How I became a wealth lawyer

The girl from Tetu is also a visiting lecturer at Strathmore University. Furthermore, he trains lawyers and other practitioners in wealth management. He is also a certified professional mediator.

Oh yes! I am from Tetu in Nyeri County and I first left Nyeri to attend Moi University, Eldoret for a law degree in 2008. My friends tease me all the time because I just learned that not everyone understands Kikuyu when I went to university.

I am a local girl, I remember calling my mother to ask for permission to attend Fresher’s night. (A party organized for first graders). Of course, he didn’t say anything and I spent the whole night alone in my room.

My childhood was raised in a rural environment, as the fourth child out of five siblings. I was always adaptable, a trait I still carry as a typical middle child. One of my best memories is when I passed Grade 8 and got a score of 409 out of 500. My family was very happy with my performance, and when they asked me what I wanted, I just said I wanted a Sprite soda, canned. My brother fulfilled this wish, and I was happy. It’s a memory that makes me smile to this day.

This is my mother’s advice. I am a bright student who loves Chemistry very much. When doing course selection, I chose Bachelor of Science in Education because I want to be a teacher of Chemistry and Business Education.

However, when the results came out, I had passed very well with a glittering A minus 79 points. My parents – both teachers, said I can’t teach with grades. My father wanted me to switch to engineering but I didn’t like Physics. So I went with my mother’s advice to take law, and six months into the course, I knew that it was definitely for me.

After my law degree, I attended the Kenya School of Law (KSL), after which I started my pupillage application. This is the first time I have received a rejection. I grew up with so much love and affection from my parents. My father always called me princess or president.

Also, being a smart student, I got everything I wanted. So applying for pupillage and being rejected is new to me. But I’m also thankful, because it opened my eyes to how the world works. After two rejections, I was admitted to the firm in 2014, and my legal practice began there.

Yes, I am a wealth lawyer. But it doesn’t just happen. I grew up with my previous employer. I joined the firm in 2014 after being admitted to the bar and starting clerical duties. The firm is also relatively new, but is currently among the leading law firms. After being confirmed as a clerk, the company must start the basic succession. I was assigned one succession issue and then the whole department just blew up – dealing with succession cases one after another.

I was promoted to senior associate within a year of being a lawyer. In my third year of practice, I became a key person in the succession and structuring of the family business. When I left the firm earlier this year, I was a partner.

In layman’s terms, what a wealth lawyer does is review your portfolio, which is all of your assets and all of your liabilities. They look at and advise you on the legal risks that your portfolio has. The risk can be that you are vulnerable to creditors, poor debt structure, etc. We review legal risks and tax risks.

Tax risk is something that most people don’t see because it’s invisible and you’re not a tax expert. Sometimes you don’t realize that your investment Return On (ROI) is lower because you are facing a heavy tax burden. For example, currently, the tax burden for personal income tax is higher than for corporate income tax.

Anyone doing business as a sole proprietorship will pay more taxes. So a wealth lawyer will step in and suggest that it is time to turn around and create a company. We help structure wealth for our clients.

The evolving tax landscape for trusts creates uncertainty. For example, between 2021 and 2024, it seems that all four Finance Bills have introduced or attempted to introduce changes to trust tax.

This affects practice and demonstrates misalignment in national policies regarding the promotion and preservation of generational wealth. Also, there are not many wealth lawyers in Kenya. The practice structure has learned the process on-the-go and adapted to the client’s needs.

Most private wealth practice is always done by financial practitioners, while lawyers focus only on estate planning and do not generally consider the larger structure of wealth.

I like to say that I am my father’s son in many ways. I was raised by my father, whose love is real. Like you can touch it. The love that I felt when I was alive, followed me even when things didn’t work out. This love that I experienced directly from him, kept me moving forward. I really resonate with the quote of Harper Lee who said; …He does not stand alone, but behind him, the strongest moral force in his life, is the love of his father.

There is no such thing as work-life balance. It’s work-life integration. As a mother of three relatively small children, I have to make sure that I don’t fail in one of my tasks. I have mastered the art of fitting my kids into my busy schedule and vice versa. For example, I aim to drop him off at school in the morning, which means I almost never schedule a meeting in the morning. If there is an event in the evening after work, I make sure I go home first, meet the children, and then return to the event. I also have a very strong support system at home and at work.

Sometimes I still feel it’s real that this girl from Tetu has come so far. Now we have global clients, and the fact that I get the opportunity to advise the richest people in the world on how to manage and manage their wealth is a great achievement for me. When colleagues ask my opinion on something, which happens often because we work as a team, I sometimes hesitate and think. Wow, my opinion is important for someone who is very advanced in this field. It was a fun experience.

It looks promising, sure. My future is global, because now I am not just a Kenyan lawyer. I can speak and advise people who own and have wealth all over the region and the world on how to build these structures. And it’s super fun for me because I can’t imagine that a girl from Tetu can do that now – it’s like two realities. I am also very deliberate so that when the time comes to look back on my life, there will be no regrets and I will be happy with the decisions I made regarding the relationships that I consider key.