Africa's largest law firm opens in Kampala

Apr 08, 2014

Africa’s largest law firm- ENSafrica with a 530 legal workforce has opened shop in Kampala. The entry of ENSafrica follows a merger between Synergy solicitors and advocates, a Ugandan legal outfit with specialty in commercial and business related services and Edward Nathan Sonnnenbergs (ENSafrica)

By David Mugabe

Africa’s largest law firm- ENSafrica with a 530 legal workforce has opened shop in Kampala.


The entry of ENSafrica follows a merger between Synergy solicitors and advocates, a Ugandan legal outfit with specialty in commercial and business related services and Edward Nathan Sonnnenbergs (ENSafrica) from South Africa.

ENSafrica formally opened its offices over the weekend in a move that legal experts across Africa said is geared towards addressing the sad reality of low compensation of the continent’s legal brains which has seen more than 80% of legal fees repatriated out of Africa.

The factors leading to this repatriation is the so called lack of capacity of local African lawyers to handle or be trusted with advising on crossborder transactions which are usually complex and involve substantial sums of money.

“The sad fact is that in reality, it is the local lawyer who ends up doing most of the work but is paid the least out of the transaction,” said Donald Nyakairu, ENSafrica managing partner during the opening of their offices at Rwenzori Towers in metropolis Kampala.

Nyakairu said their mission is to reverse this trend and ensure that a bigger chunk of the 80% remains on the African continent for the betterment of our people.

The merger is also part of the strategic movement and positioning in a versatile Ugandan economy on the rise with a steadily expanding middle class and huge reserves and potential of natural resources among them oil and gas. It is also linked to the trend that the one-man law firm is disappearing, according to Nyakairu.

Officiating at the firm’s official opening, the vice president Edward Ssekandi hailed their desire to build African capacity describing Uganda as the gateway to the whole of East Africa.

“Your choice to come to this country is strategic and wise because its presence here connects Uganda to more than 15 African countries where ENS is,” said Ssekandi.

ENS deputy chief executive Mzi Mgudlwa noted that ENS was born by the vision of three men who wanted to create an African legal powerhouse driven by the negative spiral of events.

“They had grown tired of witnessing English, French and Americans getting all the significant mandates living nothing by way of skills transfer and taking away all the money,” said Mgudlwa.

Mgudlwa reiterated that Africans can do the work but are not fairly remunerated even when they go to the same law schools

ENS has expertise in energy, infrastructure, and environment, intellectual property, tax, forensics and banking and finance.

ENS is present in South Africa, Rwanda, Burundi and Mauritius.

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