A Journey of Leadership and Resilience
President of Leicestershire Law Society, Mrs Chimdinma Nwaigwe, shares her journey and experience as a legal professional in the United Kingdom. Her story is one of perseverance, determination, and breaking barriers.
A Milestone Achievement
It still feels like a pinch-me moment. It feels unreal, but I’m just grateful to be given this opportunity, and it’s one I don’t take lightly. For me, it also shows how inclusive Leicestershire Law Society is. The position makes me the president of solicitors in the county because it’s the whole of Leicestershire, which includes Leicester, Loughborough, Rutland, and all the cities or towns in Leicestershire. I keep saying it’s like Leicestershire Law Society is placing this mantle of authority on me, so it’s evidence for me that leadership in the profession is really becoming more and more representative and inclusive.
The Path to Leadership
I moved to the UK in September 2019; then I qualified as a solicitor here in 2020. To be a member of the Leicestershire Law Society, you have to be a solicitor, either practising in Leicester or living in Leicester. So, I applied to become a member of the Leicestershire Law Society, and then I just wanted to get involved. Then, I decided to apply to become a member of the main committee. From the main committee, I was asked to become the treasurer, which I accepted. When my tenure as treasurer was about to come to an end, I was asked if I was willing to become the deputy vice president. Once you become deputy vice president, it’s a succession planning sort of thing. After being deputy vice president, the following year, if no one has any problem with you doing the job well, then you get nominated to become vice president. When you’re done being vice president for a year, if you have a good record and no one has a problem with you, you get nominated to be president. So, that was what happened. I was elected president at the annual general meeting of the Leicestershire Law Society in October 2025.
Choosing a Career in Law
Why did you choose law as a career? When I was younger, my parents used to call me Barrister Mama in Igbo. What that means is I never lose an argument. I was very argumentative as a child. From there, I think they just encouraged me to study law. When I was looking at my secondary school yearbook, I actually did say that I wanted to become a lawyer. So, after secondary school, I went to the University of Abuja and did my undergraduate law degree. Then I went to law school in Bayelsa State. I got called to the bar in 2016. It has been a long time now. Then I did my NYSC at the Ministry of Justice in Nasarawa State. After that, I went into private practice with a law firm in Abuja. So, I’ve always loved law. I’ve always seen law as a way of helping people.
Challenges Faced
One factor which has always been a challenge is childcare. Unlike Nigeria, childcare in England is very expensive. In Nigeria, there’s a tendency to have family nearby to help you with childcare and all that. But in the UK, it’s not so good. Even when you’re putting your kids in nurseries, nurseries are very expensive. My husband, Dr Cosmos Nwaigwe, and I have to sit down to calculate. He is a doctor; he works late hours. We agree on who drops off the kids and who picks them up. If I’m going to pick up, I’ve always had to amend my work time to fit with nursery closing hours.
Balancing Work and Family Life
As much as we know society has evolved, it still feels like a lot of it falls on women. The men are helpful, my husband is very helpful and supportive, but that challenge is still there. So, right now, trying to do good work and being president, and then I’m also doing a course to qualify as a notary public, and then being a mum and a wife, so trying to balance everything out, I think that’s my greatest challenge. Sometimes, when I get home in the evening, I’m worn out. But when I wake up in the morning, I remind myself of why I’m doing what I’m doing.
Practising Law in the UK vs. Nigeria
How does practising law in the UK compare to Nigeria? One thing I’ll say first is that going through the rigorous system to qualify as a lawyer in Nigeria prepared me in a way that I didn’t even realise until I was outside the country. When I studied to qualify as a solicitor here, I pretty much self-studied. So, I didn’t go to any institutions. I self-studied, studied with some of my friends, and then I passed in my first sitting. I was also pregnant during COVID. But what also contributed to that was how tough the law school in Nigeria was. So, it was already kind of a tough exam. That really helped me. Another thing that helped me with the exams in the UK was being part of a law clinic at the University of Abuja. This exposed me to some skills like client interviewing skills, community engagement skills, and pre-trial detention advocacy.
Overcoming Obstacles
My biggest challenge was during COVID. I qualified in 2020, and also, I had my son the same time. COVID hit towards the end of 2019 running into 2020. So, initially, I was hoping to find a law firm to volunteer with as a local, but when COVID happened, everybody went home. Law firms were not an option. Then after COVID, because a lot of people were trying to ease back, I struggled to get an opportunity to actually volunteer and build on my experience, even after qualifying as a solicitor. For most of the job interviews I had, many could not really understand the Nigerian legal system.
Building a Support Network
I had a very brilliant community that supported me, starting with my parents and my husband. Before moving to the UK, my husband already found out how I was going to qualify here. He had found out the route, the fees, the exams, everything I needed to do to get here. Again, I had Nigerian lawyers in the UK community. It was formed by a Nigerian who relocated here, struggling to get help in terms of guidance on what to do, how to qualify, and how to get work experience.
Current Practice and Future Goals
What aspect of the legal profession are you practising? I’m a real estate solicitor. Real estate is so big in this country. You have development, residential development, commercial property, and conveyancing, which is residential sales and purchases. What I do is commercial property, mainly because I deal more with organisations or businesses than individuals. I came into this when I volunteered with Rosemary Asiwe at her firm. When I was with her, she said she would not tell me the area of law to focus on.
Supporting Young Lawyers
Part of the things that I’m doing in my year in office is partnership. We have two universities in Leicestershire that are part of the Law Society in the sense that we partner with them. They are the University of Leicester and De Montfort University. One thing I did not say earlier was that I’m also the youngest president in the history of the Law Society. I’m 33 years old. So, being young means that I have a lot of young people looking up to me, and so I’m trying to create opportunities and access as well.
Personal Background
Where exactly did you grow up? I was born in Kaduna. But we left when I was quite young. There was the introduction of Sharia Law in 2000, and then we had to relocate to Owerri. From Owerri, my parents relocated to Abuja. That was when I was in university. How many kids do you have? I’ve got two kids, a five-year-old and a one-year-old, so they’re quite young.
