“At the core of our conversation today is a simple, yet powerful idea: That the legal profession must not just speak of justice, it must embody it, because justice that excludes isn’t justice at all.” —

Sandra Ochola’s profound statement marked the beginning of this year’s plenary panel at the 2nd edition of The LawDown Africa’s Law Career Fair. The panel was on legal practice for persons with disability.

Most of us grew up hearing cliches and platitudes like “Disability is not inability.” Moreover, if you studied under Kenya’s 8-4-4 system, you probably wrote a handful of English compositions around this title and likely conjured up some ‘adversity to accomplishment’ story about an imaginary character who achieved stature despite the odds posed by a particular physical disability.

Phrases like ‘disability is not inability’ were well-intentioned and perhaps served their purpose by facilitating advocacy communication to help reduce the stigma around physical disabilities. However, decades of overuse have turned them into stock phrases that oversimplify the realities of persons living with disabilities. 

Essentially, conversations around persons with disabilities that build on cliches have ebbed out. Rather than celebrating the outliers, it is time to have conversations around inclusive systems for persons with disability from their formative years of schooling to the workplace.

Legal Practice for Persons Living with Disability: A Crucial and Timely Conversation

Our plenary discussion during the 12th July Law Career Fair shed light on Legal practice for persons. Our founder, Dissi Obanda, deemed it necessary to have this conversation for various reasons:

1. First, we are all one illness or accident away from being a person living with disability. Therefore, the conversation is relevant to everyone.
2. Second, there are limited fora, if any, hosting conversations centered on lawyers with disabilities, particularly on how to make the journey to #BecomingWakili smoother for them and creating spaces where they can thrive. “It is important to understand their journey, including how they got into the profession, the challenges they faced or still face, and by bringing that to the fore, hopefully, we can be part of the solution.”
3. Third, our panelists for this discussion are brilliant legal minds who have contributed immensely to shaping Kenya’s legal space. 

“The inspiration is for everybody because, even if you’re fortunate enough to live your entire life with your full physical and mental capacity, we all still face various challenges. Our panelists ‘ journeys through the profession are so inspiring and uplifting that after listening to them, you feel encouraged that you can tackle whichever challenge you’re facing. They have contributed immensely to the profession, and one thing they taught us is adaptability and agility.” Said Dissi.

Sandra Ochola also emphasized the above sentiment during the panel discussion. She stated that the panelists’ achievements are not despite their physical disabilities, but because they have shown up in their full humanity, identity, and brilliance.

As a lawyer, your primary duty is to uphold the law, including the Persons with Disabilities Act, 2025. Therefore, our founder, Dissi Obanda, found it necessary to capture the legal journeys of lawyers living with disabilities and shift the conversation away from platitudes and toward actionable steps toward tackling the systemic barriers against persons with disabilities.

To shed light on the critical yet often overlooked legal career journey of persons with disability, we constituted an elite panel featuring:

• Dr. (Justice) Imaana Laibuta, a Court of Appeal Judge and Published Author with a substantial body of work in legal scholarship.
• Mr. Victor Kamau, The Former Director of the Legal function at the Kenya National Commission of Human Rights (KNCHR), who is currently retired and running his law firm.
• Senior Counsel  Charles Waweru Gatonye, Senior Partner Waweru Gatonye & Co. Advocates and counsel on some of Kenya’s most unforgettable public interest matters such as the  Commission of Inquiry on the Goldenberg scandal..

Ashura Michael, a Lawyer and Advocate for Human Rights, Gender, Inclusion, and Public Policy, was to be our fourth guest on this panel. Although she couldn’t attend the discussion due to work commitments, she facilitated a masterclass on The Implementation of Chapter 6 of the Constitution from an Inclusion Perspective. Ashura is currently a student at Kenya School of Law and a Talent Development and Inclusion Advocate with UNDP.

Additionally, our moderator for this distinguished panel was Ms. Sandra Ochola. Sandra was the ideal moderator to steer this discussion because she’s leading from the front in the journey toward inclusivity in the legal space for persons with Disability. Her second book, Teens’ Guide to the Constitution of Kenya, is an out-of-the-box way to facilitate civic education for teenagers. The book is available in Braille, and it was such a joy for the aspiring lawyers from Thika School for the Visually Impaired to read a copy during our Law Career Fair High School Funday held on July 5th, 2025, at the Supreme Court Building. 

Moreover, law is one of the few courses that visually-impaired children are encouraged to take. However, it’s not the same for deaf children because law is communication-heavy. As such, they would struggle with hearing and speech. We were keen to hear Ashura’s experience as a person living with a hearing disability and currently enrolled in the Advocate’s Training program (ATP) at the Kenya School of Law. We’re hopeful that we can collaborate with her yet again in future conversations.

A Call to Streamline Disability Throughout the Legal Career Pipeline

Sandra posed two questions to us:

1. What is it that we’re not seeing, or making space for, within our current legal culture?
2. What must we change institutionally, culturally, and as individuals to ensure that this profession is truly inclusive?

Senior Counsel Waweru Gatonye kicked off the conversation by highlighting that access to accurate/reliable information is critical for persons living with disability when exploring possible career opportunities. 

“If I don’t have the information about what is available, how can I qualify for it? How can I know what the work expectations are once I qualify for the job market? If I don’t know, then I can’t take advantage of the available opportunities. It’s crucial, particularly for the young people, to know what they want and that it’s doable.” 

He highlighted this after narrating how a lack of information had almost locked him out of the legal profession, yet he thrived under the proper guidance and mentorship. Senior Counsel Waweru Gatonye has a mobility disability and relies on a wheelchair for mobility. He fondly recounts an incident from his primary school days in the 1960s, when he asked his school principal how he could become a judge. The principal told him he should focus on learning how to repair shoes instead. Although they would laugh about it decades later, this incident shows why access to accurate information is crucial for persons living with disability.

Next, Mr. Victor Kamau touched on the unspoken systemic and cultural barriers that persons living with disability face in legal education and practice. He highlighted his journey as a visually impaired undergraduate law student in the 80s and the scarcity of resources to facilitate his studies. However, he also pointed out that things have changed significantly with the adoption of resources such as audio-enabled computers and internet resources that enable visually impaired lawyers to compete on par with their counterparts.

Another topic the panelist explored was well-intended but unhelpful assumptions. Justice Laibuta chimed in on the conversation, highlighting that he lost his sight soon after joining the university to study BCom. “This is one of the professions where there’s a lot to contend with. For me, as a visually impaired person, I always got, ‘Why do you want to be a lawyer? There’s so much reading involved. Can’t you be a teacher?” Some of his teachers would ask him during his rehabilitation. 

“I told them that if I were to teach anything, I would teach law.”

Besides the challenges with accessing resources, a fact Victor Kamau highlighted earlier, Justice Laibuta also recounted that there were situations during his legal education whereby the assumption was that they, as visually-impaired law students, were a nuisance. Moreover, another space where assumptions came into play was during pupillage because most employers had little knowledge about persons with disability, hence felt awkward about admitting them into their law firms/institutions. A similar situation arose when they were seeking employment, as some employers presumed their disability would impede their job performance.

The panel concluded by emphasizing the need to streamline disability throughout the legal career pipeline. According to Victor Kamau, Discrimination can be subtle or overt. The goal with mainstreaming is to ensure zero discrimination.

Also, as highlighted earlier, the career journeys of all three panelists were to serve as an inspiration to all.  They all highlighted the importance of embracing technology and leveraging it to upskill and gain whatever competitive advantage. Justice Laibuta shared that paying for technological resources like apps and software that enhance his capacity to deliver on his assignments is one of his most intentional investments in his career. He concluded by saying that once you employ your drive and zeal to position yourself above the competition, nothing will stop you from achieving your career goals, not even disability.

Bottom Line:

At the end of the day, we hope that by centering this conversation, more people are aware of persons living with disability in the legal profession. Second, we hope that more people are conscious of the fact that although nobody is guaranteed a disability-free life, the legal profession is open to all, in case of any eventualities. 

Third, we also hope that people are cognisant of the fact that they may have to handle a client or a colleague living with disability, and in such instances, they need to be sensitive to their needs. We need to start thinking of the justice system in its entirety, from the law schools to the courts, and the extent to which they have embraced and implemented inclusivity.

Beyond sparking a crucial conversation, the panel was to serve as a foundation for the young lawyers entering the space. It was to assure them that yes, they will face various challenges within the profession, while affirming them that they have it within themselves to surmount those challenges. As a young lawyer, your will and drive are essential in achieving the career goals you’ve set for yourself.