00 AM.
- Partnership. Rule 5(1): a lawyer shall not form a partnership with a non-lawyer if any of the partnership’s activities consists of the practice of law. A non-lawyer CEO cannot hold partner equity.
- Fees. Rules 3(1)(c) and 53: legal fees may be shared only with another lawyer. The rules do allow non-lawyer employees to join a retirement plan based on profit-sharing. CEO pay therefore has to be structured as salary and bonus, not a share of fees.
- Control. Rule 4: a lawyer’s professional services must not be controlled or exploited by any lay agency, personal or corporate. Rule 5(5) adds that legal practice cannot be carried on as a corporation.
The rules say nothing directly about a non-lawyer sitting on a law firm’s management board. The working line that follows from Rules 4 and 5 is that a CEO may run the business: operations, finance, technology, people and growth. Advice to clients, conflict decisions and partnership matters remain with the lawyers.
The questions other firms will ask
- Who chairs the management board? Is it the managing partner, or a structure in which partners hold a majority on any decision touching client work?
- What is the CEO’s incentive tied to? It should be firm-level business targets rather than fee income from particular matters.
- Where is the line written down? A clear written split between running the firm and running the practice is the simplest protection against a Rule 4 complaint.
The firm
Olaniwun Ajayi is one of Nigeria’s leading commercial firms. It is among the Solicitors to the Offer for the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals IPO, alongside Banwo & Ighodalo and AELEX. It has also worked on NNPC Limited’s US$3.3bn structured financing and Nigeria LNG’s US$3bn Train 7 financing.
This article describes the published rules and is not legal advice. Sources: Nairametrics (20 October 2026); Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2023, Official Gazette No. 103.
Leave a Reply