Accra, July 7, GNA - Mrs Olawunmi Biriyok nee Shonowo, a Ghanaian born Solicitor in the UK, has called on lawyers of African descent in the Diaspora to exert themselves since they are not less qualified than their foreign counterparts.

She said although the Solicitor Sole Practitioners Group (SPG) of the Law Society of England and Wales are rolling out a number of seminars and programmes to update the skills of lawyers on the training trends of the profession, insignificant number of lawyers from Africa are taking advantage of it.

Mrs Biriyok, who is the first elected African British Executive Committee Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the SPG said almost on daily basis, the laws of the UK keeps on changing hence the need for practising solicitors to take advantage of it.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Wednesday she said: "I am the only African person serving on the committee and I do not see myself as some one belonging to an ethnic minority but that of an equal." Commenting on her new role, she said her nomination came as a surprise to her since there were more senior people serving on the committee. Mrs Biriyok attributed her position to her contributions to policy making, advice to members and input during executive committee meetings. As Chairperson of SPG, she is tasked to deal with mortgage lending banks of England and Wales and legal issues from government. Mrs Biriyok said the major challenge she would face on the job is how to curb the Alternative Business Structural (ABS) being introduced by the government.

She said the ABS would change the unique way of practising law in the UK since it would allow non-law professionals to partner lawyers to deliver legal service to the people. "It will be difficult to regulate our practice and will not be in the interest of the public," she said.

Mrs Biriyok said she hope to dialogue with the Law Society, Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Council of Mortgage Lenders and lobby parliament to reverse the ABS, which takes effect in October 2011. She expressed optimism that by the end of her one year mandate she will be able to put sole practitioners back on the panels of the mortgage lending banks and secure a proper way of giving legal aid contracts to members.

Mrs Biriyok who holds a BSc Degree in International Studies and an LLB Honours and qualified as a solicitor in 1995, is a British citizen born in Ghana to the late multi-millionaire entrepreneur, Chief Taiye Shonowo, popularly called 'Olla Balm'. The SPG is a constituency of the Law Society that represents more than 5,000 sole solicitor practitioners in England and Wales.