President of the Law Society of South Africa and Deputy President of the Black Lawyers Association, Mabaeng Lenyai.

By Isabel Joubert

The newly elected President of the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA), Mabaeng Lenyai, has certainly broken the glass ceiling in the legal profession when she became the first elected female President of the LSSA. History was made at the recently held LSSA conference and annual general meeting when an all-female Presidents committee was voted into leadership. Joanne Anthony-Gooden, and Ntlai Eunice Masipa as Vice-Presidents together with Ms Lenyai will be steering the organised legal profession into greater heights. Ms Lenyai spoke to De Rebus Sub-editor, Isabel Joubert, on the future of the profession and the legacy she would like to leave behind.

Isabel Joubert (IJ): Please tell us about yourself, where you hail from, your high school and tertiary education?

Mabaeng Lenyai (ML): I was born in Mthatha, but I was raised in Pretoria.

We stayed with my paternal grandparents in Mamelodi and then moved into our own home in Mabopane when I was two years old.

I went to a primary school called Kopa Dilalelo in Mabopane. I was there from sub-A to standard four (grade six). In standard five (grade seven) I went to Bafeti Middle School. I then attended Tsogo High School, a Roman Catholic school, where I completed my standard six (grade eight) and standard seven (grade nine) years. I wanted to experience a boarding school so in standard ten (grade 12) I went to Motswedi Secondary School in Zeerust.

In my primary school, I was in the Girl Guides. I was the lead girl guide. And I think that is where my leadership skills started, because every Wednesday the Girl Guides would take over the school, I did not know what I was doing, but my principal was very good and instilled leadership skills in all of us. I was a prefect at Tsogo but was not a prefect in Motswedi because I only attended from grade 12, however, everyone came to me for advice.

Thereafter, I went to Rhodes University. It was a very unpleasant experience because I wasted my time. I passed all my subjects throughout the year but come end of the year I would get a 49%, this is what was called a ‘first class fail’ and because I was studying towards a junior degree I would not pass. I left Rhodes University and went to Turfloop, the University of Limpopo and started my degree from scratch. I did my BProc there and I passed everything. From 1994 to 1995 I did my LLB at the University of Natal.

I came to Pretoria to do my articles at van der Merwe, du Toit and Fuchs in 1996 (VDT Attorneys), an Afrikaans law firm where I was taught many things. My principals were predominantly Afrikaans but they did everything humanly possible to make sure that they trained me properly. I am a notary and conveyancer today because of them, they pushed hard and trained me and they are the reason I am what I am today. Mr de Bruin and Mr Burger made sure that I did not become complaisant, they made sure I did my work and passed. I was an attorney, notary and conveyancer by the time I had finished my articles.

I then went to Johannesburg to work as a professional assistant at Nicholls, Cambanis and Associates Attorneys. We did a lot of work for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. When I started there, they were not doing commercial work, conveyancing or administration of estates and they gave me the latitude to open those departments within the firm, which was a wonderful opportunity. When I left to open my own law firm they were gracious enough to give me all the files and fees.

I opened my own firm, Ramothwala Lenyai Incorporated in Pretoria in 1999 until the November of 2008 when we had challenges with the Law Society of the Northern Provinces (LSNP), which took a decade to complete. In that decade I was interdicted from running my own law firm, I had to work under people. It was the most painful decade of my life. This was in the time that I started my activism as an attorney, I joined the Black Lawyers Association (BLA) and within three months of joining the BLA in the North West I became their chairperson for two terms.

When I was interdicted in 2008 I went back to my principals at VDT Attorneys and worked with them until the end of 2011. When I left VDT Attorneys I joined Khanyisa Mogale Attorneys Inc in Rustenburg from November 2011 until August 2015. I then returned to Pretoria and worked with Kgokong, Nameng, Tumagole Attorneys Inc from 2015 to 2017.

In October 2017 the LSNP matter was dismissed. We were restored back into the positions we were in prior to the court case and in 2018 I started my law firm, Mabaeng Lenyai Inc. I worked from my dining room table for a year and then in May 2019 we moved into our current offices.

My passion is to empower the youth, especially female candidate legal practitioners because it is very clear that there are many challenges, either they do not get employed because their male counterparts are afraid of being accused of sexual harassment or they get appointed and are then faced with sexual harassment and they do not know where to go to complain. They will complain informally and in the criminal courts the victim has to lay the complaint herself.

IJ: What is the most important quality you think a legal practitioner should have?

ML: I think the most important quality a legal practitioner should have is honesty, your moral fibre has to be very high. One has to be knowledgeable and everything else but if you cannot be trusted and you have no integrity then you may just as well leave the profession because you will bring disrepute to the profession and you will become a danger to the very people you are supposed to be helping.

IJ: Give us the one value that you personally live by, as a legal practitioner?

ML: The one value that I personally live by is to be trustworthy, do what you say you will do. If I say I will do ‘one, two, three, four…’ I do it. If you have not had the opportunity to do it then own up to it, but make sure that you finalise it. I say again, if you cannot be trusted then it is useless.

IJ: Why is it important that the LSSA continues to exist?

ML: It is important that the LSSA continues to exist because it is the only body that combines all the different interests of legal practitioners in their different groupings and looks after the members’ interests. The previous provincial law societies, before 2018, used to have a dual purpose, namely, to look after the interests of attorneys, and deal with regulatory issues. With the Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014 (LPA), that has been split, the Legal Practice Council (LPC) looks after the regulatory issues and the LSSA has had to reinvent itself to take over the role of looking, not only after the rule of law and interest of the public but also looking after the well-being of legal practitioners.

IJ: Do you feel that under the new structure challenges that legal practitioners face will be addressed?

ML: Yes, I feel so because we are the mouthpiece of the legal practitioners, especially the attorneys. Although we are trying to work towards a fusion, we are not there yet. We are the mouthpiece that speaks to their interests with the LPC, Legal Practitioners Fidelity Fund (LPFF) and the Legal Practitioners’ Indemnity Insurance Fund NPC (LPIIF). Even now, with the challenges of sustainability, the LSSA has been the champion that said: ‘Let us meet and sit down and talk and see where we can meet each other halfway’. Even now, with the new report from the South African Law Reform Commission with regard to the fees, again the LSSA must be the mouthpiece of everyone to make sure that the rules make sense and if they do not make sense then the LSSA needs to collate the different views and put them in one paper and submit them to both the LPC and the Minister of Justice.

IJ: How does it feel being the first female President of the LSSA?

ML: It is a great honour and a great privilege. It has been overwhelming sometimes because the challenges are so many, but I know that I have a good team of good people surrounding me. The team at the LSSA that I have been working with since 2015 will help make it a good term.

IJ: What can we expect from you and your Vice-President’s, with regard to leading and taking the LSSA to new heights?

ML: What you can expect from us is that we will take up the issues of transformation very seriously, and transformation in a very broad way, because women in the legal profession, even though we have made strides and milestones, it is not enough. Women should be a lot further ahead. We will look at issues of the youth, we are going to make sure that the challenges of the youth are also put on the map. We have programmes that will make sure that everyone gets involved and everyone’s livelihoods are improved. We are also going to take on issues of well-being because many legal practitioners, with the advent of
COVID-19 have lost their law firms, have lost their livelihoods and there have been a lot of suicides and substance abuse, perhaps because people want to numb the pain. We will make sure that we improve the image of the legal practitioner with the general populous because we seem to have lost the moral high ground and the trust of the nation. We need to hold government accountable with regard to the rule of law.

IJ: The newly elected president of SADC-LA is female, will you be comparing notes?

ML: I will definitely. After she was appointed, at the gala dinner, we sat down and said that we definitely need to collaborate because with issues of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the region, especially with the movement of people and goods across boarder transactions there has to be a lot of talking and as well as giving and taking. This cannot only be done by the LSSA because there are also regulatory issues that are involved, so the LPC will have to be roped in as well as the LPFF because they are the ones who are tasked with paying in the event of legal practitioner’s acting in an unbecoming manner. The LPIIF will also have to be involved. Again, all the structures need to sit down and talk. It is going to be very interesting and challenging with the SADC secretariat because all the countries are sovereign countries and for us to come back under one union it might mean letting go of some of the sovereignty in some instances. And again we need to get a buy-in from government for all this to happen, the LSSA cannot do this alone.

IJ: Who would you say is your mentor? And who do you go to for advice?

ML: My mentors in the profession are VDT attorneys, they have been there for me all these years. Sadly, the former BLA president, Lutendo Benedict Sigogo, who has passed on was also my mentor. Ms Kathleen Matolo-Dlepu and Ms Peppy Kekana who are also in leadership positions in the LPC and the LPFF, also my parents, I look up to them, they are my mentors as well as the leadership in all the structures.

IJ: In hindsight what advice would you give to yourself as a candidate attorney?

ML: The advice that I would give my younger self would be to be open to advice, because at some point in my career as a candidate attorney I was advised to take on intellectual property law and I did not listen. I did everything else except that one item of law and now that work, that used to be exclusively reserved for attorneys, can now be done by others. I think I would give my younger self the advice to be more willing to listen to advice even if it is not the most comfortable advice, it might end up being your lifeline at the end of the day.

IJ: What legacy would you like to leave, especially for female attorneys? You have broken the glass ceiling when it comes to female attorneys.

ML: The legacy that I would like to leave is, work hard, be inclusive in your leadership, listen to what other people are saying to you, whether it is negative or positive, listen very closely to them and also never be complaisant. You must always work hard despite what other people are telling you, you must also do your own due diligence, verify what it is that needs to be done because people think that just by being a woman you need to be micromanaged. Women need to stand their ground, while still maintaining their integrity. Do not allow browbeating and do not allow yourself to be used by people. Stay firm and true to what it is that you are doing and always remain honest. Most importantly, I believe, seek guidance from God.

Ms Lenyai is currently the LSSA President, she was previously the Vice-President from 2019. She has been an acting judge in the High Court in Pretoria since 2020 and has been a member of the BLA since 2003, occupying the positions of Chairperson (North West branch), member of the National Executive Council as head of events and campaigns, General Secretary and currently Deputy-President. She has been a council member of the LSSA since 2015, was a member of the De Rebus Editorial Committee from 2016 to 2019 and has been a member of the Women’s Task Team of the LSSA since 2016. In 2020, she became a Board member of Care-Net Development and Support Organisation. Since 2017, she has been a council member of the Community Education Training Centre (Mmakau) and was also a legal adviser on the radio station Motsweding FM from 2017 to 2020.

Isabel Joubert BIS Publishing (Hons) (UP) is the sub-editor at De Rebus.

This article was first published in De Rebus in 2022 (May) DR 21.