#WomensMonth: This Mabhena has her ducks in a row

Nomlayo Mabhena, 24, youngest black female conveyancer in South Africa.

Nomlayo Mabhena, 24, youngest black female conveyancer in South Africa.

Published Aug 23, 2019

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Her surname might have been trolled and joked about on social media, but Nomlayo Mabhena, 24, takes law and justice very seriously.

It’s her vigour and passion that made her work hard which propelled her to get admitted as one of the legal practitioners at the high court at the age of 23, making her the youngest-ever black female conveyancer to get such an accolade.

Unlike the pathetic Mabhena soldier who trended in June for always messing up drills during training sessions, this Mabhena seems to have her eyes set on her target.

She still embraces the call up to the high court as she had not expected it.

“I was ecstatic. I was incredibly humbled because not ever in my life did I think something that’s incredible would happen to a girl from Olievenhoutbosch (Tshwane), who used to walk to school in Midrand reading her Harry Potter books,” Mabhena said.

She said she owed her success to her parents, who raised her in a low to medium-earning household.

“They worked so hard to put me through to a school like Blue Hills College and put me through university. I found a need to work hard so they could see the fruits of their labour,” Mabhena said.

As a firm believer in the pursuit of excellence, she said when the going got tough, that was the time to push harder.

She does not believe in lowering standards as it is counter-productive - especially when one is pursuing transformation. She wants to use her career achievements to inspire a culture of achieving excellence.

“Sometimes our generation seems to fall into the trap that if something is difficult, the answer is to lower the standards. For example, our matric pass mark has been lowered to 30% in three subjects, and 40% in three others. This has done nothing to help our education system,” she said.

Mabhena’s passion for the next generation of black female practitioners was sparked by the fact that the legal profession has always been male-dominated and women were not allowed to be lawyers around 1929. There was also little representation of black male attorneys.

“I believe that the next generation needs to see people that look like us [blacks] in these spaces so that they can see that’s possible to be successful in these spaces,” Mabhena said.

She added: “For us, it’s hard to assimilate into these spaces because we didn’t grow up in them. We didn’t have the privileges of being in these kinds of offices because our parents weren’t in these professions. We want children who can be in these spaces and be comfortable in them,” she said.

Asked what she thought about the connotations of her surname on social platforms, Mabhena laughed.

She said at first she would get irritated by it, because of the number of people who would send the video to her, and then she chose to embrace it.

“I went go-karting last weekend and I couldn’t do some of the things and some people were just like ‘Oh, disappoint me again Mabhena” and I laughed it off. You just take it as it is, I think it’s funny,” she said.

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