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“Everyone wears a pair of shoes with challenges” – Zanokuthula NduliIn the past, very few black attorneys’ names, if at all, appeared on the letterheads of white-led law firms. Even in post-apartheid South Africa, after 1994, black lawyers remained marginalised and had very limited exposure to the legal practice – most were limited to criminal practice and hardly any did commercial work. But South Africa is slowly transforming as access to other spheres of practice is given to more and more black lawyers within the legal profession.
Zanokuthula “Zano” Nduli was born in 1981 in a township called Ntuzuma, situated in KwaMashu, northwest of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal. He recently realised one of his major goals in life – that of making partner at a reputable commercial law firm – in a white-led law firm called Cox Yeats based in Durban.
He started practice at Cox Yeats as a candidate attorney (first-level position offered to law graduates) in 2005, was admitted as an attorney in February 2006 and recently – in March this year – made partner at the same firm founded by Graham Cox in 1964. The firm is well regarded, having been named among the top three small law commercial firms nationally for the last five years, in an annual survey conducted by PMR, an independent service rating agency.
Early in the year, new national ministries of Education were created to focus on the issues faced by South African learners in schools and tertiary institutions, to tackle challenges that face the majority of black students in attaining a good quality education.
Nduli admits to having had an opportunity to receive a better quality high school education – at a former “model C” school called Grosvenor Boys High School, 40km away from his home at Ntuzuma – compared to most of his peers who studied in township schools.
“I had the privilege of even doing extramural activities,” he says. He played rugby, was a 400-metre sprinter in the senior athletics team, and captained the first basketball team.
Nduli is quick to point out, however, that most of this came at a great sacrifice from his mother, a nurse and single mother of three, and from himself – he had a daily commute of approximately 80km to school and back, leaving before dawn and coming back at sunset when he had extramural activities.
When he was studying towards his LLB at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, his mother could not afford to buy him textbooks or for him to stay on campus, which meant that he had to commute 60km daily and also limited his ability to stay and study at the library for long as he had to catch limited buses along that route.
After all the obstacles he experienced, he still remains humble about his opportunities, pointing out that they contributed to the man he is today and that he was more fortunate than some of his peers in townships and rural areas whose parents could afford even less.
“It’s important to have very specific and realistic goals and to try and achieve them. It’s never easy to reach your goals, but it is easier to measure your progress if your goals are clear from the beginning” Nduli concluded.
Fikiswa Majikela
