By Mapula Thebe
From left: Chairperson of the Board of the Attorneys Development Fund, Etienne Horn and Manager of the Attorneys Development Fund, Mackenzie Mukansi, at the annual general meeting held on 26 November 2015.
The Attorneys Development Fund (ADF) held its second annual general meeting in Johannesburg late last year. Key issues discussed at the meeting included, the mandate of the ADF, the future of the ADF and funding of existing law firms.
Chairperson of the Board of the ADF, Etienne Horn, highlighted the fact that in 2015 the ADF embarked on an exercise to bring partners on board to expand their mandate as per the request of the profession. He added: ‘It is noteworthy that the profession that we are geared to serve is rapidly changing, … we have remained steadfast in a changing environment and adapted steadily to follow the direction and flow of energy with swift pace and steady caution to ensure that we remain relevant in the changing legal landscape. … One of the issues we need to deal with is whether the scope of our mandate should include assistance to established firms, as currently our mandate states that only new firms may be assisted. We need input from the members of the profession in deciding to broaden the mandate to established firms. … We rely heavily on the law societies who operate on the grass roots level, the board cannot get to the issues if it is not assisted by the law societies.’
Answering a question from the floor, member of the ADF Board, Mimie Memka, said: ‘We have been receiving applications from existing firms for different types of funding. We have brought the notion of funding of existing firms to this forum to get views. We are also getting applications outside the scope of the ADF. There are some firms applying for educational loans, we turn the applications away as it is not our mandate.’
Manager of the ADF, Mackenzie Mukansi, noted that the bulk of the recipients of funding from the ADF are in urban areas. He said that in future, the focus of the ADF would be to assist attorneys in the outlying areas.
Speaking about the future of the ADF, Mr Horn said that the mandate of the ADF will be reviewed.
Speaking from the floor, Chief Executive Officer of the Attorneys Fidelity Fund, Motlatsi Molefe, reminded delegates that the issue of the mandate of the ADF has to be looked at in its entirety because it is linked to the available resources of the ADF. Adding that the ADF has to remain a sustainable entity. ‘This is the wrong forum to discuss the issue of the mandate, we should rather have a rounded focus, fully at a properly constituted workshop,’ he said.
Mapula Thebe NDip Journ (DUT) BTech (Journ) (TUT) editor of De Rebus.
This article was first published in De Rebus in 2016 (Jan/Feb) DR 9.