About Patrick Ngunjiri
Overview
Patrick Ngunjiri is the founder and managing partner of Patricks Law Associates and has over 19 years of legal experience. He has acted for clients in Kenya and advised in offering practical business solutions in real property law, banking, co-operative societies, microfinance, insurance, joint ventures, probate and administration, intellectual property among others. Some of his career highlights include;
- Acting regularly for Thika greens Limited, a property company in pioneer high end gated community fully integrated mixed user developments comprising of a 18 hole golf course championships with over 800 residential units and a commercial center.
- Acting for over 1000 Insurance Policy holders, a Judgment debtor in successfully discharging, drawing and exploring an order that unlawfully cushioned a leading insurance company from satisfying judgment and decree running into kshs.300,000,000/= and designing a revenue share formula including resolving dispute ongoing thereof by ADR mechanisms.
- Acting in a landmark, precedent, setting constitutional petition that delivered the deputy speaker's seat in all the 47 counties in Kenya necessary and constitutional within the devolution constitutional frame work.
- Regularly acted for private and public institutions at the employment and labor relations courts, dealing with complex labor related matters, issues of redundancy, termination rock-outs, boycotts, strikes and compensation.
- Patrick is a thought leader in democracy, governance, rule of law, a justice and human rights as demonstrated by the leadership he offers to the International Commission of Jurists - Kenya Section, where he has served in the council since 2013. Under ICJ Auspice, he has spoken in International Conferences lately being The South African Chief Justice, 2019 in Seychelles.
- Patrick is an established and respected authority in Real Property Law. In this regard he has featured on NTV's property show program "the N-Soko property show. He is retained to provide solution to complex land transactions involving huge transactions of land and complex sub-divisions. In this regard, he has helped "chamas" and co-operative societies acquire and sell large parcels of land, crafted for them a revenue sharing formula and resolved disputes arising from the distributions of ADR.
Experience
Successfully co-represented over three thousand insurance policyholders, third parties and judgment creditors against an insurance company in Kenya. In that case, our clients sought to set aside an order that insulated the insurance company from paying insurance claims worth over Kes 300 Million contrary to the existing court decrees, insurance policies and the insurance law regime. In the end, the order was discharged enabling thousand policyholders and road traffic accident victims to access the deserved compensation.
Acted for Agriculture based Cooperative Society where we provided legal services in the successful disposal of 1,600 acres of land in Murang'a and Kiambu Counties in Kenya whose value was Kes 1.05Billion. We assisted our client in complying with the pre-sale regulatory legal framework in the cooperative sector and in obtaining all approvals required to affect this translation leading to a successful completion transaction. I helped our client to craft an acceptable revenue sharing formula for the membership and participated in dispute resolution process emanating from the distribution of the proceeds both at the Cooperative tribunal and through Alternative Dispute Resolutions mechanisms.
Acted for a private real estate company whereby our work involved converting a 100-acre parcel of land within Thika, from a coffee estate in an ultra-modern residential Estate. I assisted our client in conceptualizing and planning of the estate under the physical planning law, obtaining the change of use from agricultural to residential and commercial user, navigating through the subdivision process. I also assisted three hundred and fifty families to purchase and obtain titles to the subplots.
Acted as a lead legal transactional advisor for Thika Greens Limited, a high end property company in planning and developing phase two of their project valued at Kes.3 billion comprising of a controlled estate spanning over 1,200 Acres replete with a par 72, 18 hole Golf Championship Golf course and over 800 residential houses , golf tourism villas, proposed five star hotel and other community amenities such as a school, community center, commercial center, police station and a home for the aged. I also participated in developing the estate rules and regulations and having them adopted by the then Thika Municipal council as normative and enforceable by-laws.
Acted for a Kitale based 'Chama' (self-help group), owners of sixty-eight acres of land registered under the Registration of Titles Act, now repealed. Apart from the subdivision, this brief involved advising the clients in how to transition from the RTA registration system, whose registry was stationed in Nairobi to a land Act based registration system situate in County Headquarters in this case Kitale. The successful completion of this project not only guaranteed our 68 clients title over their subplots under the Land Act but saved the endless long trips to Nairobi to pay land rent or obtain clearance certificates.
Since the year 2009, I was admitted as Kenya Industrial Property Agent. I have been practicing Intellectual Property Law both at the Institute and the Industrial Property Tribunal. I have made an application for grant of Patents, Utility Models, Industrial designs and trademarks with the Institute for local and cross border clients based in the Middle East and Europe. I have handled litigation within the tribunal dealing with Compulsory Licensing of Patented Inventions, transfer of compulsory licenses, the variation of terms of licenses, revocation of the patent, infringement of a patent among others.
Acted on behalf of a private university a participated in a long, winding industrial relation dispute in the high court involving redundancy of about three hundred employees of the university. The outcome was a partial win for the university as damages for unlawful termination were reduced by half of what is provided under the employment
Acted as legal adviser to a large number of businesses in Kenya. These range from purely local undertakings to subsidiaries and branches of international corporations. In this regard, I advise and represent my clients in various matters including employment, tax, leases and contracts. I also undertake specific larger tasks such as drafting and negotiating a broad spectrum of contracts in commercial contracts and transactions. My clients in this sector include banks and financial institutions, agribusiness firms (including horticulture and floriculture), and property developers.
Plass law seeks to understand our client's business and to provide legal solutions to enhance our client's profitability. The SASRA report 2017 notes that non-performing loan portfolio is partly attributable to poor perfection of securities. Against this background, in 2019 acting for a deposit-taking rural-based cooperative society I undertook the review of their security documents both under Land laws and the Movable Property Security Act, 2016 to update them and ensure that they conform with the enabling legislation. To this end, I conducted a training geared towards the perfection of the secularization process thereby enhancing recovery efforts and drastically reducing the non-performing loan portfolio.
In 2018 acted for the County Assembly of Nyeri we undertook a landmark constitutional petition on the constitutionality of the office of the Deputy Speaker. Before this petition, three different High court Judges in Meru, Machakos and Murang'a had declared the deputy speaker unconstitutional, but our team took a different constitutional trajectory a wholesome interpretation of the constitution which the Judge adopted in dismissing the petition thereby saving the deputy speakers seat in all 47 counties.
In 2017 acted for a county government. Participated in a groundbreaking case in which the high court interrogated the county budget-making process under the Public finance Management Act and defined the role of the county executive and the county assembly in this process.
Acted for a group of twenty investors where we incorporated Epiphany Investment Limited and acted for them in purchasing a ten acres parcel of land inland in Athi River. I advised in the change of user and subdivision of the parcel of into to parcel of land. I acted for my client in the purchase of obtaining the change of user and in selling five acres thereof to a foreign investor, a renowned international group of schools.
Acted for Wilmac Cattle Dip in disposing off over eight hundred acres of land within Laikipia county to a local investor.
For period of over fifteen years we have acted for Kenya's leading banks with major presence in the African Continent in perfection of securities inland and movable assets and process, We have helped thousands of clients including private companies, cooperative societies, foreign investors, public companies individuals informal business startups and SMEs at access credit facilities to grow their business.
Education
- Kenya School of Law - Diploma in Law
- University of Nairobi Bachelors of Laws, LL.B (Hons).
- University of South Africa Master's degree in law, LL.M
- University of Pretoria Certificate in Good Governance
- Training and Consulting Associates Policy and Legislative drafting
- Strathmore University Law School Foundation in mediation skills training course and assessment
Memberships
- Commonwealth Lawyers Association
- East Africa Law Society
- International Commission of Jurists
- Law Society of Kenya
Accomplishments
- Patrick is an Agent with Kenya Industrial Property Institute
- (KIPI) which is Kenya's parastatal that administers Intellectual Property rights.
- Certified Secretary (CS)
- Notary Public
- Commissioner for Oaths
- Advocate of the High Court of Kenya -
- Vice-Chairperson, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ - Kenya Section) 2017 - to date; previously served as Council member and Secretary to council.
