Louise Buikman
Tel: +27 21 422 0060
Email:
[email protected]
A practising advocate, now at the Cape Bar after a year as a prosecutor in the Johannesburg Regional Magistrate’s Court and 10 years at the Johannesburg Bar, Louise Buikman has had a wide-ranging career, which has included litigation in company law, construction law, matrimonial law, law of contract, insolvency law and labour law.She has also been an acting judge in the Cape Provincial Division of the high court and gained temporary admission to Gray’s Inn, one of London’s legendary four Inns of Court, in 2007 to appear as a barrister in the Chester County Court. In another association with Gray’s Inn she was a trainer in the advocacy training programme run in conjunction with Gray’s Inn. Buikman has been a member of sub-committees of the Cape Bar Council, was Fee Ombudsman in 2005 and a member of the Council in 2007 and 2008.A woman of eclectic interests, she co-chaired Cape Town’s Upper City Bowl City Improvement District for a year and keeps fit by running — a lot. She has completed three Comrades Marathons and two Two Oceans Ultra-Marathons.
Madeleine de Swardt SC
Tel: +27 21 423 1542
Email:
[email protected]
Madeleine de Swardt, the second women at the Cape Bar to be awarded the status of Senior Counsel, has an wide range of specialised interests, including labour law, shipping law and administrative law. She joined the Bar in 1976 after four years as a prosecutor and state advocate.She has also served terms as an acting judge in the high court and in the Labour Court. A fellow of the Arbitrators Association of Southern Africa, she is on the panel of arbitrators of the Arbitration Foundation of South Africa and the Arbitration Forum. She has served as a member of the Cape Bar Council, heading its finance and staff committee for several years.
Tanya Golden
Tel: +27 21 422 0869
Email:
[email protected]
Starting with an LLB from the University of the Western Cape, Tanya Golden’s career has included some impressive academic achievements. She has two LLMs, one in labour law from the University of Cape Town and a second in international business law (international development finance and foreign direct investment) from the Washington College of Law in Washington, DC. Golden was the 2004 South African Hubert H Humphrey Fulbright Fellow and spent her fellowship year in Washington, DC, where she also worked in the legal department of the World Bank.She is an alumna of the prestigious Georgetown University Executive Leadership Programme. Her activities in South Africa, where she has been a member of the Cape Bar since 1998, practising predominantly in the fields of labour, administrative and commercial law, include service as a member of the Cape Bar Council and on the Cape Bar Advocacy Training Committee. She is also a member of Advocates for Transformation in the Western Cape.
Harshila Kooverjie
Tel: +27 12 303 7661
Email:
[email protected]
Harshila Kooverjie, a practising advocate and member of the Pretoria Society of Advocates, graduated with a BA LLB from the University of the Witwatersrand and worked initially for the Road Accident Fund. Called to the Bar in 1996, she works extensively in the fields of tax, labour, intellectual property, commercial law and alternative dispute resolution and intends to specialise in international commercial law.She has diplomas in motor vehicle accident law, alternative dispute resolution and international commercial arbitration from the University of Pretoria, is a member of the Arbitration Foundation of South Africa and has written the intellectual property law examinations of the South African Institute of Intellectual Property Law.
Nobahle Mangcu-Lockwood
Tel: +27 21 423 1484
Email: [email protected]
Nobahle Mangcu-Lockwood, an advocate of the high court and a member of the Cape Bar, previously worked as an attorney at Cheadle, Thompson & Haysom, where she specialised in labour law and general public policy work. A graduate of the University of Cape Town, where she studied social sciences, majoring in political philosophy and government and public policy, and later took her LLB, she is completing her LLM in constitutional and administrative laws at the same university. Her areas of expertise are labour law, administrative law, constitutional law, environmental law and local government.
Cathy McDonald
Tel: +27 21 426 0017
Email:
[email protected]
Once a teacher with a BSc degree in physics and chemistry, Cathy McDonald made a major career change when she joined the Cape Bar in 1999, with her areas of special interest being the law of contract and administrative law. She has, however, kept up her pedagogical skills with her active involvement in the Cape Bar’s Advocacy Skills Training Programme, designed to train new members during their pupilage.She has also successfully mentored two advocates assigned to her during their pupilage. McDonald has served as treasurer of the Cape Bar Council for two years and has, from time to time, also served as a member of the council’s finance and functions committees. She is a member of its housing committee.
Brenda Neukircher SC
Tel: + 27 12 424 4209
Email: [email protected]
Brenda Neukircher began practice at the Pretoria Bar in 1990 and took silk in 2006. Her areas of specialisation are family law, administrative law, contracts and general litigation. She has had several appointments as an acting judge of the Transvaal Provincial Division of the high court and is co-author of High Court Motion Procedure: A Practical Guide.
Elize Steyn SC
Tel: + 27 21 424 5254
Email: [email protected]
Elize Steyn obtained her LLB degree in Bloemfontein in 1975, receiving the accolade of best final-year LLB student. After working as a prosecutor she began practising as an advocate at the Cape Bar in 1978, specialising in family law and the law relating to administration of estates.Apart from a year working in London, Steyn has been in practice in Cape Town for 30 years. She took silk in 1999. A member of the Cape Bar Council and chairperson of the Cape Bar Bursary Fund for many years, she is an acting judge. She has also served on the board of the Jan Van Riebeeck Hoërskool and was instrumental in drafting the school’s code of conduct.
Ronel Tolmay SC
Tel: +27 12 424 4213
Email:
[email protected]
A graduate of Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education where she received her B.IUR degree cum laude, and the University of Pretoria, where she studied for her LLB, Ronel Tolmay joined the Pretoria Society of Advocates in 1986 and has practised in Pretoria ever since. She took silk in 2004. Her wide-ranging practice includes medical negligence, administrative law, commercial law and family law and she has had several terms as an acting judge in the high court. She has served on various committees of the Pretoria Bar and was a member of the Bar Council in 2005.
Sharise Weiner SC
Tel: +27 11 290 4000
Email: [email protected]
Sharise Weiner has practised at the Johannesburg Bar since 1978. She took silk in 1995, since which she has been appointed annually as an acting judge in the high court. She is a commissioner of the Small Claims Court and part-time commissioner for the CCMA. As a member of the South African National Advocacy Training Committee she trains and mentors pupil and junior advocates and teachers in practical advocacy skills. Since 1998, when she was called to the Bar of England and Wales, she has been invited annually by Gray’s Inn, London, and the Hong Kong Bar to train both teachers and junior practitioners.A member of the Johannesburg Bar Council, she has been vice-chairperson of the professional sub-committee and chairperson of the advocacy training committee. Since 2000 she has chaired the national advocacy training committee of the General Council of the Bar (GCB), has compiled training materials and programmes for the skills training workshops and organised workshops and symposia for continuing legal education and skills training programmes. In 2003 she was appointed to the executive committee of the GCB and, in 2005, was appointed vice-chairperson.
Patricia (Patsi) Weyer
Tel: +27 21 4249693
Email: [email protected]
Patsi Weyer’s life has consisted of a string of “firsts”. Raised and educated in the Eastern Cape, she was the first woman to chair the rag committee and the first elected president of the Law Student’s Council at Rhodes University. In 1986, while studying for her LLB degree, she was the first woman to be elected national rag chairperson, representing all the affiliated universities in South Africa.Weyers began practising as an advocate at the Grahamstown Bar in 1989, becoming one of the first and, at the time, the youngest women to practise as an advocate in the Eastern Cape. She later relocated to Cape Town, where she has appeared in many ground-breaking cases, most significantly in the area of family law and divorce. She has a special interest in matters affecting the international movement of children and she has appeared in a number of cases involving the Hague Convention on the International Abduction of Children. She also has a keen interest in medical negligence matters and is increasingly engaged in the emerging area of information technology law and related intellectual property disputes. She has served as a member of the Cape Bar Council.
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