Back in Grade 9, 15-year-old Jenny Pienaar had already decided that she was going to be a lawyer. However, when she found herself unable to pass Private Law 1 while studying towards a BA Law degree at Maties, she did what only a student with blind determination would do – she refused to listen to her lecturer.
“I was struggling to get through Private Law 1 and I managed to fail it twice in two years. When I told my lecturer that I wanted to go into law, he told me outright 'you will never a become a lawyer'," says Jenny.
“I knew then that I had to find another way to get into law, so I did a BA degree in Classical Culture and Political Philosophy, got my BA degree and then went to the University of Cape Town and did my LLB over three years because I did not have any law subjects," says Jenny who graduated with an LLB degree from UCT in 1991.
Today Jenny is a qualified Trade Mark Attorney, a Partner and Co-Chair of the Trade Marks Department, and acting as the Chair of the Trade Mark Litigation Department at the well-known law firm, Adams & Adams. She practices in trade mark litigation, domain name registration, securing domains from unlawful proprietors, litigation related to copyright, passing-off, unlawful competition, and company name objections. She also has experience in advertising law and regulatory compliance.
Adams & Adams represents 240 of the Forbes 500 companies in the United States as well as other countries, with a wide variety of clients from the FMCG (Fast-moving Consumer Goods) to the banking sector and pharmaceutical industry.
On 24 October Jenny will tell students more about how she defied the limits others had set for her to become the lawyer she always dreamt of being. This TedTalk-styled event, known as the Careers Café, will take place between 13:00 and 14:00 in Room 230 on the second floor of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences building on the corner of Merriman and Ryneveld Street and is open to all students.
The Careers Café series was launched in 2016 by the Alumni Relations Office to provide a platform for alumni to engage with the university in a different manner by offering their time and skills to help current students prepare for the careers they want. Through this interaction, current students are able to learn from the real-life experiences of Matie graduates in the corporate world and benefit from advice and tips from them as well. Other career development opportunities on campus are also promoted through this event, encouraging students to further improve their work preparedness.
If you want to attend this free talk, you can RSVP for the Careers Café here.
