The Diplomatic Route

As a teenager, Sheri Oluyemi moved from an all-girls boarding school in Abuja, Nigeria, to a co-ed public school in Ottawa, Canada, and quickly adjusted to her new surroundings. “It should have been a bigger shock,” says Oluyemi, an employment attorney with a solo firm in Atlanta. “I guess I’m predisposed to change.”

Of course, by then, she’d already lived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Belgrade, Yugoslavia; and Lagos, Nigeria. And yes, world geography buffs, those are all current or former national capitals. She and her three siblings moved to these places because their father, Audu-Rafiu Olusola Enikanolaiye, was an ambassador for the Nigerian government.

“He has been posted all around the world—except for South America—and when we were little we would travel with him, until we ended up in Ottawa,” she says. “He decided, ‘Here’s a country with good schools,’ so at that point we ceased to travel with him.”

The moment of culture shock she does remember came earlier, when, after years of studying at International School of Belgrade, the family returned to Abuja and she was sent to that all-girls boarding school. “I had this weird accent, and I couldn’t eat the food because it was too spicy, and I couldn’t speak Yoruba, which is my native language,” she says. “That caused a bit of a stir.”

But she forged ahead. “I just got used to adjusting—studying to become competent at whatever I needed to do,” she says.

Oluyemi now brings that broad perspective, along with a diplomat’s sensibility, to her employment law practice. “Diplomats frequently have to go and advocate for an investment in the country—I know my dad does this a lot—because that’s where you generate jobs,” she says. “Mediations, it’s the same thing, trying to get concessions from the other side. Of course, there are two ways: You can rattle your sword and say, ‘I’ll see you in court,’ or you can go the diplomatic route and find common ground to come to a resolution.”

Her tendency is toward the latter. “That’s just my personality—and also an acknowledgement of the reality that the case will resolve at some point. It’s true the case is not always ripe for resolution at the beginning. Some discovery may be necessary. You may need to prevail on summary judgment before you have a strong position to negotiate. But like a diplomat, I never give up on keeping the dialogue open until I have no choice. And either the other side’s unresponsive, or I found the other side to be dishonest, at which point you have to rattle your sword to keep the case moving.”

In employment law, Oluyemi reps both plaintiffs/employees and management/defense, which she feels gives her an even wider perspective. “I find that when I deal with counsel that represent only plaintiffs, or only defense, they have tunnel vision,” she says. “They don’t see a lot of the gaps in their case.”

So how did a diplomat’s daughter wind up in law? “It was really just a practical discussion with my dad,” she says. “I have two sisters: one is a medical doctor, the other is a Ph.D. in cellular molecular medicine, and the sciences were just not for me. So we talked about my strengths, and really, I think law was a perfect fit.”

Atlanta, her husband’s hometown, has been a good fit, too. “I don’t know many other cities where I could have opened up my own practice, without any experience in the U.S., and been able to have people call me and trust me with their legal issues,” she says.

She continues to travel—even during the pandemic. “Travel is like a bug,” she says. “You get a little bit, and you’re just bitten. I want to travel more. I want to see other cultures. I want to learn other languages. I speak a little Yoruba now. My French is passable. My children are learning Spanish in school, and I’m hoping they will teach me.” 

She also hopes to open a firm in Toronto one day to support the Atlanta office. “I’m not aware of such a firm—a solo who can cover two countries,” she says. “I’m not through with the international aspect of my past. I’d like it to be part of my future, and my practice.”