The rank of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (to be simply called “senior advocate” throughout this lecture) is about 43 years old, in the sense that the first two lawyers to be conferred with the rank, Dr. N B Graham-Douglas (then the Hon. Attorney General of the Federation(AGF) and Chief Rotimi Williams were so appointed in April 1975. The groundwork for the appointment of these great legal titans was laid in the promulgation of the Legal Practitioners (Amendment) Decree No. 25 of 1974 which for the first time in the legal history of Nigeria empowered the military Head of State as the Head of the Federal Military Government to confer on a legal practitioner in Nigeria by letters patent, the rank of senior advocate.