Inspirational Interview With Award Winning Young Lawyer Abongile Nkamisa

Inspirational Interview With Award Winning Young Lawyer Abongile Nkamisa. The 28-year-old 28, has achieved a lot in her career as a lawyer. One of Abongile Nkamisa’s achievements she is most proud of is being selected by Women in Law South Africa as the winner of the Student Change Maker Award in 2019. This was in recognition for her contributions to Walter Sisulu University and for her support to rural schools in Eastern Cape. Another highlight of her career was clerking at the constitutional court for Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga. Other achievements include being editorial assistant for South African Constitutional Law and serving her articles at the social justice law organization, the Centre for Applied Legal Studies. Abongile recently made in in the class of Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans for 2024.

We recently caught up with her, and she opened up more about her amazing career. Abongile also spoke about her future aspirations, and motivated those who look up to her.

1.What motivated you to become a lawyer at such a young age?

So what motivated me to become a lawyer?

Was my abilities I think, really looking into my talents and my ways in which I could enhance those talents. And what career aligned with that, for me was law. And I had to take a gap year for me to meet that realization after metric and use zoom in and zoom in into what am as a person, my skills were possess and you just really looking also as well as like what’s being offered in universities. What can I do?

You know, because I’ve always been intubating public speaking in high school and law for me was just like a natural path into who l am as a person and cultivating that.

2.How did your educational journey shape your career in law?

So what really shaped my educational journey and career in law was my insistence and belief in social justice and really wanting to contribute to societies in ways that are meaningful, and doing it in ways that are rewarding, not only to myself, but also to humankind. And really practicing that sort of shaped my journey as well in law, because since. During my articles, I did my articles at our public interest, globalization, and identify myself as a social justice lawyer, because I do work in the public interest. Yeah, that’s just who i am.

3.What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced as a young lawyer?

I think the most significant challenge l’ve faced thus far as it’s challenge that is faced by most young black people in this country, which is legal practice is not cheap. It is very expensive to pursue a career in law and become a lawyer. There are so many steps that you know, people hardly ever talk about, and all those steps, they need money, they need you to have some sort of access to money. So for me, the biggest challenge in pursuing this career has been just how expensive it is to become a lawyer.

4.How do you maintain a work-life balance in such a demanding profession?

So l don’t think I’m doing a very good job and maintaining a work life balance in this profession. It is more work than life. And I think in a lot of ways we justify that by saying things like know I do. My work is an extension of who I am as a person. You know, like the things I do l’m passionate about, and I really want to see things through to the end and I think that is why I think I’m doing poorly in this area.

5.What role do mentors or role models play in your professional development?

I think for me, mentors more than role models really do play a huge role into you know, a person a young person becoming a professional in this area of work. You need people who are willing to guide you offer you advice. When you have questions about certain aspects of the work and how the work is done. I have certainly been fortunate to have worked with people who I consider my mentors in a lot of ways, who contribute to, you know, to my ability to become a lawyer in their various styles and ways of doing things. And I sort of take that and make it my own and it contributes directly to the work that I do. So mentors are very important in the profession and having people to guide you to sort of prepare you as well for things to come is very beneficial.

6.How do you approach building and maintaining client relationships?

What has helped me in approaching and building maintaining relationships is being relatable to people, especially the people that I work with in my line of work in social justice in public interest, being relatable to people being appealing to people in speaking the language that people speak and I’m not meaning in referencing language, literally, but l’m speaking about having the ability to, you know, emphasize I think the ability to listen and ability to understand where people are coming from when they tell you that they need help. And really just, you know zoning into that space of not seeing yourself as a lawyer per se, by seeing yourself as a person who can counsel and assist in a lot of ways.

So being relatable, I think also being one of the people really does help

7.What do you find most rewarding about your job?

what I find most rewarding about this job is seeing cases completion and seeing accountability. You know, seeing people are currently in for the various roles that they play into the demise of public amenities and resources. Yeah, like my whole thing was accountability and secure accountability from both the government and individuals and really having a court declare that your papers or your all new arguments was correct and that a particular person has been found guilty for doing something that you know disables a lot of societal functions that makes me happy.

8.How do you resolve moral conundrums that occasionally occur in the practice of law?

I am a person who is not afraid to question and critiques that and aspects of the law that I do not agree with or that I might not yet understand. So I have always been one who values open communication and conversations around issues that might cause you know, moral conundrums or moral issues. I’ve always really also sort out people with a different take a different view for me to really make me understand because you know, morals are very subjective. And really having those conversations and being open minded enough to take those in has assisted me in resolving some of the like, you know, moral issues I have come across within the practice of law, but also just knowing that law is not above reproach, you know, law can also be questioned.

9.What advice would you give to other young professionals entering the legal field?

What advice I would give to young people want to enter this profession of what I do in this profession is that you must be prepared to work you must be prepared to respect and also value you know, your young fellow colleagues. Treat people with kindness and respect, work hard, build , work and think that will speak for you law is very competitive, and I know in that competition, a lot of people lose themselves. I would also say that young people entering the profession is don’t think where you are. And don’t forget your values and what you stand for in this world. Assuming of course those values are aligned with humanity and wanting to see humanity prosper in every level. So yeah, be prepared to work Be kind, be gentle, be nice, be understanding, you know, be a person who is able to listen to other people.

10.How do you stay motivated and driven in your career?

I think I was still motivated is reminding myself of the bigger picture and the bigger goal and you know, the vision that I have for myself and the things that I want to achieve long term in my career, for me, keeps me motivated and driven. Because it can definitely be daunting and hard to you know, so yeah.

11.What professional goals have you set for yourself over the next few years?

Over the next few years, I have really, you know, I want to accomplish something that may not be related to law per se, but incorporating other aspects of, you know, academic work in legal practice and looking into other ways in which other fields are resolving some of the most pressing issues that we’re confronted by in our pursuit for justice and law in this country, you know, looking into spaces such as anthropology, sociology, and feminism and gender studies into what kind of arguments are being made there. And what tools are they using to uncover those things about society, and really seeing how I can take that and align it with my legal practice and in law, to see what value to these things could actually bring in our legal practice and how it can enhance the practice.

12.How do you foresee the future of the legal profession evolving, especially for young lawyers like yourself?

The law is definitely evolving. It’s changing in a lot of ways and it’s quite exciting to see. I think one way in which I foresee that the legal profession changing is that it’s no longer about your technical skills or technical abilities that you get from studying law. In itself, but it’s also about the soft skills that person gets to bring forth into really resolving some of our modern, more contemporary issues that we have in society. And seeing ways in which young professionals are also becoming aware of this is so exciting because now people know that they are the resource. They are the ones with answers and not necessarily something that you might find in the textbook but sub skills are becoming more and more important, as society changes and advances so is more.

13.What does it mean to you to be named one of the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans?

For me to be named one of the Mail & Guardians 200 young South Africans is an honor. It is a recognition into the work that I myself and a lot of others like we do in the space of public interest litigation and public interest law because you know, in law that hierarchies that exist, you know, corporate, those are the only type of lawyers people know and speak about, and getting the sort of admission really shines light into people like myself who are doing work that has not necessarily been popular in the past and sort of spotlighting even there to the fore so that we can also be seen you know, as people who are doing important work.

Uhm Yes, shining light to really into the work that you know, lawyers like myself do like I’m not a ruthless going to court every day type of lawyer.