Audio By Vocalize
Many people have asked me a question that is often delivered with equal measures of curiosity and disbelief: Why did you decide to study law this late in life? Some ask gently. Others ask it almost accusingly. A few have even wondered aloud why a person with four degrees would willingly go back to school for a fifth degree, this time in law. I understand their surprise.
In a society that often measures success through the accumulation of wealth and comfort, returning to the classroom after years of professional achievement appears unnecessary. I do not blame them. We are conditioned to believe that learning should end at some point. The school system teaches us that one eventually reaches an intellectual destination and settles there permanently. I can only say bure kabisa.
To be honest, I have never believed that education is a destination. It is a continuing conversation with life itself. The decision to study law did not emerge from restlessness or boredom. Neither was it driven by the desire for prestige.
It came from a deep realisation that law and literature, the discipline I have lived with for decades, are profoundly connected.
In many ways, I did not leave literature to study law. I simply walked into another room within the same house. I hope to make a meaningful contribution to society within this room.
Allow me to explain this relationship. Law and literature both engage with human behaviour, justice, morality, language and communication and are rooted in lived experience.
The novelist explores the complexities of human motive; the lawyer interrogates the same motives within legal frameworks. In criminal law, we speak of actus reus and mens rea, the guilty act and the guilty mind.
The writer seeks meaning in human action, while law seeks accountability for it. One explores the soul of society; the other regulates its conduct. It is no surprise, then, that strong lawyers often draw from literature and theatre.
I often smile when people speak of my transition as though I abandoned one world for another. I remain within my province. Literature helps me understand the human experiences behind legal systems. Long before constitutions and statutes, societies told stories of right and wrong, fairness and cruelty. Literature captures these tensions with emotional depth.
When I read about oppression in African novels, I read about injustice. When I wrote about betrayal, displacement, violence and corruption in my novel “Beyond the Dark Clouds”, I was engaging questions law seeks to address.
Literature can expose the limits of law while reminding us why justice matters. Law, in turn, provides structures that regulate human conduct, turning moral concerns into enforceable principles and seeking order in a world shaped by chaos.
Yet without human understanding, law risks becoming cold and mechanical. This is where literature matters: it humanises law. A judge may read a file; a writer imagines the tears behind it.
Both disciplines also depend fundamentally on language. Lawyers use language to persuade, interpret and argue. Every legal battle is, at one level, a battle over meaning. A single word in a constitution may determine the fate of nations.
Respect for language
Writers, too, labour through language. They use words to create emotion, beauty, tension and meaning. A novelist carefully arranges sentences to reveal character and conflict. A poet compresses worlds into lines. A playwright builds dramatic tension through dialogue.
The lawyer and the writer therefore share a deep respect for language, though they deploy it differently. One seeks precision, while the other often embraces ambiguity. Both understand that words have power.
Entering a courtroom, I quickly realise that law is not merely technical; it is performance, interpretation and persuasion. This is where theatre enters the conversation. I have always found it striking that discussions on careers in theatre and film rarely include law. Recently, my friend Mutahi Miricho wrote on such careers but excluded law from the list. I respectfully disagree with him.
To a lawyer, the courtroom is undeniably a theatrical space. A trial features costumes such as robes and wigs in some jurisdictions, dramatic entrances, choreographed procedures, scripted formalities, strategic pauses, emotional testimony, persuasive performance and attentive audiences.
Lawyers must master voice projection, timing, body language, rhetoric and improvisation. Judges also perform authority through ritual and language. A weak courtroom performance can lose a strong case; a powerful one can bring legal argument to life. The link between theatre and law is therefore no accident. Both depend on presence, performance and the interpretation of texts. They require the ability to read audiences and communicate persuasively.
As I study law, I increasingly appreciate how deeply interconnected human knowledge truly is. Universities sometimes divide disciplines too rigidly, as though literature belongs in one isolated corner and law in another. Yet life itself refuses such neat separations. Human experience spills across disciplinary boundaries.
I am convinced that a society cannot sustain justice without stories. Neither can stories flourish where justice is absent. That is why I returned to class. Not because I lacked degrees, but because I remain fascinated by the endless conversation between human beings, power, morality, language and truth.
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Many people have asked me a question that is often delivered with equal measures of curiosity and disbelief: Why did you decide to study law this late in life? Some ask gently. Others ask it almost accusingly. A few have even wondered aloud why a person with four degrees would willingly go back to school for a fifth degree, this time in law. I understand their surprise.
In a society that often measures success through the accumulation of wealth and comfort, returning to the classroom after years of professional achievement appears unnecessary. I do not blame them. We are conditioned to believe that learning should end at some point. The school system teaches us that one eventually reaches an intellectual destination and settles there permanently. I can only say
bure kabisa.
To be honest, I have never believed that education is a destination. It is a continuing conversation with life itself. The decision to study law did not emerge from restlessness or boredom. Neither was it driven by the desire for prestige.
It came from a deep realisation that law and literature, the discipline I have lived with for decades, are profoundly connected.
In many ways, I did not leave literature to study law. I simply walked into another room within the same house. I hope to make a meaningful contribution to society within this room.
Allow me to explain this relationship. Law and literature both engage with human behaviour, justice, morality, language and communication and are rooted in lived experience.
The novelist explores the complexities of human motive; the lawyer interrogates the same motives within legal frameworks. In criminal law, we speak of actus reus and mens rea, the guilty act and the guilty mind.
The writer seeks meaning in human action, while law seeks accountability for it. One explores the soul of society; the other regulates its conduct. It is no surprise, then, that strong lawyers often draw from literature and theatre.
I often smile when people speak of my transition as though I abandoned one world for another. I remain within my province. Literature helps me understand the human experiences behind legal systems. Long before constitutions and statutes, societies told stories of right and wrong, fairness and cruelty. Literature captures these tensions with emotional depth.
When I read about oppression in African novels, I read about injustice. When I wrote about betrayal, displacement, violence and corruption in my novel “Beyond the Dark Clouds”, I was engaging questions law seeks to address.
Literature can expose the limits of law while reminding us why justice matters. Law, in turn, provides structures that regulate human conduct, turning moral concerns into enforceable principles and seeking order in a world shaped by chaos.
Yet without human understanding, law risks becoming cold and mechanical. This is where literature matters: it humanises law. A judge may read a file; a writer imagines the tears behind it.
Both disciplines also depend fundamentally on language. Lawyers use language to persuade, interpret and argue. Every legal battle is, at one level, a battle over meaning. A single word in a constitution may determine the fate of nations.
Respect for language
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Writers, too, labour through language. They use words to create emotion, beauty, tension and meaning. A novelist carefully arranges sentences to reveal character and conflict. A poet compresses worlds into lines. A playwright builds dramatic tension through dialogue.
The lawyer and the writer therefore share a deep respect for language, though they deploy it differently. One seeks precision, while the other often embraces ambiguity. Both understand that words have power.
Entering a courtroom, I quickly realise that law is not merely technical; it is performance, interpretation and persuasion. This is where theatre enters the conversation. I have always found it striking that discussions on careers in theatre and film rarely include law. Recently, my friend Mutahi Miricho wrote on such careers but excluded law from the list. I respectfully disagree with him.
To a lawyer, the courtroom is undeniably a theatrical space. A trial features costumes such as robes and wigs in some jurisdictions, dramatic entrances, choreographed procedures, scripted formalities, strategic pauses, emotional testimony, persuasive performance and attentive audiences.
Lawyers must master voice projection, timing, body language, rhetoric and improvisation. Judges also perform authority through ritual and language. A weak courtroom performance can lose a strong case; a powerful one can bring legal argument to life. The link between theatre and law is therefore no accident. Both depend on presence, performance and the interpretation of texts. They require the ability to read audiences and communicate persuasively.
As I study law, I increasingly appreciate how deeply interconnected human knowledge truly is. Universities sometimes divide disciplines too rigidly, as though literature belongs in one isolated corner and law in another. Yet life itself refuses such neat separations. Human experience spills across disciplinary boundaries.
I am convinced that a society cannot sustain justice without stories. Neither can stories flourish where justice is absent. That is why I returned to class. Not because I lacked degrees, but because I remain fascinated by the endless conversation between human beings, power, morality, language and truth.
By Prof Egara Kabaji