The Strathmore Law Clinic (Entrepreneurship Unit) partnered with Sinapis for a webinar on the 5^th of March 2021. Sinapis is a community of faith-driven entrepreneurs whose goal is to empower entrepreneurs professionally and spiritually using training and a global support network. Sinapis began in 2010 in Kenya as a start-up and has since grown into a global entrepreneurial ecosystem. Given that the Entrepreneurship Unit focuses mostly on businesses related issues including intellectual property, taxation and company law, the partnership allowed to both parties to achieve the goal of legal education and ensuring access to information for entrepreneurs.

The aim of the webinar was to assess the legal landscape of businesses in Kenya with the purpose of bridging the legal gap faced by entrepreneurs at different stages of their business. This would be achieved by bringing together lawyers practicing in different fields of commercial and business law on a panel to respond to questions within their field.

A panel to answer your questions

From the webinar, thanks to the exceptional panelists: Jane Murithii, Associate at Bowmans, Polycarp Agoi, Agoi Kilima and Company Advocates, and Jasper Lubeto, Strathmore Law Clinic, the audience was advised on several topics. These include mergers and acquisitions, types of businesses and their registration process, and intellectual property. The basis of the questions was informed by one of the projects run by the entrepreneurship unit class, namely the Strathmore Entrepreneurship Law Clinic. This project involves student clinicians giving pro bono legal advice to entrepreneurs as they grow their businesses. Thus far, the entrepreneurship unit has served a total of 17 clients between the months of October 2020 and March 2021.

With respect to the questions, an example of one directed to Jane Muriithi by Kelvin Irungu was ‘What should a person consider when identifying co-directors for a business?’ To this, Jane intimated the importance of having someone who is trustworthy and offers a different perspective, skill or set of knowledge.

Other questions were on the topic of copyrights from individuals within the creative industry who are looking to protect their work more effectively while others centered on the operations of holding companies that have subsidiaries in different industries.

Provision of accurate legal information

The Strathmore Law Clinic aims at furthering access to legal information for all. This was greatly achieved by this webinar. From the perspective of the panelists, they were able to fully answer the questions posed by the moderators as well as the audience. The panel of lawyers was able to break down the legal information to make it understandable for non-lawyers thereby allowing the entrepreneurs in attendance to digest the information. Without a doubt, the success of the event is also owed to the SLS student moderators, Joan Muthui (third year) and Naeem Yusuf (second year), who were able to guide the discussion, engage the audience and keep the event exciting.

This article was written by Joan Muthui, third-year Strathmore Law student. 

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