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Left picture: (left to right) Belinda Mapongwana,
Brian Price and Emma Lecheko.
Right picture: (left to right) Dhineshree Pillay,
Emma Lecheko and Belinda Mapongwana. |
The South
African Visiting Lawyer Program began
its sixth year in September 2007 with
the arrival of the 2007/2008
fellows—Emma Lecheko, Belinda
Mapongwana, Dhineshree Pillay and Brian
Price.
Emma
Lecheko was an associate in the
Corporate Services Department at Webber
Wetzel Bowens in Johannesburg, where she
focused on securities law insider
trading, corporate governance,
regulatory work and general commercial
law. As a result of her dedication to
public interest law, Emma took on a
number of positions at the
Constitutional Court, Legal Resources
Centre and other institutions, where she
dealt with important constitutional
issues, such as women’s rights,
children’s rights, health rights,
socio-economic rights, environmental
rights and land rights. She received
both her LLB and LLM in commercial law
from the University of the
Witwatersrand. Emma has spent the last
six months at Skadden, Arps, Slate,
Meagher & Flom, where she hopes to gain
skills and hands-on experience in
corporate law that she can share with
other women in her profession upon her
return to South Africa.
Belinda
Mapongwana was a third year associate in
the Corporate Commercial Department at
Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs specializing
in Mergers and Acquisitions before she
took on this fellowship. Ms. Mapongwana
received her LLB on Commercial Law from
the University of Cape Town and her LLM
on International Business Law from Vrije
Universiteit in Amsterdam. She has been
working as an SAVLP fellow at Simpson
Thacher & Bartlett since September of
last year, and will soon be moving to
the legal department of Morgan Stanley,
where she will spend the rest of the
year. Ms. Mapongwana hopes that this
fellowship will provide her with
exposure to large M&A transactions and
more knowledge of investment banking
that she can take back with her.
Dhineshree
Pillay was a practicing attorney at
Ganie & Company, a small firm in
Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, where
she dealt with commercial litigation,
collections, drafting of contracts,
administration of estates, tax work and
other forms of commercial transactions.
Ms. Pillay received her LLB from the
University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg,
and has received a number of additional
training experiences, including training
at the Tembalethu Legal Clinic on the
ethics of legal practice and trial
advocacy skills and at the University of
Natal on HIV/AIDS Training &
Facilitation. Ms. Pillay is now working
at Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
Brian
Price was an associate in the mergers
and acquisitions department of Werksmans
Incorporated, where he advised clients
on the legal aspects of various
commercial transactions and helped them
strategize on the best possible way to
proceed with the negotiations involved
in a transaction. His areas of practice
include corporate, exchange control,
information technology law,
international trade law, listings, stock
exchange & public documents, mergers,
acquisitions & management buy-outs,
privatization, restructuring of
corporate entities and schemes of
arrangement. Mr. Price completed his LLB
at the University of Pretoria. He is now
working at Sullivan & Cromwell.
The
experience that these four fellows are
gaining in New York will prove to be
extremely valuable not only to the
fellows but also to South Africa,
because it will equip them with the
skills that they need to be able to work
in top management, in order to make a
difference for other people who come
from historically disadvantaged
backgrounds. Unfortunately, the legal
profession does not yet reflect the
diversity in terms of both gender and
race of South Africa’s population. The
Vance Center has strived to address this
issue through the South African Visiting
Lawyer Program for the past six years,
and it has witnessed enormous changes in
the past fellows’ careers since their
return to South Africa. Returned fellows
are becoming law firm partners and
leaders in business and government, and
are developing new initiatives to mentor
law students and junior associates and
to address gender discrimination in the
South African legal profession.
To learn
more about the SAVLP click here.
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