Every creator needs a lawyer —Precious Omoregie

By Christy Anyanwu

Precious Omoregie is a lawyer, content creator, actor, influencer and model, among other things. She opened her law practice after years of litigation and working in the fashion and beauty industry. She said she focuses on corporate and contract law because of the absence of intellectual protection for many creators and the predatory attitude of some clients in the industry who take advantage of creators. In this interview, she talked about her passion for beauty, her experience modelling for multinational brands and her career as a content creator and lawyer.

Who exactly is Precious Omoregie? What do you do that makes you stand out?

I am a lawyer. I call myself the creators’ barrister. Because, prior to me being a lawyer, I used to be a digital creator. I used to make beauty content, teach people how to do their makeup, how to do their hair, whiten teeth and go to beauty and aesthetic places. I love beauty, everything beautiful, clothes, fashion, everything. I love it.

I used to do that. And when I got called to the bar, I was taking a lot of gigs about things like this. And I learned the hard way.

When I started practising, I first started off in finance, going to court, litigation and all that. After a while, in 2020, I got called in 2017, I realised that I needed to start my own practice to protect people like myself who loved beauty and had a lot of deals. I’m in front of the camera, I’m in the public, and people tend to take pictures and videos to promote their services. And they in turn had got to use me a lot.

So, imagine I do a video for one brand. I’m a celebrity, I make a video for them and they pay me.

But some people don’t pay and they’ll just say, you know, we’ll give you service instead, pay in kind. And they use that video for years to make money. And I’m just there not getting anything.

I had to learn the hard way. I learned a lot about intellectual property (IP) protection. About protecting your intellectual property as a creator. I also learnt from the entertainment industry what is needed.

I used to give legal advice. So I had to learn more legal aspects about entertainment and IP protection. I eventually stopped litigation to focus on corporate law, intellectual property protection and everything to do with content creation, protection and contract drafting.

Then I started my own practice, which is O&P Solicitors. Our core strength is compliance, commercial law, corporate governance and IP protection for creatives like myself.

So that’s why my trademark name is the Creatives’ Barrister, meaning that every creator needs a barrister, which is me.

Do you go to court?

Oh, yes, I go to court. When I got called to bar, I was going to court for garnishing proceedings, divorce and so on. I did that for the first two years.

And then I started learning more about contract drafting. And I was like, oh, my God, I want to protect people, because that’s where the money is. Litigation is for the love of law, but contract law is for the love of money.

And I figured, oh, this is something that I have a flair for. And it was a sector that I was fully invested in. So it’s not just me being a lawyer.

I was dealing with contracts from people that wanted me to influence for them. And even when people didn’t want me to influence for them, I learnt that I had to give them a contract to control how they did business with me, how they used my image and my likeness to promote their service.

Do you see yourself as a model? Have you ever modelled?

Oh, yes, I have. I used to model. I modelled for some brands from Turkey, and Nigerian brands too. And that was one of the things that spurred me into wanting to learn more about this because I had a lot of companies reaching out to me from Turkey.

They sent me thousands of clothes to model. And I would just model. There was no contract.

Free of charge. They would pay me a token to model. But the clothes were free.

My mother then had back-to-back clothes. I’m talking about 2019 to 2021. And then it got out of hand. They would pay me like N1,000 per outfit. And imagine you model 200 outfits a month. That’s sweet money.

But then I realised that something was off. People would call me to say, I’m in London. I’m seeing your pictures on billboards.

I was like, wait, what? How is that possible? They didn’t pay me to use my images on billboards. At first, it was cute. Oh, you’re popular.

Then I realised that it was not really cute. This is them really using me. You know, even in Turkey, they had a whole catalogue of me.

People would take pictures, even makeup artists would take pictures of my face and put it on their flyers outside.

And I’m like, this has to stop. So I put my foot down and sent a letter to everyone: Take down my pictures from your posts.

If you want to have my pictures on anything, you have to pay me for usage. This is my image. This is my likeness. You need to take it down.

As a matter of fact, you are very cute. What did you do to attain this shape?

I recently lost a whole lot of weight. I used to be way fatter than this. I’ve lost half of my size.

What was your size?

I was like size 16, 18. And now I’m 14.

I lost a lot of weight. I started off using medication, Trizepatide. It’s a weight loss medication.

I was injecting it and I lost a lot of weight. Remember I told you I have a flair for beauty. So I’m not the kind of person that would say, oh, because I’m a lawyer, I don’t want to do makeup.

I don’t need to look beautiful. Anything that is going to make me look the best version of myself, count me in. I was in America and I got introduced to the medication.

It’s like Ozempic but a better version that is given by a doctor, in America. You inject yourself and you stop eating. You eat once a day and lose weight. I have stopped using it now for like three months.

Are there any side effects?

No side effects. I’ve checked my kidneys. Everything is perfect. I’m in perfect health.

What kind of fashion do you like most?

I do all types of fashion. I still create content, even as a lawyer, I still create a lot of content.