Rise of female lawyers as women edge out men in law schools

“For the last six years since 2020, each year, more ladies than men have joined the programme [the Advocate Training Programme],” he said.

Data that the Kenya School of Law shared with Business Daily shows that in the 2020/2021 academic year, out of the 1,716 students who enrolled at the institution, 1,000 were women, while men were 716. In the 2025/2026 school calendar, out of the 1,768 students enrolled into the institution, 973 of them are women.

Dr Mutai attributes the increase in the number of women pursuing the legal profession to the strides in ensuring girls get an education.

“I'm also thinking more women prefer the arts and social sciences subjects in high school which leads them to pursue law, whereas men are probably still doing more STEM subjects to go into courses like engineering. If the trend continues, in the next five years, we may start wondering where the men are and start introducing measures to get more of them to enter the legal profession,” he says.

But what does it take to rise the career ladder as a female lawyer?

BDLife spoke to three women who pursued law at a time when it was not seen as a woman’s career and how they found success.

Linda Karimi: Being soft-spoken is a strength

Linda Karimi, the head of legal at Samsung, is soft-spoken. In the legal profession, the assumption is that you must be aggressive, especially for a woman, for you to be listened to. However, Ms Karimi tells BDLife that her soft-spoken nature is her strength.

“Even if you have conflict with anybody you still want to maintain those relationships. I have found that when I am in a room, and things get heated, when I get up to speak, my voice helps to calm the room and the other party also eases up.”

With more than 15 years in the legal profession, Ms Karimi says that when she joined the University of Nairobi, she did not have many female classmates. Her father was a lawyer, so she got interested in the profession from a young age.

“I remember my dad being concerned about whether anyone would marry me after I studied law. However, it was something that I was always interested in. My dad is also a lawyer, so maybe that is why I chose the profession. I was also not very good at mathematics, and luckily, law had nothing to do with math. Then I loved the reading involved and I guess it was an easy decision for me,” the 47-year-old says.

Ms Karimi started her career working in a law firm but left soon after. “You could stay in the court almost the whole day waiting for your matter to be heard. On some days, it’s not called out. It was not what I was suited for. I was very happy when I got into corporate. I felt that worked to my strength,” she says.

She started off working in the tea industry and did a stint at Airtel Networks before heading to Samsung, where she has been for the past 10 years.

“The transition to telco was pretty steep. It required a lot of study, learning the telco lingo and the operating system. Being at Samsung has been a career-shaping moment for me. Here, we manage 13 countries, and I have understood the different regulatory bodies in the different regions. I am in charge of dealing with legal and compliance. We have to ensure that the company is working by all the different compliance regulations,” Ms Karimi says.

She recently completed her MBA at Strathmore University, which has helped her understand commercial space better.

Ms Karimi says being a commercial lawyer is more than just giving legal advice.

“Apart from intellect, you need to have technical proficiency for you to make it in the corporate legal space. You need to add value. For a long time, the legal department in an office has been looked at as this obstacle. Nobody wants to come to legal because that is where our ideas will die. Therefore, as head of legal I have to show the team that we are here to support you to ensure that whatever you are doing will be sustainable,” she says.

Ms Karimi says the mentors she has had have directed her on the right path to take in climbing the corporate ladder.

“I had a very good boss in my former place of work and I loved seeing that she held on to her values and still got the job done. So this shapes you because you realise you don’t have to lose yourself or lose your individuality or your values,” she says, adding, “It also helps to have an organisation that is pushing you to achieve. This is not something you can do alone.”

In the legal profession, Ms Karimi says that the greatest challenge she has faced is unconscious bias.

“There is a way in which a corporation feels more comfortable when they see a man leading a team or having a man heading the meeting. Therefore, there were times when I felt overlooked. Though I have to admit this is not as often as it used to be before. Probably because we have so many women now, scaling those leadership heights. The other challenge is the imposter syndrome where as a woman I feel like I should not be sitting here at this table and everything. I think that is something for us as women. We are too modest. We hide a lot of our abilities. However, I have come to learn that this is something that will work to your disadvantage in the corporate world,” she says.

How does she deal with the challenges? Ms Karimi always ensures that she has her facts right before going into a room.

“You need to know your stuff, Make sure that it is a subject you have prepared for. Then you can show that you understand what is going on. Make sure you don’t come unprepared because as a woman you will be judged more harshly than a man,” she advises.

How does she balance work, family and self-care? A typical day for the mother of three starts at 5.30am when she goes to the gym.

“I find that gym keeps me in the right frame of mind. Over the years, I have learnt that work-life balance mainly relies on the quality of time you spend on something. With the children, it is important that when you do have time with them, you are there, you are present. I have to be very deliberate such that when I am at work, I am focused there, and when I am at home, I focus on the children. I have a daily ritual with my youngest son where we’ll read from the book he’s reading and he’ll read to me, and then we’ll do a devotion together,” she says.

Her advice to young women joining the profession is to “get as much experience as you can in very many different fields. Do not specialise very early. Being in different industries and getting a lot of experience helped me a lot.”

Sigee Koech: There cannot be saturation in a field that is constantly evolving

Sigee Koech sits at the helm of Dentons Hamilton Harrison & Matthews. Ms Koech is the first female managing partner in the 123-year-old law firm.

Ms Koech has known no employer other than Dentons having joined the firm right from university.

“I have been here since 2008 with a small gap in between when I took a sabbatical to pursue my master’s in international criminal law at the University of Pittsburgh in the US.” Ms Koech says her strong personality drove her to the legal field.

“I’ve always been interested in speaking my mind. Then, when I was 10 years old, my primary school invited Justice Effie Owuor to speak to us. She was the first chief magistrate, first High Court and Court of Appeal judge. She was the first epitome of a lady lawyer that I came across. It was at that point that I decided to become a lawyer,” says the 40-year-old.

“I started as a pupil working under Senior Counsel Kiragu Kimani who is a partner at the firm. He was a litigation lawyer then I moved to the commercial department a year later. The way we work here is you rotate through the two departments. I was an associate advocate between 2012 and 2014 then in 2015 I made partner.”

“I lost my mom when I was 13 years old and I realised that I need to work hard and get to university. While at the university, I understood that after school there will be a need to look for a job and your highest chance of getting into a good firm is to pass in school. I learnt there is a dean’s list, and if you are on it, you are called to the good law firms in Nairobi. I now worked towards being on the dean’s list,” says the Moi University graduate.

Ms Koech lives by the mantra, “Your last success is your biggest enemy. The last big thing you did is the thing that you now have to sum out. I am always asking myself now that I have done this, what next.

“Now that I am managing partner, I know what is next for me. I am looking at what more I can do in that position. My mind now is thinking about how I can move the firm forward in the next decade, particularly in light of the socioeconomic conditions in which we are living. How do we handle the change in generations, the change in employment? How do I ensure that the firm remains a tier-1 corporation?”

How does a young female lawyer stand out?

“You do not allow weaknesses to get into you. The differences I see between a man and me are that I am married and have children, how do I balance that? I find what works for me. I believe in having quality time with my children, so I ensure that I drop them to school on many mornings. I try as much as possible to get home and do homework with them. Over the weekend, when they have activities, I’m their chauffeur,” the mother of two tells us.

“It helps that work is no longer all about just sitting at your desk and working. You can work remotely. You can work in a way that you are present for the things that need to be done. As a leader, I believe it cannot be a one-person show. I have a great team working with me and they take on a lot.”

Ms Koech says her most significant support system is her husband, who is present with the children. When she is not at work, you will probably find Ms Koech in the gym or seated, reading fictional and self-help books or listening to motivational podcasts.

Unlike before, when law was considered a course for the elite, today, many students are applying and studying law. Some fear that the field is becoming saturated. However, Ms Koech says there can never be saturation in a constantly evolving field.

“I think the problem is when you want to do the same vanilla thing that everyone else is doing. New areas of law crop up every single day. At some point, constitutional law was the big thing and then came data protection. Right now, there is so much talk on climate change. My advice is to look at the world. Identify what people need and where you can come in to solve that need. Then you can be the best person at that thing. I think there’s enough clients to go around.”

Evalyn Odongo: Having a good employer can help propel your career

Evalyn Odongo, the head of legal at Siginon Group, a logistics company, has always been assertive. It is this assertiveness, and sense of justice that saw her pursue a legal career.

What she loves most about the law is that it is versatile. “I have been practising law for 15 years now and within that time, I have worked in various sectors—the public sector, the finance sector. I worked at the Judiciary a bit, and a consultancy,” the 41-year-old says.

Despite having been a marvellous litigator, Ms Odongo says she enjoys being in the corporate space “because it gives me a lot more exposure into different aspects of the law. For instance, here at Siginon, I am required to guide projects we are doing and if we have agreements that need to be signed, I review or draft them. I will also assist with ensuring that we have regulatory compliance and I also have to double up as the data protection officer.”

According to her, the secret to navigating the profession is your people skills. She says: “You will earn respect from the way that you handle people and the way that you handle your work, your professionalism. I have also learned that I need to be intentional about making myself known and my career goals known.”

She says for women trying to grow in the legal profession, the environment matters a lot.

“When you are working in an environment that is fertile ground for growth, then sometimes you grow easily. As a woman, you need an environment that is going to be looking out for you as a staff member and then you in particular as a woman to ensure that you are comfortable within the area where you are working and to give you the confidence to advance within that same environment.

“For me, my family lives in Mombasa but the main office is in Nairobi, My employer allowed me to work in the Mombasa office as long as I could provide support to the Nairobi team remotely,” she says.

To make it in the corporate space, Ms Odongo says she had to be business-minded. “You have to know that you are not just a lawyer in the corporate space. You are a business lawyer. You need to be able to provide solutions and give options and not just work towards putting out fires. You need to provide preventive lawyering. Stand up and show that you have the proper skills and be intentional about keeping yourself updated.”

Insights from KSL director

Dr Mutai adds that many women prefer “employment in organisations where they can climb slowly but steadily. Women are more patient in terms of following their career track. You will find many women in the Office of the Attorney General and even the judiciary. You will find that women are ready to start at the magistrate position and make their way up slowly. On the other hand, we are seeing that more men want to go into private practice and try to make money immediately. However, this is not to say that women are not going into private practice,” he says.

He adds the rise in the number of female lawyers will help spur gender-friendly workplaces. “Of course, there’ll still be some men who are very traditional in their thinking, but with more women getting into positions of authority, they can now suggest and implement more women-friendly policies, and support to other women,” he says, adding that for Diploma in Law Programme at KSL, more men are enrolling than women.

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