Africa Legal Podcast

Mozambique offers investors a wealth of opportunities and in this week’s podcast Africa Legal’s Tom Pearson speaks to two lawyers who understand this unique but largely unknown investment landscape inside and out. Zara Jamal is a partner with Abreu Advogados and its Mozambican associate firm, JLA Advogados, based in Maputo, while Ana Sofia Batista is a partner with Abreu in Lisbon. At the recent A...

If there is one lesson to take away from this podcast interview with South African attorney Joselynn Fember it is: listen. Listening and patience, coupled with hard work, grit and a staggering intelligence, are what won this 27-year old legal entrepreneur the Partner of the Year Award at the recent African Legal Awards. It is an affirmation that was completely unexpected, Joselynn says, mostly bec...

Africa Legal Podcast - Episode 27 - 'Go Far Together' with Alison Diarra by Africa Legal

This week the Africa Legal Podcast Series is in London for a conversation with one of the doyen’s of African-British legal relationships, Nigel Boardman from Slaughter and May. Joining Nigel is new partner Samay Shah and Justina Omotayo, who leads on development for the firm. Hearing Nigel speak about his relationship and interactions with some of the great names of post colonial Africa is a lesso...

This week’s podcast moves back to Kenya with Africa Legal’s Tom Pearson in conversation with the senior partners from Nairobi law firm KO Associates LLP. KO Associates was named Specialist Law firm of the Year at the African Legal Awards for 2020 and, in this interview, Managing Partner Crispin Odhiambo and Senior Partner Stephen Kiptinness explain how they steered their firm through one of the mo...

The Legal Innovation & Tech Fest online is fast approaching (2-4 November 2020). Africa Legal sat down with the event organiser Eventful People's Head of Content, Andrea Erasmus to learn more about why this is a must-attend event for legal practitioners across Africa. Those listeners not based in South Africa can register with your the Africa Legal 50% off code (AFRICALEGAL2020) here: https://www....

Africa Legal Podcast - Episode 23 - 'Bouncing Back' with Jenny Canau by Africa Legal

This week our podcast series moves to London for an interview with Yindi Gesinde, a partner with Baker McKenzie’s Dispute Resolution Team and a member of the Compliance and Investigations group. Africa Legal’s Tom Pearson opens the interview by asking Yindi about her Nigerian heritage and, she explains, that while her parents left West Africa before she was born, her ties with extended family are...

Building Radical Ideas This week the podcast series moves to Uganda, the home of Bytelex Advocates in Kampala. Founding and managing partner, Raymond Asiimwe, chats to Tom Pearson about how East Africa is showing the way by exploiting regional strengths. Bytelex Advocates has been setting the pace for law firms in the region as it builds a client-base in the technology sector and is breaking groun...

Embraced not Stigmatised Greg Nott is head of the African team of the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright with a special focus on the energy sector - he is also super-athlete Caster Semenya’s lawyer. In this podcast he speaks to his good friend, Africa Legal’s Tom Pearson, about a moment, more than a decade ago, when he realised he could not stand by and watch an injustice being done. Greg had been at...

Live the Change South African attorney Nicolene Schoeman-Louw was 24 when she founded SchoemanLaw Inc, using technology as the springboard from which to begin her career as an entrepreneur and lawyer. In this podcast, Nicolene tells Africa Legal’s resident technophile, Tom Pearson, about how pushing the boundaries enabled her to build a business that is now the epitome of what a modern legal servi...

Over the last decade Nelson Ashitiva has built his Nairobi law firm, Ashitiva Advocates LLP, into a respected legal brand, yet he started from nothing. In this interview he tells Africa Legal’s Tom Pearson why it is important to lay solid foundations for a structure to “go high”. Nelson is the senior partner and head of strategy for Ashitiva Advocates LLP and a mentor for many up and coming young...

Pieter Badenhorst, Director: Legal and Compliance at the AFGRI Group is something of an enigma in inhouse legal circles in South Africa. His award-winning team at the AFGRI Group has broken records at the African Legal Awards, won innumerable international accolades, and regularly held up as a model of what an inhouse legal team should be. In this conversation, Africa Legal’s Tom Pearson chats to...

Zimbabwean legal tech entrepreneur Simba Mubvuma and Africa Legal’s Tom Pearson have comfortable rapport in this easy-to-follow podcast about building access to justice for Africa’s small businesses and start-ups. Tom probes Simba about how Harare-based LawBasket has found a way for businesses with limited turnover to afford legal support. They also talk through a new idea that is seeing LawBasket...

The partners from the boutique Lagos law firm Duale, Ovia and Alex Adipe are the special guests on this, the latest edition of the Africa Legal Podcast Series. Soibi Ovia, Adeniyi Duale and Oluwaseye Ayinla share their views on a host of issues from Covid, to technology, free trade and government policy. In this conversation, with Africa Legal editor Carol Campbell, the lawyers explain how they ar...

Saadatu Hamu is challenging stereotypes with her law firm Hamu Legal carving a niche in Nigeria’s private practice sector. It hasn’t been easy, she admits, especially when most Nigerians imagine a lawyer as a “big, old man” and not a “young woman from the north!”. In this podcast she speaks to Africa Legal’s Chief Operating Officer, Tom Pearson, about the challenges women still face in law, the Ni...

Atiku Jafar is a former president of the Law Students’ Association of Nigeria (Lawsan), a body that represents the 50,000 students studying towards legal degrees at 55 universities in Africa’s biggest economy. Jafar is currently working with Africa Legal to found the African Law Students’ Association and so bring together law students from across the continent. In this podcast interview he speaks...

In a timeous and frank conversation, for this episode of the Africa Legal Podcast Series, Dr Funke Abimbola, chief executive officer and board advisor of the Austen Bronte Consultancy, speaks to Carol Campbell about racism and the fight for equality. Dr Abimbola was awarded an MBE in 2017 for her work in encouraging diversity, an honour that came as a complete surprise, she says. Of her Nigerian r...

Michael Akintola Phillips is a tax and dispute resolution counsel for Hermon Law in Lagos. He specialises in commercial and real estate law, among others. In this conversation with Carol Campbell he talks about how an altercation between a soldier and his mother at an ATM led him to become a lawyer. “I was just 16-years old and, when my mother was arrested on false information, I went to the polic...

In this edition of the Africa Legal Podcast Series Davidson Oturu, a partner with ǼLEX, one of the largest full-service law firms in Nigeria and Ghana, speaks to Africa Legal editor Carol Campbell. Davidson is an expert in the protection of IP rights and trademarks and explains to listeners some of the idiosyncrasies of protecting intellectual property in the West African region. For instance, he...

In this edition of the Africa Legal Podcast series Doreen Onwong’a and Emmanuel Mueke from KN Law in Nairobi speak about the rapid growth of this agile boutique firm based in Kenya’s capital and now also represented in the United Kingdom. Doreen, a partner, shares her journey into law and how she moved from being an in-house counsel within the finance sector to becoming a specialist in real estate...

Welcome to the Africa Legal Podcast. Bringing you the right news, views and insights from across the African legal community. www.africa-lega.com

In this edition of the Africa Legal Podcast Series, we speak to Stephen Shergold and Jennifer Kamerman on the evolving role of ESG (Environmental and Social Governance) from both a corporate and public standpoint. We talk about whether ESG has already fallen victim to alternative priorities during the Covid-19 pandemic, exactly who should be involved in an ESG consultation and deployment exercise,...

In an interview guaranteed to delight tech-lovers, Raphael Segal, director of Legal Interact, chats to Africa Legal’s Chief Commercial Officer, Tom Pearson about a new app that has been developed to make lawyers’ lives easier. Legal Interact is a South African practice management software solution company based in Johannesburg. Its new mobile phone app, Fee-Trac, is enabling lawyers to consolidate...

In this edition of the Africa Legal Podcast Series we move to Tanzania to speak to Michael Strain, a partner with Clyde and Co in Dar es Salaam. Michael leads the firm’s corporate practice advising local and foreign companies on a wide variety of commercial and trade matters. His conversation with Africa Legal’s editor Carol Campbell offers unique insight into an investment environment that someti...