Legal counsel built for business, not just for the file.

Sirat Legal advises Nigerian founders, SMEs and investors across company formation, fundraising, intellectual property, data privacy and Islamic finance — practical advice, delivered at the pace your business moves.

Book a consultationExplore our practice areas
Founders and advisers reviewing investment documents during a fundraising meeting
Deal counsel for founders and investors — from term sheet to closing.
  • Corporate & commercial advisory
  • Startup and venture capital
  • Company secretarial retainers
  • Islamic finance structuring

Practice areas

One firm for the legal work a growing business actually needs — from incorporation and trademark registration through to your next funding round, with dedicated intellectual property and creative economy counsel.

Corporate & Commercial Law

Commercial contracts, shareholder arrangements, corporate governance and transactional support for companies at every stage of growth.

  • Contracts
  • Governance
  • Transactions

Startup Advisory & Venture Capital

Cap table design, SAFEs and convertible notes, term sheet negotiation and investor-ready documentation for founders raising their first or fifth round.

  • Fundraising
  • Cap tables
  • Term sheets

Intellectual Property & Creative Economy

Trademark registration, copyright protection and patent advice for the creative economy — brand protection, licensing and IP due diligence so the assets that make your business valuable stay yours.

  • Trademark registration
  • Copyright protection
  • Patent advice
  • Licensing
  • IP audits

Business Formation, Licences & Permits

Incorporation with the CAC, sector licences, regulatory permits and post-incorporation filings — handled end to end so you can trade without interruption.

  • CAC filings
  • Licences
  • Permits

Data Privacy & Technology Law

NDPA compliance programmes, privacy policies, data processing agreements, software and SaaS contracts, and technology licensing.

  • NDPA
  • SaaS contracts
  • Tech licensing

Employment, Labour & Islamic Finance

Employment contracts, HR policy and workplace disputes, alongside Shariah-compliant structures for non-interest fundraising and Islamic finance advisory.

  • Employment
  • HR policy
  • Non-interest finance

Intellectual property and the creative economy

Nigeria's creative economy — music, film, fashion, design, publishing, gaming, advertising and software — is built on ideas. Those ideas only become assets when someone registers them, documents who owns them and puts contracts around how they are used. That is the work we do.

We work with creatives to protect their intellectual property: the artist whose catalogue is being streamed without a licence, the fashion label whose prints appear on someone else's rail, the studio whose footage is reused without permission, the developer whose code ships inside a product they were never paid for. We start by establishing what you actually own, then we register it, document it and enforce it.

Three pillars carry most of that work. Trademark registration protects the name, logo and brand your audience recognises. Copyright protection covers the songs, scripts, photographs, designs, manuscripts and code you create. Patent advice covers the inventions, processes and technical innovations behind a product. Alongside them we handle assignments, licensing, royalties, collaborations and the IP due diligence an investor or buyer will ask for.

  • Trademark searches, filing, prosecution and renewals with the Nigerian registry and through foreign agents
  • Copyright ownership, registration strategy, licensing and royalty arrangements for music, film, fashion, publishing and software
  • Patent and design applications, novelty searches and technology transfer
  • IP assignment from founders, employees, freelancers, agencies and collaborators
  • Brand enforcement: oppositions, takedown requests, cease-and-desist letters and settlement
  • IP due diligence for fundraising, investment, distribution deals and sale of a catalogue or business

Typical clients: recording artists and labels, filmmakers and production companies, fashion and design brands, authors and publishers, agencies, game studios and software companies.

Protect your intellectual property
Creative professionals reviewing brand and design materials in a studio
Registering, documenting and enforcing the work creatives make.
Sirat Legal lawyers reviewing a commercial contract with a client in a boardroom
Client meetings in Lagos and Abuja, and by video wherever you are.

A firm that reads the business before it reads the clause.

Sirat Legal is a Nigerian commercial law practice serving founders, small and medium businesses, investors, creative businesses and established companies. We work as an extension of your management team — understanding how you make money, then structuring the legal work around it.

Our engagements are deliberately plain: a clear scope, a named lawyer who knows your file, and advice written in language you can act on. No jargon, no surprise invoices, no waiting weeks for a reply.

  • Fixed-scope retainers and project fees agreed before work begins.
  • One team across corporate, intellectual property, trademark and copyright protection, privacy, employment and Islamic finance.
  • Company secretarial support that keeps your statutory records permanently current.

Company secretarial retainers

Subscribe monthly and hand over the statutory work — filings, registers, resolutions and compliance deadlines — to a dedicated company secretary.

Basic

For newly incorporated companies finding their feet.

₦75,000per month

  • Statutory register maintenance
  • Annual returns filing with the CAC
  • Registered office address
  • Compliance calendar reminders
Subscribe to Basic

Premium

For growing companies with shareholders, staff and contracts.

₦180,000per month

  • Everything in Basic
  • Board and general meeting minutes
  • Share transfers and allotments
  • Director and shareholder resolutions
  • Priority email support
Subscribe to Premium

Executive

For funded companies, groups and regulated businesses.

₦350,000per month

  • Everything in Premium
  • Named company secretary on call
  • Quarterly governance review
  • Regulatory filings and licence renewals
  • Dedicated WhatsApp line to your team
Subscribe to Executive

All retainers are billed monthly and can be upgraded or paused as your business changes. Fees exclude statutory filing charges.

What clients say

Founders and business owners who work with us on an ongoing basis.

We closed our seed round in six weeks. Sirat Legal handled the term sheet, the shareholders’ agreement and every investor question without slowing us down once.

Adaeze NwosuCo-founder, fintech startup — Lagos

The Premium retainer means our filings, minutes and share register are simply handled. I have not thought about a CAC deadline in over a year.

Ibrahim SuleimanManaging Director, logistics company — Abuja

They structured our non-interest facility properly and explained every step to our board. Rare to find a firm that understands both the Shariah and the commercial side.

Fatima BelloFinance Director, agro-processing group — Kano

Let’s talk about your business.

Tell us where your company is and where you want it to go. We will tell you plainly what legal work is needed, what it costs, and how long it takes.

Office14 Adeola Odeku Street, Victoria Island, Lagos
Suite 302, Bricks Plaza, Wuse II, Abuja
Phone+234 801 234 5678
Emailhello@siratlegal.com
HoursMonday to Friday, 9:00am – 6:00pm WAT
Saturday consultations by appointment

Send us a message

Share a short summary of what you need and we will come back to you within one business day.

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Practice areas

Six areas of work, one commercial team. Below is what each practice covers, the questions clients usually bring us, and how an engagement with Sirat Legal actually runs — from first call to closed file. Fundraising and venture capital is set out in full: investment readiness, legal due diligence, data room build, term sheet negotiation and every capitalisation event from pre-seed to IPO.

Book a consultationHow engagements work

Corporate & Commercial Law

The everyday legal work of running a company — the contracts you sign, the arrangements between owners, and the transactions that change the shape of the business.

Most of our corporate work starts with a document that is already on the table: a supply agreement a customer has sent over, a shareholders' arrangement being negotiated between founders, or a due diligence pack for an acquisition. We review it against how your business actually operates, then negotiate the terms that carry real risk rather than the ones that merely look unfamiliar.

For companies with more than one owner, we put the governance in place early — a shareholders' agreement that says what happens on deadlock, on exit, on a new investor coming in. It is far cheaper to draft that document than to litigate it later.

What we handle

  • Commercial contracts: supply, distribution, agency, services, manufacturing and joint ventures
  • Shareholders' agreements, share purchase and share subscription documentation
  • Board and corporate governance frameworks, delegations and board charters
  • Mergers, acquisitions and disposals, including due diligence and completion mechanics
  • Group restructuring, holding company structures and intra-group arrangements
  • Commercial dispute strategy and settlement negotiation

Typical clients: trading companies, manufacturers, service businesses and family-owned groups with contracts that need to hold up.

Fundraising & Venture Capital

We get founders investment ready, carry them through legal due diligence, build the data room from scratch, and negotiate the term sheet — from pre-seed and seed rounds to Series A, later growth rounds, IPO and every capitalisation event in between.

Raising money is a legal project long before it is a commercial one. Investors buy clean structures: a cap table that reconciles to the share register, founder agreements that are actually signed, intellectual property assigned to the company rather than sitting with a contractor, corporate records complete and consistent. We prepare founders before the first investor meeting, so that diligence stops being a source of delay and the negotiation stays where it belongs — on valuation, terms and control.

Our work starts with an investment readiness review. We read the company the way an investor's counsel will read it: incorporation documents, share allotments and transfers, board and shareholder resolutions, the statutory registers, material contracts, employment and consultancy arrangements, IP ownership, data protection posture, regulatory licences and any outstanding disputes. What we find becomes a remediation plan with owners and dates, and we clear the issues before they are discovered by someone else.

From there we build the data room from scratch. Not a folder of loose PDFs, but an indexed, disclosure-ready set of documents organised the way a diligence checklist expects — corporate, capitalisation, financial, commercial, intellectual property, employment, regulatory, litigation and tax — with a disclosure schedule that protects you against warranty claims later. We run the diligence process itself: responding to the investor's request list, managing the Q&A log, controlling what is disclosed and on what terms, and keeping the timetable moving.

On the deal we work the term sheet line by line and explain what each clause costs you in practice, not just in theory: liquidation preference and whether it is participating, anti-dilution and which flavour, board composition and observer rights, protective provisions, information and inspection rights, pro-rata and pay-to-play, drag-along and tag-along, founder vesting and reverse vesting, and the representations, warranties and indemnities that survive closing. We negotiate the definitive documents — share subscription or share purchase agreements, shareholders' agreements, investor rights agreements, side letters and disclosure letters — and we run the closing: conditions precedent, waivers, filings, share issuance, stamping and the updated register.

We also act on the other side of the table, for angel investors, venture funds, family offices and syndicates, on their investment agreements, due diligence and portfolio documentation. That dual experience is why founders find our term sheet advice useful: we know which clauses an investor will actually insist on, and which are negotiable.

What we handle

  • Investment readiness reviews and remediation plans before you approach investors
  • Legal due diligence preparation and defence — responding to investor request lists and managing the Q&A log
  • Data room build from scratch: indexing, document review, gap analysis and disclosure schedules
  • Cap table design, founder share splits, vesting, cliffs and reverse vesting on investment
  • SAFEs, convertible notes, advance subscription agreements and pre-seed instruments
  • Term sheet review and negotiation, with a plain-language note on what each clause costs you
  • Priced equity rounds from pre-seed and seed through Series A, Series B and later growth rounds
  • Shareholders' agreements, investor rights, protective provisions and side letters
  • ESOP and employee share schemes, including scheme rules, allocations and trustee arrangements
  • Convertible and bridge rounds, extension rounds and insider-led rounds
  • Secondary sales, founder liquidity and early-investor exits
  • Debt, venture debt and revenue-based financing documentation alongside equity rounds
  • IPO and capital markets readiness: corporate clean-up, governance uplift, disclosure and prospectus support
  • Capitalisation events — rights issues, bonus issues, share splits, reorganisations and holding company structures
  • Mergers, acquisitions and acqui-hires, including earn-outs and completion mechanics
  • Investor-side diligence, investment agreements and fund documentation for angels, VCs and family offices

Typical clients: pre-seed and venture-backed startups, growth-stage companies preparing for institutional rounds, founders selling secondary, angel investors, venture funds, family offices, accelerators and incubators.

From pre-seed to IPO: the whole fundraising journey

Most founders come to us at one of two moments: just before a round they are not yet ready for, or in the middle of a diligence process that has stalled. Both are fixable, and both are cheaper to fix early.

We stay with a company across its whole life as a funded business. Pre-seed and seed work is about getting the foundations right — the founder split, the vesting schedule, the IP assignments, the first SAFE or convertible note, and a cap table that will still make sense after three more rounds. Series A and beyond is about institutional-grade documentation: a priced round with a proper shareholders' agreement, investor rights, board structure and governance that a fund's investment committee can approve.

As a company matures we handle the events that reshape its capital: bridge and extension rounds, insider-led rounds, venture debt alongside equity, secondary sales that give founders and early backers liquidity, ESOP expansions, and the reorganisations that tidy up a group before a larger raise. At the far end of that journey sits IPO and capital markets readiness — corporate clean-up, governance uplift, disclosure discipline and prospectus support — and the acquisition route, where we run the sell-side process, the data room, the warranties and the completion mechanics.

Whichever stage you are at, the same principle applies: the legal work should make the raise faster, not slower. We keep the documents clean, the timetable visible and the investor's questions answered before they are asked twice.

Founders and their advisers reviewing a fundraising plan together
Investment readiness, round by round — from the first SAFE to the last capitalisation event.

How a raise actually runs

Five stages, in this order. Skipping one is what turns a six-week round into a six-month one.

  1. Investment readiness

    We audit the company against an investor's diligence checklist: incorporation, share register, resolutions, material contracts, IP ownership, employment and contractor terms, data protection, licences and disputes. You get a written findings note and a remediation plan with owners and dates.

    We also pressure-test the story the documents tell. If the cap table does not match the register, or a founder's shares were never properly allotted, that is found here rather than in the investor's memo.

  2. Data room and due diligence

    We build the data room from scratch — indexed, complete and disclosure-ready — then run the diligence process: the investor's request list, the Q&A log, the disclosure schedule and the timetable. Nothing is disclosed without a view on what it means for your warranties.

    Where diligence raises an issue, we deal with it: a missing assignment, an unsigned contractor agreement, a licence that needs renewing, a shareholder consent that was never obtained.

  3. Term sheet and negotiation

    We review the term sheet line by line and give you a plain-language note on the economics and the control: valuation and pre-money, liquidation preference, anti-dilution, board seats and observers, protective provisions, information rights, pro-rata, drag and tag, and founder vesting.

    Then we negotiate. Our job is to get you terms you can live with for the next five years, not just terms you can sign this week.

  4. Definitive documents and closing

    Share subscription or share purchase agreements, shareholders' agreements, investor rights agreements, side letters, disclosure letters and the ancillary consents. We coordinate the other side's counsel, the company secretary and any regulator.

    At closing we run the conditions precedent, waivers, share issuance, filings and stamping, and update the statutory registers so the round is properly recorded.

  5. After the round

    Post-closing we keep the company investor-ready: the register maintained, board and shareholder resolutions documented, ESOP allocations recorded, information rights and reporting obligations diarised, and the next round's groundwork already in place.

    Where a company is heading for an IPO or a sale, we start the corporate clean-up and governance uplift well before the process begins.

Timelines depend on how clean the company is at the start. A prepared founder with a complete data room typically closes a seed round in six to ten weeks; an unprepared one takes considerably longer, and often at a worse price. Fees are quoted as a fixed project fee for the readiness and data room work, and as an agreed fee for the transaction itself.

Legal documents and diligence files being reviewed for an investment data room
A data room built the way a diligence checklist expects it.

What we put in your data room

We build the room from scratch and keep it current, so that the next raise — or the next acquisition approach — starts from a complete file rather than a scramble. Every document is reviewed before it goes in, and every gap is either filled or explained in the disclosure schedule.

  • Certificate of incorporation, constitution and any amendments
  • Statutory registers: members, directors, secretaries and charges
  • Board and shareholder resolutions, including all share allotments and transfers
  • Full capitalisation table reconciled to the register, with option pool detail
  • Founder agreements, vesting schedules and IP assignment deeds
  • Material contracts: customers, suppliers, distribution, agency and joint ventures
  • Employment, consultancy and contractor agreements, plus HR policies
  • Intellectual property schedule: trademarks, copyright, patents and licences
  • Data protection documentation, processor contracts and privacy notices
  • Regulatory licences, permits and correspondence with regulators
  • Litigation, disputes, claims and settlement history
  • Financial records, tax filings and any outstanding liabilities or guarantees

Also for investors: we act for angels, venture funds, family offices and syndicates on the other side — investment agreements, due diligence on the target, co-investment and syndicate documentation, and portfolio company governance.

Get investment ready

Intellectual Property & Creative Economy

Trademark registration, copyright protection and patent advice for the creative economy — your brand, your content, your inventions and your software.

Trademark registration is the most common gap we find. A business trades for years under a name it never registered, then discovers someone else has filed it. We run availability searches, file with the Nigerian trademark registry, respond to objections, and keep the registration alive through renewals. For creative businesses the same discipline applies to a stage name, a label mark, a collection name or a studio identity.

Copyright protection covers the work itself: songs, recordings, scripts, photographs, illustrations, designs, manuscripts and code. Copyright arises automatically, but ownership is a contracts problem. Employees, freelancers, producers, collaborators and agencies who create your work own it unless the paperwork says otherwise. We fix that with assignment and licence terms, register where registration helps, and audit what you already own before an investor, distributor or buyer asks.

Patent advice covers the inventions and technical processes behind a product. We run novelty searches, advise on what is genuinely patentable, prepare and file applications, and structure the technology transfer and licensing arrangements that let an invention earn.

What we handle

  • Trademark searches, filing, prosecution and renewals in Nigeria and through foreign agents
  • Oppositions, objections and brand enforcement, including takedown requests and cease-and-desist letters
  • Copyright ownership, registration strategy, content and software licensing, and royalty arrangements
  • Patent and industrial design applications, novelty searches and technology transfer
  • IP assignment from founders, employees, freelancers, producers, agencies and collaborators
  • Licensing, franchising, distribution and merchandising arrangements
  • IP due diligence for fundraising, investment, catalogue deals and sale of a business

Typical clients: recording artists and labels, filmmakers and production companies, fashion and design brands, authors and publishers, agencies, game studios, software companies and any business whose value sits in its name or its work.

Business Formation, Licences & Permits

As a CAC accredited agent we register the entity, then procure every licence, permit and approval the business needs to trade — swiftly, and with the post-incorporation support that keeps it compliant afterwards.

We are an accredited agent of the Corporate Affairs Commission, which means we file directly rather than through a queue of intermediaries. That is the difference between a registration that takes days and one that takes weeks: name reservation, incorporation, the certified true copies, the TIN and the bank documentation all move on the same file, handled by one team that knows exactly what the Commission will ask for.

Formation is only the first step. A company that is properly incorporated but unlicensed cannot trade, and a company that is licensed but never files falls out of good standing. So we map the whole picture before you commit to a launch date — the sector regulator, the state and local permits, the statutory filings — and we keep it current afterwards.

What we handle

  • Company, business name and incorporated trustee registration with the CAC
  • Post-incorporation filings: share capital changes, directors, registered address, annual returns
  • Sector licences and regulatory approvals across financial services, food, health, logistics and education
  • State and local government permits, including signage, premises and trade permits
  • Foreign investment entry structures, expatriate quota and business permits
  • Statutory registers, minute books and compliance calendars

Typical clients: new companies, foreign investors entering Nigeria, and established businesses expanding into a regulated line of work.

Company registration services

Everything a CAC accredited agent is mandated to do for a business, from the first name search to the filings that keep the entity in good standing.

Name search and reservation

We run the availability search, advise on a name that will clear the Commission's rules on similarity and restricted words, and reserve it so the incorporation can proceed.

Where a proposed name is likely to be rejected, we say so before you build a brand around it.

Limited company incorporation

Private companies limited by shares, companies limited by guarantee and public companies — memorandum and articles, share capital and shareholding structure, directors and secretary, registered address.

We draft the constitution so it fits the business you are actually running, not a template.

Business name registration

For sole traders, partnerships and trading names — the registration that lets a small business open a corporate bank account and invoice under its own name.

We advise when a business name is enough and when you should incorporate instead.

Incorporated trustees

Registration of churches, mosques, associations, clubs, foundations and NGOs as incorporated trustees, including the constitution, the trustees and the application to the Commission.

We also handle the changes of trustees that follow.

Post-incorporation filings

Change of directors, secretary or registered address; increase in share capital; allotment and transfer of shares; change of name; and the annual returns every company must file.

Filed on time, so the company never drifts out of good standing.

Certified true copies and records

Certified true copies of the certificate of incorporation and filed documents, status reports, and the statutory registers — members, directors, secretaries and charges — maintained and up to date.

The documents banks, regulators and investors ask for, ready when they ask.

TIN, bank account and launch set-up

Tax identification number, the documentation a bank needs to open the corporate account, and the practical steps that turn a certificate into a trading business.

We coordinate with your bank and accountant rather than leaving you to join the dots.

SCUML registration

Registration with the Special Control Unit against Money Laundering, required of designated non-financial businesses and professions — and a condition banks and regulators now routinely ask for.

We prepare the application, the ownership and control information and the internal compliance documents, and we file it.

Also available: re-registration and regularisation of companies whose records have lapsed, conversion of a business name into a limited company, and reconstruction of lost or incomplete statutory records.

Licences, permits and regulatory approvals

A company is only as useful as the approvals it holds. These are the licences we procure and renew for clients across Nigeria's regulated sectors.

  • NAFDAC registration

    Product registration for food, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices, packaged water and herbal products, plus the labelling and documentation the agency requires.

  • PENCOM compliance

    Registration as an employer, the Contributory Pension Scheme set-up, group life insurance and the remittance and reporting obligations that follow.

  • Oil and gas licences

    Department of Petroleum Resources and Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission approvals, downstream and upstream permits, and the local content documentation service companies need.

  • Financial services approvals

    Central Bank of Nigeria and Securities and Exchange Commission applications — money lenders, bureau de change, payment services, fund managers and capital market operators.

  • NDPC and data compliance

    Registration with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission, data controller and processor filings, and the audit returns required of organisations processing personal data.

  • Sector and professional permits

    Health facility and pharmacy licences, education and school approvals, SON and MANCAP product certification, and professional council registrations.

  • Immigration and expatriate quota

    Expatriate quota approval, business permits, residence permits and the immigration documentation that lets a foreign-owned company bring its own team into Nigeria.

  • State and local government permits

    Trade and business premises permits, signage and outdoor advertising approvals, fire and environmental certificates, and the levies each state and local council imposes.

  • Tax and statutory registrations

    TIN and VAT registration, withholding tax and PAYE set-up with the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the relevant state internal revenue service.

Licences carry renewal dates, conditions and reporting obligations. We diarise every one of them, file the renewals before they lapse, and tell you what a regulator will ask for next — so a licence never becomes the reason a contract or a payment stalls.

Foreign investors meeting Nigerian advisers about setting up a company in Nigeria
From entity selection to a working bank account and a team on the ground.

Setting up in Nigeria as a foreign investor

Nigeria permits wholly foreign-owned companies, and the entry route is well established — but it is a sequence, and the sequence matters. Choose the wrong vehicle, or register the company before the capital is imported, and you create a problem that is expensive to unwind later.

We take foreign founders, funds and corporates through it end to end: the right entity for what you intend to do here, the incorporation itself, the capital importation and certificate that lets you repatriate later, the tax registrations, and the immigration work that puts your own people in the country legally.

We also act for foreign companies that need a Nigerian presence without a full subsidiary — branch registration, representative arrangements and the contracts that support them.

  • Entity selection: subsidiary, branch, joint venture or representative office
  • Incorporation of a wholly foreign-owned company with the CAC
  • Capital importation, certificate of capital importation and repatriation planning
  • Business permit and expatriate quota approval
  • Residence permits, visas and immigration documentation for your team
  • Sector approvals a foreign-owned entity needs before it can trade
  • Bank account opening and the documentation Nigerian banks require
  • Shareholder agreements, joint ventures and local partnership structures
  • Tax registration, transfer pricing posture and treaty considerations
  • Ongoing compliance and company secretarial support after you are trading

Typical clients: foreign founders entering the Nigerian market, international groups incorporating a subsidiary, investors taking a stake in a Nigerian company, and diaspora businesses setting up at home.

Start your Nigerian entity

Post-incorporation and regulatory compliance

Registration is a moment; compliance is a habit. We stay on the file after the certificate is issued, so the business never has to remember a deadline on its own.

Filings and statutory records

Annual returns, changes of directors and address, share allotments and transfers, and the statutory registers kept complete and reconciled. We file on time and keep the records an investor or regulator will ask to see.

Licence renewals and reporting

Every licence we procure is diarised with its renewal date and its reporting obligations. We prepare the renewal, chase the regulator and confirm the approval — before the expiry date, not after.

A compliance calendar you can see

One schedule covering CAC filings, tax returns, pension remittances, sector regulator returns and licence renewals, with the owner and the date against each. You know what is due and who is doing it.

Post-incorporation support is available as a one-off clean-up or as an ongoing monthly retainer, alongside our company secretarial packages. Where a company has already fallen behind, we regularise the position first and then keep it current.

Data Privacy & Technology Law

Compliance under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, and the contracts behind every platform, app and vendor you rely on.

If you hold customer data, you have obligations: a lawful basis for processing, a privacy notice people can understand, contracts with every processor, a register of processing activities, and a route for handling a breach. We build that as a working programme rather than a document that sits in a drawer, and we train the team that has to follow it.

On the technology side, we draft and negotiate the agreements that keep a product running — SaaS subscriptions, software development and maintenance, hosting, payment processing, reseller and API arrangements — with attention to service levels, data ownership and termination.

What we handle

  • NDPA compliance programmes, gap assessments and remediation plans
  • Privacy notices, consent frameworks, cookie policies and internal data policies
  • Data processing agreements, cross-border transfer mechanisms and vendor terms
  • Data breach response, regulator engagement and notification procedures
  • SaaS, software development, hosting, payment and reseller agreements
  • Technology licensing, API terms, service levels and escrow arrangements

Typical clients: fintechs, health and education providers, e-commerce platforms, and any business processing personal data at scale.

Employment, Labour & Islamic Finance

The people side of the business, and Shariah-compliant structures for companies that raise or lend without interest.

Employment work is mostly about getting the paperwork right before there is a problem. Contracts that match the role, a staff handbook that sets out expectations, policies on leave, discipline and remote work, and a clean process for exits. When a dispute does arise, we handle the negotiation, the internal process and the representation before the relevant tribunal.

Our Islamic finance practice sits alongside it. We structure non-interest facilities, sukuk, murabaha and ijara arrangements, and review the underlying contracts so the transaction is defensible on both the Shariah and the commercial side. Clients often come to us because they need a firm that can hold both conversations at once.

What we handle

  • Employment contracts, consultancy and independent contractor agreements
  • Staff handbooks, HR policies, disciplinary and grievance procedures
  • Redundancy, restructuring and exit negotiations, including settlement agreements
  • Workplace disputes, mediation and representation before the National Industrial Court
  • Non-interest finance structures: murabaha, ijara, musharakah and sukuk
  • Shariah review of contracts and advisory opinions for Islamic finance transactions

Typical clients: employers with growing teams, and businesses raising or lending on a non-interest basis.

How engagements work

Every matter follows the same four steps. You know the scope, the fee and the lawyer responsible before any work begins.

  1. First conversation

    A 30-minute call or meeting, at no cost, to understand the business and the problem. You leave with a view on whether you need a lawyer at all, and what the work would involve.

  2. Scope and fee proposal

    We send a short engagement letter: what we will do, what we will not, who is doing it, the timeline, and the fee. Project work is quoted as a fixed fee; ongoing work is quoted as a monthly retainer. Nothing starts until you approve it in writing.

  3. Delivery with a named lawyer

    One lawyer owns your file from start to finish and is your point of contact throughout. Drafts come with a plain-language note explaining the commercial points and the decisions we need from you.

  4. Handover and aftercare

    You receive the executed documents, a short summary of what was agreed, and any dates you need to diarise. Where a matter creates ongoing obligations, we can move you onto a retainer so they are tracked rather than remembered.

Project engagements

A defined piece of work with a fixed fee agreed in advance — a contract to negotiate, a company to incorporate, a trademark to file, a round to close. Best when the work has a clear end.

Monthly retainers

An agreed number of hours each month with a named lawyer on call, covering whatever comes up. Best for companies that need regular input rather than a single transaction.

Company secretarial subscriptions

Our Basic, Premium and Executive packages hand the statutory work — filings, registers, resolutions and deadlines — to a dedicated company secretary. Details are on the home page.

Fees are quoted in naira and exclude statutory filing charges and third-party disbursements, which are always itemised before they are incurred. Retainers can be upgraded, paused or cancelled with one month's notice.

Not sure which area your matter falls under?

Describe it in a sentence or two and we will tell you plainly what is involved, who would handle it, and what it is likely to cost.

Book a consultationCall +234 801 234 5678

Team

Sirat Legal is a small firm by design. Every matter is handled by a named lawyer who knows your business, and the person you meet in the first conversation is the person who signs off the final document.

Book a consultationSee our practice areas

How we are organised

  • Six lawyers, one commercial team
  • One named lawyer owns your file end to end
  • Direct lines — no call centre, no queue
  • Nigerian qualified, with cross-border counsel on call

Who you will work with

Our lawyers come from a mix of in-house, regulatory and private practice backgrounds. That matters more than it sounds: a lawyer who has sat inside a company reads a contract differently from one who has only ever argued about it afterwards.

We keep the team deliberately small so that advice stays joined up. If your fundraising documents touch your cap table, your employment contracts and your data processing agreements, one lawyer sees all three — and you are not paying three people to learn your business from scratch.

2014

Firm founded in Lagos

6

Lawyers and counsel

300+

Matters handled to date

48h

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The lawyers

Each profile sets out what that lawyer does day to day, the work they are known for, and the sectors they know best.

Abdulrahman Bello

Managing Partner · Corporate & Commercial

Abdulrahman founded the firm in 2014 after a decade split between a Lagos commercial practice and the legal team of a listed manufacturing group. He leads the corporate and commercial practice, and he is the lawyer most often on the other side of a negotiation table from a large company's in-house counsel.

His work is concentrated on the documents that define a business: shareholders' agreements, acquisitions, group restructurings and the commercial contracts that carry the most risk. He is a steady hand in a difficult negotiation and is known for telling clients plainly when a deal is not worth doing.

Areas of expertise

  • Mergers & acquisitions
  • Shareholders' agreements
  • Corporate governance
  • Commercial contracts
  • Group restructuring

Sectors: manufacturing, trading, family-owned groups

Languages: English, Hausa, Arabic

Zainab Adeyemi

Partner · Startup Advisory & Venture Capital

Zainab advises founders from the first term sheet to the later rounds. She spent four years as counsel to an early-stage venture fund before joining the firm, which means she has sat on both sides of a financing and knows exactly what an investor's diligence list is looking for.

She is the person founders call before they sign anything. Her practice covers cap table design, SAFEs and convertible notes, priced rounds, ESOPs and investor-side documentation. She also runs our founder education sessions on equity, vesting and what a term sheet actually costs.

Areas of expertise

  • Seed to Series A rounds
  • Term sheet negotiation
  • Cap table & vesting
  • ESOP design
  • Investor diligence

Sectors: fintech, software, consumer brands, venture funds

Languages: English, Yoruba

Ibrahim Okonkwo

Partner · Intellectual Property & Technology

Ibrahim handles trademarks, copyright and the licensing arrangements behind products and platforms. He has filed and prosecuted several hundred marks with the Nigerian registry and manages foreign filings through a network of agents in West Africa and the UK.

A large part of his practice is fixing ownership that was never documented — the logo a freelancer designed, the code a contractor wrote, the content an agency produced. He audits what a business actually owns, then puts the assignments and licences in place before an investor or buyer asks the question.

Areas of expertise

  • Trademark filing & prosecution
  • Brand enforcement
  • Copyright & licensing
  • IP assignment
  • Technology transfer

Sectors: media, creative, software, consumer goods

Languages: English, Igbo

Fatima Suleiman

Senior Associate · Data Privacy & Regulatory

Fatima builds data protection programmes that companies can actually run. She has led NDPA compliance work for fintechs, health providers and e-commerce platforms, and she is usually the lawyer on the call when a regulator has written to a client.

Her practice covers gap assessments, privacy notices, processing registers, processor contracts and cross-border transfer mechanisms. She also handles breach response, including notification procedure and engagement with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission. She trains the internal teams who have to live with the policy afterwards.

Areas of expertise

  • NDPA compliance
  • Data processing agreements
  • Breach response
  • Regulatory engagement
  • Privacy training

Sectors: fintech, health, education, e-commerce

Languages: English, Hausa, French

Yusuf Danjuma

Senior Associate · Employment & Islamic Finance

Yusuf advises employers on the whole life of a working relationship — contracts, handbooks, discipline, restructuring and exits. He represents clients before the National Industrial Court and has a particular interest in getting the internal process right before a dispute ever reaches a tribunal.

He also leads our Islamic finance work, structuring non-interest facilities, murabaha, ijara and sukuk arrangements, and reviewing the underlying contracts so a transaction stands up on both the Shariah and the commercial side. Clients value having one lawyer who can hold both conversations.

Areas of expertise

  • Employment contracts
  • HR policy & handbooks
  • Redundancy & exits
  • Non-interest finance
  • Shariah review

Sectors: employers with growing teams, Islamic finance, cooperatives

Languages: English, Hausa, Arabic

Chidinma Nwosu

Associate · Business Formation & Company Secretarial

Chidinma runs incorporation, licensing and the statutory filings that keep a company in good standing. She handles CAC registrations, post-incorporation changes, sector licences and the state and local permits that a new premises or a new line of work will require.

She is also the company secretary behind our Basic, Premium and Executive retainers, keeping registers, resolutions, annual returns and compliance calendars up to date. Foreign investors work with her on entity selection, entry structures and expatriate quota.

Areas of expertise

  • CAC incorporation
  • Sector licensing
  • Statutory filings
  • Company secretarial
  • Foreign investment entry

Sectors: new companies, foreign investors, regulated sectors

Languages: English, Igbo

How we work together

Three habits shape how the team operates, and they are the reason clients stay with us past the first transaction.

  • One lawyer, start to finish. The lawyer who takes your first call owns the file. No handovers to a junior you have never met, and no re-explaining your business halfway through.
  • Plain-language advice. Every draft comes with a short note setting out the commercial points and the decisions we need from you, in the order you need to make them.
  • Fees agreed before work starts. Project work is quoted as a fixed fee, ongoing work as a monthly retainer. Nothing begins until you have approved the engagement letter in writing.
Sirat Legal lawyers in discussion around a meeting table in the firm's Lagos office
Weekly matter review at the Victoria Island office

Want to speak to a particular lawyer?

Tell us what the matter is and we will put you in front of the right person, with a view on scope and cost before you commit to anything.

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Islamic finance advisory

Shariah-compliant, interest-free finance for Nigerian businesses. Sirat Legal advises on Islamic finance contracts, structures non-interest facilities, and works with non-interest banks, Islamic windows and development finance institutions to help SMEs raise interest-free capital.

Book a consultationSee the contracts we advise on

Interest-free finance, built on real assets and shared risk

Islamic finance is a way of financing a business without charging or paying interest. Instead of lending money at a rate, a Shariah-compliant transaction is built on a real asset, a real trade or a genuine partnership — and the return to the financier comes from that underlying activity rather than from the passage of time.

That distinction matters commercially, not just religiously. Because every Islamic finance transaction has to be tied to an identifiable asset or venture, the documentation is usually more specific than a conventional loan: what is being bought, who owns it and when, what happens if the asset is not delivered, and how profit and loss are shared. Getting that structure right at the outset is what makes a facility bankable, defensible and acceptable to a Shariah board.

Sirat Legal advises SMEs, cooperatives, founders and financial institutions on both sides of that work. We structure the transaction, review the contracts, and stay involved through Shariah review, documentation and drawdown — so the facility is sound on the Shariah side and on the commercial side at the same time.

  • No riba (interest). Profit is earned from trade, leasing, partnership or services, never from money lent for money.
  • No gharar (excessive uncertainty). The asset, the price, the timing and the obligations are all made certain in the contract.
  • No haram activity. The underlying business must itself be permissible — no alcohol, gambling, conventional interest-bearing finance or similar lines.
  • Risk is shared. In partnership structures the financier takes a genuine share of the risk, not a guaranteed return.
Business advisers reviewing an asset-backed finance agreement across a table
Structuring, Shariah review and documentation for interest-free facilities.

Forms of Islamic finance contracts we advise on

Islamic finance is not one product but a family of contract types. Each suits a different commercial need — a purchase, a lease, a partnership, a project or a deposit. We advise on the full range, and we will tell you plainly which one fits your transaction.

Murabaha

Cost-plus sale

The financier buys the asset you need and sells it to you at a disclosed mark-up, payable in instalments. The most widely used structure for equipment, stock and working capital, and the one most SMEs meet first.

Ijara

Leasing

The financier owns the asset and leases it to you for a rental over an agreed term. Ownership stays with the financier, who carries the risks of ownership — useful for vehicles, plant, machinery and premises.

Musharakah

Joint partnership

You and the financier both contribute capital to a venture and share profit in an agreed ratio and loss in proportion to capital. The backbone of project finance and diminishing-ownership home and asset finance.

Mudarabah

Profit-sharing investment

One party provides the capital, the other provides the management and expertise. Profit is shared on a pre-agreed ratio; financial loss falls on the capital provider unless the manager was negligent.

Musawamah

Negotiated sale

A straightforward sale at a price negotiated between the parties, without disclosing the seller's cost. Used where the mark-up need not be itemised, and common in commodity and trade transactions.

Salam

Forward purchase

Full payment now for goods to be delivered at a future date on specified terms. Suits agriculture and commodity supply chains, where the producer needs capital before the harvest or the delivery.

Istisna

Manufacture or construction

An order to manufacture, build or construct something to specification, with payment staged against progress. The natural structure for construction, fabrication and bespoke manufacturing.

Ijarah wa iqtina

Lease ending in ownership

An ijara lease combined with a promise to transfer ownership to the lessee at the end of the term, or through a series of increasing equity payments. Asset finance that ends with you owning the asset.

Sukuk

Asset-backed investment certificates

Certificates representing ownership in a tangible asset, project or venture, paying a return from the income that asset generates. The Islamic capital-markets instrument for larger raises.

Takaful

Cooperative insurance

Mutual protection in which participants contribute to a pooled fund that pays claims, rather than transferring risk to an insurer for a premium. The Shariah-compliant alternative to conventional insurance.

Qard hasan

Benevolent loan

An interest-free loan repaid in the same amount borrowed, with no return to the lender. Used for welfare, bridging and employee support, and often paired with a fee-bearing structure elsewhere.

Structures are frequently combined — a murabaha working-capital line alongside an ijara for equipment, or a musharakah project vehicle funded by sukuk. We map the whole financing, not just the single contract in front of us.

Raising interest-free capital for SMEs

An SME that wants to raise without interest has to approach a different set of institutions from the ones it already knows. We work with those institutions regularly, which means we know what each of them needs to see before a facility can be approved — and we prepare your file to meet it.

Our role is to sit between the business and the financier: translating your commercial plan into a Shariah-compliant structure, assembling the documentation the credit and Shariah committees will ask for, and negotiating the terms so the cost of the facility is clear before you commit.

  • Non-interest banks. Full-fledged Islamic banks licensed to take deposits and extend finance on a Shariah-compliant basis.
  • Islamic windows. Dedicated Shariah-compliant divisions within institutions, with their own products and Shariah governance.
  • Windows of conventional banks. Conventional banks operating ring-fenced Islamic finance desks — often the most accessible route for a first non-interest facility.
  • Development finance institutions. DFIs and multilateral lenders funding SMEs, agriculture, infrastructure and job creation, several of which run dedicated non-interest windows.
  • Funds and investors. Islamic funds, cooperative and thrift societies, and private investors seeking Shariah-compliant deployment of capital.

Typical clients: SMEs raising working capital or asset finance without interest, cooperatives and thrift societies, agro-processing and manufacturing businesses, project sponsors, and institutions building out a Shariah-compliant product.

Advisers and business owners reviewing financial documents at a meeting table
Preparing an SME's file for a non-interest facility.

Stages of a facility

From the first structuring conversation to the day funds are drawn, a non-interest facility moves through five stages. You know where your matter sits at every point, and what is needed to move it forward.

  1. Structuring

    We work out which contract type fits the need — murabaha, ijara, musharakah or a combination — and how the transaction will be documented. This is where the commercial shape of the facility is decided, before anything is committed.

  2. Funding readiness

    We prepare the business to be financed: financial statements and projections, corporate records, security and collateral, licences, and the ownership documents a financier will want to see. A file that is ready moves through credit far faster.

  3. Shariah review

    The proposed structure goes to the financier's Shariah board or adviser for approval. We prepare the submission, answer the questions that come back, and adjust the structure where the board requires it — so the facility is approved on the Shariah side as well as the credit side.

  4. Documentation

    We draft and negotiate the facility agreement, the underlying sale, lease or partnership contracts, security documents and guarantees. Every clause is explained in plain terms, and the cost of the facility is set out clearly before signature.

  5. Drawdown

    Conditions precedent are satisfied, security is perfected, and funds are released. We handle the completion mechanics and the post-completion filings, and stay available for the ongoing obligations the facility creates.

Timelines vary with the financier and the complexity of the structure. A straightforward murabaha for working capital can move in a matter of weeks; a project musharakah or a sukuk issue takes longer. We give you a realistic timetable at the structuring stage rather than an optimistic one.

What clients need to prepare

Most delays in a non-interest facility come from documentation that was never assembled, not from the structure itself. If you have the following ready before we approach a financier, the process moves considerably faster.

  • Corporate documents. Certificate of incorporation, status report, memorandum and articles, and current statutory filings.
  • Ownership and governance. Share register, directors' and shareholders' resolutions authorising the facility, and the signatories who will execute.
  • Financial information. Audited or management accounts, bank statements, and a projection showing how the facility is repaid from the business's own cash flow.
  • The commercial case. A short written description of what the capital is for, what it will earn, and the timeline over which it will be deployed.
  • Asset detail. For asset-backed structures, the specification, supplier, price and delivery terms of the asset being financed.
  • Security and collateral. What you can offer — a charge, a guarantee, a personal or corporate surety — and the documents that support it.
  • Regulatory and sector licences. Any licence or permit your line of business requires, plus tax clearance and evidence of good standing.
  • Shariah parameters. Any restrictions your own Shariah adviser or board has set, so the structure is built within them from the start.

If some of this is missing, that is not a reason to wait. We will tell you what is essential for your particular facility and help you put the rest in place.

How we charge

Structuring and documentation work is quoted as a fixed fee once we understand the transaction, so you know the cost before we begin. Where a facility creates ongoing obligations, we can move you onto a retainer so they are tracked rather than remembered.

Who handles it

Our Islamic finance work is led by a senior associate who also advises on employment and commercial matters, supported by the firm's corporate team. One lawyer owns your file from the first structuring call to drawdown.

Book a consultation

Raising capital without interest?

Tell us what the finance is for and how much you need. We will tell you plainly which structure fits, which institutions to approach, and what the facility is likely to cost.

Book a consultationCall +234 801 234 5678