Power, robes and quiet corridors: Sexual harassment claims force Kenya’s lawyers into a reckoning
A junior woman lawyer admitted to the bar.
What you need to know:
- Kenya's legal profession has spent decades championing justice, rights and workplace protection for everyone else.
- Now, anonymous testimonies have forced the most uncomfortable of questions: who protects the lawyer?
Imagine spending your career building the case that rights matter. You quote legislation from memory. You know the Sexual Offences Act section by section. You have argued, in open court, what a hostile workplace looks like under the law.
You know what consent means, legally, morally, and professionally. And then you return to your office, your own chambers, your own firm, and you say nothing. Because the person who could end your career is also the person you would have to report.
This is the contradiction now sitting at the centre of Kenya's legal profession. It is not a comfortable place to sit.
In early 2026, a wave of anonymous accounts began appearing on NGL links and Twitter timelines. The posts described sexual harassment inside law firms and legal departments. Senior partners who allegedly turned mentorship into a transaction. Pupils told that partnership came with “benefits”.
Young women, and some young men, who watched their careers hang in the balance because they dared to say no. The accounts were difficult to verify from the outside, but the scale of the conversation was impossible to ignore. What shocked people was not the existence of the problem. What shocked them was that it was finally being said out loud.
A profession forced to face itself
The Law Society of Kenya (LSK), the body mandated to police the legal profession, found itself facing a reckoning. On February 9, the then outgoing LSK president issued a press statement that broke a long-standing professional habit of treating sexual harassment as gossip, or as something “other people” do.
The statement acknowledged that LSK had taken note of a surge in complaints of alleged incidents of sexual harassment involving members of the legal profession, shared across social media platforms. Those complaints, it said, indicated “a worrying trend of abuse of power by senior colleagues against junior, vulnerable members of the profession”.
From the outset, the society condemned the conduct, describing it as an affront to the profession's ethical standards and, in appropriate cases, criminal conduct. The language mattered. But it also revealed a harder truth: even in a rights-literate profession, knowing the rules does not guarantee you can safely invoke them.
Power, hierarchy and the slow erosion of safety
Brenda Yambo, a legal counsel at Fida Kenya and an advocate of 12 years' standing, describes the problem in terms that will be familiar to anyone who has watched workplace abuse unfold in small, quiet steps.
“Sexual harassment can take different forms,” she says. “Many people imagine it as sexual contact. It may not be that. It can be an abuse of authority by a senior lawyer or supervisor. It can be bullying or it can take the shape of intimidation with sexual undertones. And sadly, it is rarely spoken about openly in the profession, because there is a lot of stigma and shame to the word sexual harassment.”
That stigma is not merely emotional. It is career-shaping. In legal practice, hierarchy is not a side feature; it is the system. Pupils and interns enter workplaces where assessment is continuous and largely unwritten: who gets trusted with court appearances, who gets exposure to clients, who is recommended for the next opportunity. In some firms, the same person who hands you a brief is the same person who writes your reference and decides whether your contract is renewed.
Ms Yambo says the dynamic is often directed "towards the vulnerable," shaped by seniority and exploitation. She points to the reality that many law firms are male-dominated, particularly in leadership and decision-making, and argues that this deepens vulnerability and can make harmful behaviour feel normal in spaces where power is concentrated at the top.
The contradiction she describes can feel personal, even corrosive. “We can adhere to the dress code,” she says. “You wear a black suit, a blue suit. But why should we not adhere to our ethics?”
It is a question that hangs over a profession that prides itself on being the last line of defence.
A policy that exists, and the gap it cannot close
The LSK statement set out a framework that, in theory, already exists. The Society's Sexual Harassment and Anti-Bullying Policy (SHABP), passed and adopted by members at the Annual General Meeting of 2019, was designed to promote safe and respectful professional spaces free from sexual harassment and bullying, to foster a culture of zero tolerance, and to provide advocates with a framework for prevention, reporting and redress.
The policy's scope was stated without exception, covering part-time, temporary, probationary, casual and contract staff, as well as pupils and students attached to law firms and the Law Society. It covers inappropriate conduct whether in physical offices or outside them, including client meetings, business travel, firm or society-sanctioned social events, and electronic communications.
The profession had already admitted in policy what many workplaces prefer not to say out loud: harassment does not stay in the office. It follows people into the spaces where power is exercised.
SHABP also outlines a process for lodging complaints at either the Advocates Complaints Commission (ACC) or the Advocates Disciplinary Tribunal (DT). The LSK statement emphasised institutional independence, noting that complaints reported to the ACC or lodged directly with the DT do not require the Council's review, ratification, intervention or other input, and that members of the DT are not subservient to the Council. The DT's chairperson is appointed by the Attorney-General; all other members are elected by the membership.
But the most consequential part of the statement was the section that showed how procedure can fail people.
The ruling that triggered the uproar
The LSK statement referred to a decision by the Disciplinary Tribunal dated November 27, 2025. The case had arisen from a complaint lodged against one member who had been adversely mentioned in claims of alleged harassment by 22 colleagues. The complaint was processed with the full support and input of the LSK Gender Committee, but despite its best efforts, the Committee was unable to have 21 of the 22 alleged victims join the complaint.
The Tribunal then made what the LSK called an “ostensible finding” that it did not have jurisdiction, on the basis that sexual harassment is a criminal offence that ought to be prosecuted through relevant criminal channels.
The LSK described the decision as regrettable. It exposed, the society said, a gap in the legal framework for handling sexual harassment cases, and it argued that law reform was required, specifically the entrenchment of SHABP in law through Parliament rather than an internal members' resolution. The LSK also called for reassessing Section 60 of the Advocates Act to define with greater specificity what constitutes disgraceful or dishonourable conduct incompatible with the status of an advocate, and to clarify how the quasi-judicial mandate of the DT relates to that conduct.
Charles Kanjama, the incoming LSK president, confirms that this was the case that dominated the run-up to the society's elections. “That is the one that triggered the uproar,” he says.
The Tribunal had ruled it was a criminal matter and that it should go to the criminal court. Around 20 or 22 female lawyers had made a complaint against one lawyer.
For a survivor, the gap between the two routes, internal disciplinary proceedings and the criminal justice system, is more than procedural. If a complaint is redirected to criminal channels, survivors can face higher evidentiary thresholds, longer timelines and the fear that a private harm will become a very public fight. If they remain in disciplinary channels, they face fears of retaliation in a tightly networked profession, and the quiet suspicion that internal processes are slow, opaque or designed to protect reputations rather than people.
‘LSK needs to be stronger and do more’
While the discussion unfolded online, Mr Kanjama says, several young lawyers came forward and shared their experiences in law firms and legal departments, some with what he describes as “harrowing stories” of sexual harassment. He took the moment as a signal. “It was a sign that LSK needs to be stronger and do more to combat sexual harassment in the workplace,” he says.
He identifies three areas of focus. First, he will engage the senior and mid-bar to sensitise them on ethical practices of managing law firms and legal departments, including human resource practices, so that measures are put in place to minimise and mitigate instances of sexual harassment. Second, he commits to engaging the young bar, a group he describes as “largely the victims”, so that they know their rights, how to demand what is theirs, how to avoid harassment, how to report it and how to deal with it.
Third, he will ensure that institutional mechanisms for complaints and dispute resolution are in place without victimisation or retaliation, within legal workplaces, within LSK branches and chapters, and within the ACC and DT, and that those structures work efficiently and are sensitised to handle such matters.
His emphasis on retaliation is not rhetorical. In a profession built on networks, retaliation does not always announce itself as punishment. It can arrive as a slow withdrawal of work, exclusion from briefs, a reputation quietly marked as "difficult." The absence of a letter of reference can close as many doors as a formal dismissal.
It is a fear the Voice encountered directly. Several young lawyers who had shared accounts online were approached for interviews. All declined to speak, even anonymously. Their silence, in its own way, said everything.
Privacy, fairness and the rights of both sides
The mechanisms that protect complainants also have to survive another foundational principle of law: fair hearing. Mr Kanjama insists that privacy must be secured for victims who make complaints at every level, whether at the workplace, branch or tribunal. But he also says something that gives many complainants pause. If you want recourse against an aggressor, evidence must be presented. “That is a global standard,” he says.
At some point, identity will be disclosed because the accused has a right to be confronted by the accuser, to hear the evidence and to respond. “It's not all accusations that may necessarily be legitimate or accurate,” he adds.
The answer, he suggests, is not to abandon privacy but to design it deliberately, to structure proceedings so that dignity is protected even while fairness is secured. He draws on court practice for his analogy.
“Court proceedings are generally open, but matters touching on family and children are often closed to the public for reasons of privacy. Similarly, the legal ecosystem can put in place measures to secure privacy and dignity of victims even as it secures fairness for accused persons.”
This is the procedural heart of the moment. Public outrage demands speed; due process demands care. Survivors demand safety; accused persons demand fairness. Institutions demand independence. And in the background sits a profession deeply anxious about its reputation.
From scandal to structure
Ms Yambo is clear-eyed about the limits of anonymous testimony. The anonymity, she says, made it impossible to verify information, and some saw the posts as defamation or a witch hunt.
“But what remained solid is that it is a conversation that has begun and that the conduct is happening in some legal spaces.
“What hurts most is the contradiction,” she continues. “The legal profession has laws, policies, campaigns; the people involved are legal counsel who know the framework. Yet victims brave enough to speak out can still be met with denial or accused of participating in a witch hunt. It is happening.”
Because it is happening within a profession that campaigns for legal reform, women's rights and workplace accountability, that contradiction can corrode faith in the profession itself. “Why am I an advocate?” she asks, describing the personal unease that follows when the profession's public values do not match its private behaviour.
On consequences, Ms Yambo does not equivocate. The LSK has a code of conduct for advocates that clearly prohibits sexual harassment, discrimination and abuse of authority. Those ethical standards are taught before an advocate takes the oath. The issue is not ignorance. It is consequences.
“LSK should put in place stringent measures against advocates who break the code of conduct and ensure the standards are enforced not only in court but in the workplace and professional interactions. My ideal punishment suggestion would be withdrawal of the licence. The licence is what allows us to practise, so without it you cannot practise,” she says.
Alongside institutional enforcement, another response is taking shape. Fida Kenya, supported by UN Women, has convened what Ms Yambo calls the Fida Stakeholders Consultative Forum on Protection from Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment in the legal profession.
“The goal is to bring everyone to the table,” she explains. “The forum's objective is to engage stakeholders and prescribe an inclusive, integrated and gender-responsive approach to preventing, combating and responding to sexual harassment concerns in the legal sector.”
The first task is to gather context, the experiences of lawyers young and senior, male and female, and then to articulate the issues and propose approaches for tackling them. It is, in effect, an attempt to treat harassment as a structural problem rather than a series of isolated scandals.
‘Endured for too long’
Faith Odhiambo, who issued the LSK statement as outgoing president, framed the moment as an overdue reckoning. Writing as a member of Fida Kenya and a defender of women's rights and workplace safety, she joined colleagues in condemning “wanton sexual harassment” levelled against young professionals, male and female alike.
It was regrettable, she added, that a profession tasked with upholding the rule of law continued to grapple with an “endemic vice” that had disadvantaged thousands of Kenyans in the workplace.
Her call was not for gentle reform but for urgency. The concerns, she wrote, “had been endured for too long and the conversation about ending them had been avoided too many times”. This moment, she urged, should be used to “aggressively and collectively fight off this menace” and create a safe and fair practice environment for all professionals.
The real test
The profession now faces a choice that cannot be resolved with a statement alone. It can treat the surge of allegations as a reputational crisis, a fire to extinguish with careful language and procedural reminders. Or it can treat it as evidence of something deeper: that a rights-literate community can still build workplaces where fear outmuscles law.
An honest response would require complaint mechanisms that are visible, trusted and safe, not just available in theory. It would require workplaces to treat harassment as a management failure as much as an individual wrongdoing, and to put in place clear HR systems, reporting lines and real consequences. It would require LSK structures to operate with both speed and sensitivity, securing the privacy and dignity of complainants while maintaining fairness. It would require clarity on jurisdiction and law reform where the current framework produces uncertainty.
And it would require the profession to stop treating ethical codes as courtroom speeches. As Ms Yambo puts it: “Ethics are not only what advocates profess in court; they are what guide the workplace and professional interactions.”
Mr Kanjama says an LSK that champions access to justice for the public must start by championing access to justice for its own members in their workplaces. That is the real test.
Kenya's lawyers are asked, every day, to persuade courts and clients that the law is a living promise that rights matter not only on paper but in practice. This month, the profession has been asked to prove that same promise in its own corridors. Not by adding words to policy, but by building conditions in which a young advocate can report harm without losing her future, and in which the profession can enforce its ethics without losing its fairness.
The legal profession may not be different from any other. But it is uniquely equipped to become different, if it chooses.
