We build legal foundations. We do not wait for the emergency.
The Nigerian default, and why we work against it
There is a saying in the profession here: I be lawyer, problem na my work. The lawyer eats when you are in trouble.
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For a criminal matter, that is exactly right. For a business building something valuable, it is a trap — because by the time a lawyer is called, the decision that caused the damage was made two years earlier, casually, when it felt small.
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Who owns what. What was never assigned. What was never registered. What was agreed but never written down.
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We work the other way round. Get the foundation right at the start, and the business grows without stopping to repair what should already have been in place. That is the whole argument, and it is why the firm exists.
Where this came from
Olotu Legal Practitioners was founded in 2020 by Mobolaji Olotu.
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She was a business owner before she was a lawyer, having run ventures in fashion, retail and events — all of them built on trust and undocumented assumptions, in the way most small Nigerian businesses are.
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The first startup she advised had two capable founders and a product with genuine potential, and nothing underneath it. No documented founder relationship. No brand protection. No contracts governing the relationships the business depended on daily. The co-founders fell out, the friendship ended, and the company did not survive it.
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Everything the firm does is downstream of watching that happen and understanding it was preventable
WHAT WE DO
A full-service commercial practice
We are best known for structuring startups — building a founder’s entire legal foundation over sixty days and handing it over as one Legal Readiness File.
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Alongside that, the firm carries regular volume in property, litigation, intellectual property, commercial contracts, regulatory compliance and estate planning. Businesses do not have needs that sit neatly in one category, and neither do the people who run them.
How we work
Four things that do not change
Nothing skips a level
Work is drafted by the responsible associate, reviewed by the senior lawyer accountable for that practice area, and given final review by Principal Counsel before it reaches you. However routine the document looks, it passes three pairs of hands.
You will understand what you are given
A document that a non-lawyer cannot read and act on is not finished. Jargon is removed or explained. If you do not know what you are supposed to do next, we have not done our job.
You can see the work as it happens.
Structuring clients get a private portal — progress visible as it is built, questions answered in-channel, scheduled calls across the engagement.
We tell you when the answer is no.
When a service is not right for you, when litigation is not worth running, when the cheaper route is the sensible one — we would rather say so and keep the relationship than sell you something that does not fit.
Where we work
Olotu Legal Practitioners was founded in 2020 by Mobolaji Olotu.
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She was a business owner before she was a lawyer, having run ventures in fashion, retail and events — all of them built on trust and undocumented assumptions, in the way most small Nigerian businesses are.
Â
The first startup she advised had two capable founders and a product with genuine potential, and nothing underneath it. No documented founder relationship. No brand protection. No contracts governing the relationships the business depended on daily. The co-founders fell out, the friendship ended, and the company did not survive it.
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Everything the firm does is downstream of watching that happen and understanding it was preventable
Founded in 2020
30+
founders taken through full legal structuring
200+
clients supported Lagos, Abuja, Ogun and Nigerians building from abroad