The legal profession has long been the preserve of men. On the one hand, the number of women in Kenya’s legal arena is growing more than ever. However, one report published in The Star newspaper established that while more women practice the law, few ascend to power.

Moreover, a second report highlights that only 40% of women in Kenya’s top 16 law firms are partners. In contrast, 90% of active women lawyers in the private sector are associates. Therefore, navigating this traditionally male-dominated field is challenging.

Besides the big law firms, Kenyan women in law have also ventured into legal entrepreneurship as partners and sole proprietors to re-write their stories. However, the ghost of gender inequality stalks them even in entrepreneurship. 

Therefore, today, we spotlight the social, cultural, and economic challenges women legal entrepreneurs face in establishing and running law firms. Hopefully, raising such awareness will spark conversations that can help level the ground for the next generation of legal female entrepreneurs.

• Unconscious/Implicit Gender Bias

Although entrepreneurship is challenging regardless of gender, women entrepreneurs in the legal sector face unique bottlenecks, including unconscious bias among clients. Unconscious biases are learned assumptions that inform what a person considers true. Such biases fuel stereotypes, including gender stereotypes.

On the one hand, women lawyers and advocates are proactive about embracing their femininity while taking up their rightful place in the legal arena. However, legal biases present a hurdle way beyond their control. Therefore, they must constantly toe the line between society’s perception of femininity and embodying/ owning the confidence and assertion that the legal profession demands.

Stella Muraguri, the Founding and Managing Partner at MMW Advocates LLP, is a female law entrepreneur who has dealt with this unsettling reality while establishing and running her practice. Being viewed through a stereotype-based lens makes running the business challenging. Below is a highlight of her experience navigating gender stereotypes as a female entrepreneur, as narrated in Episode #9 of the Winning at Law Podcast, aired in June 2022. The podcast episode is available on Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Back to Stella’s experiences, as a strong litigator, some potential male clients perceived her demeanor as too aggressive. She narrated having dealt with comments like, “Who would want to settle down with a woman that is this aggressive?” 

Besides the pressure to fit into the social mold of the “ideal woman,” the token status for women in traditionally male-dominated industries is another challenge that arises from unconscious gender bias. In the podcast episode highlighted above, Ms. Muraguri mentioned remarks suggesting that she only gets work because of her gender and, more so, her looks directed at her.

 “It really minimizes your intellect because, “No, I did not get work because I’m pretty, I got it because I worked for it, I’m not fortunate, I worked for it,” Stella admits that the constant minimization of the effort she puts into running and growing her practice was unexpected when she started her practice. While she has learned to ignore such remarks, it’s still heartbreaking.

• Sexual Harassment

According to a global 2019 report, one-third of female lawyers have experienced sexual harassment, compared to only one in 14 male lawyers. Although the report focuses on the employment space, a survey conducted and published by The Lawdown highlighted sexual harassment among the most significant challenges women lawyers face while navigating entrepreneurship in the legal sector.

The trend is worrying because female lawyers are empowered by their knowledge and interpretation of the law; they protect people’s rights for a living. The fact that women who have mastered using the law to uphold human rights can fall victim to sexual harassment begs the question: Is any woman safe from sexual harassment?

Ms Muraguri also highlights unsolicited flirtatious behavior from male clients as a constant thread throughout her almost eight years as a female legal entrepreneur. “One of the experiences that shocked me during my first year in business was that most of the men to whom I rendered my legal services would hit on me. After concluding the business, the next question was, “Are you dating?” 

Nobody prepares you for the discomfort that sexual harassment causes. “It would really stress me out at the beginning because nobody ever told me that “Stella, they not only see you as a lawyer, they also see you as a woman who can…” A female legal entrepreneur in the survey above admitted to having to let go of clients due to sexual harassment.

• Work-life Balance

While the legal profession is demanding, legal entrepreneurship may offer women reprieve through flexible working hours. However, using this flexibility to spend more time with or grow your family may be to your practice’s detriment.

Balancing family and entrepreneurial ambitions is challenging due to misguided societal perceptions. For example, being pregnant as the face of your legal practice tends to lower brand confidence because clients focus on “Who will handle my file when you go on maternity leave?” Therefore, even the time you choose to grow your family must be well thought-out because the narrative that you lose your A-game when pregnant may affect your business. 

• Underrepresentation

In the deal-driven legal field, having connections that matter goes a long way in establishing a legal practice. However, having a limited number of women lawyers and women-led practices in positions of influence means that women entrepreneurs are locked out of spaces where such deals happen. 

A respondent from the survey above expressed that the government should give more chances to women-owned firms to sit on boards and join panels in the various parastatals based on merit. The respondent highlights that the rampant corruption when applying for those positions locks women-led practices out.

Bottom Line

Gender biases, especially among clients, mean that women legal entrepreneurs must consider nuances their male counterparts do not consider in building networks and generating business for their practices. While it’s unfair, the reality is you must learn to stand your ground as a confident lawyer without bruising egos because bruised egos often translate to a loss of business. 

In her reflections on the role of female judges on International Women’s Day 2024, Hon. Lady Justice Patricia Nyaundi stated that the calls to shift focus away from the gender equality conversation are a deliberate denial of what the facts are on the ground.

The challenges highlighted above depict that numbers are but a step in the journey toward achieving gender equality in Kenya’s legal arena. While women entrepreneurs in the legal space can develop coping mechanisms or brush off derogatory comments stemming from gender biases, such actions are unsustainable.

Women lawyers are not naive enough to think that a system overhaul can erase the unique social, cultural, and economic challenges they face as legal entrepreneurs overnight.  So, let all lawyers and advocates, regardless of gender, carry this conversation beyond Women’s History Month. By looking through the gender lens, they can create a legal industry whereby gender parity transcends numbers and offers everyone a fair chance to showcase their legal brilliance.