FK Law Chambers is composed of six partners, namely, Prof. Florens DAM Luoga (Principal Partner); Dr. Angelo M Mapunda (Senior Partner); Mr. Vincent Mhina (Senior Partner); Mr. Harun G Mahundi (Senior Partner); Mr. Hon. Dan P Mapigano (Senior Partner); and Mr. Deusdedith M Duncan (Senior Partner).
Organization
The organizational structure of FK law Chambers is regulated by the firm’s Deed of Partnership, originally registered in 1996. In terms of governance, the firm is headed by a Chairperson, who manages the affairs of the firm but, in terms of the firm’s Deed of Partnership, the management of the firm is a joint responsibility of all partners. The Chair is assisted by is Dr. Angelo Mapunda, the Partner responsible for finance and administration matters, who is assisted by a professional accountant, Mr Joseph Sedoyeka, a holder of bachelor’s degree in accounts and finance obtained from Mzumbe University in Morogoro, Tanzania.
The current chairman of the firm is Prof. Florens Luoga, a renowned tax expert and academician. The firm’s Chair rotates among partners on a two-year basis. Under the firm’s Deed of Partnership, decision-making is based on consultation and the principle of unanimity or, if necessary, majority vote.
The firm has put in place different management portfolios in response to the dictates of professional and office requirements as well as clients’ needs, demands and expectations. Currently, the portfolios include Finance & Administration; Human Resources, Library & Training; Corporate, Transaction and Business Development; Litigation and Customer Support; Procurement & Estate; and Ethics & Quality Control.
Succession plan
In terms of the firm’s Deed of Partnership death, retirement, resignation or removal (dismissal) of any Partner does not affect the continued existence of the firm, which continues to trade subject to notification of changes in the firm’s composition to relevant regulatory authorities.
The continued survival of the firm ensures and has assured clients’ continuity and completion by the firm of the engagements contracted by the firm and assigned to the affected Partner.
The Partner in charge of ethics and quality control, who is carefully chosen by the firm, is responsible for overseeing of the quality of outputs generated by the firm’s professional and non-professional workforce. The current partner responsible for quality control and compliance matters is retired justice Dan Mapigano, assisted by Mr. Mhina.
In practice, in complex legal assignments, especially those involving contentious matters, before a letter or legal document generated within the firm is sent out to court, a client, regulatory body or any other person, it is subjected to a process of quality control by the responsible Partner or, in his absence, any other Partner. The associates and legal officers are under strict and special instructions to observe this procedure.
Although the firm always strives to assure compliance and adherence to ethical standards, the firm understands that sometimes mistakes do occur. Cognizant of this fact, the firm has put in place a current professional indemnity insurance cover covering all the Partners and staff.
FK Law Chambers has a procedure designed to prevent acting for one client in a matter where there is or could be an actual or potential conflict with the interest of another client. If a possible conflict arises, then it will be up to the firm, taking account of legal constraints, applicable professional rules and other clients’ interests and wishes, to decide whether we may properly act for both parties, for one only, or for neither.
FK Law Chambers understands that its clients seek legal representation and advisory services in regulatory matters pertaining to their respective industries in an interlocked and increasingly competitive domestic and international market milieu.
FK Law Chambers understand that its clients focus on consistently meeting and exceeding their customers’ expectations nationally and internationally. Against this backdrop, the firm is committed to providing accurate, focused and commercially-sensitive legal advice and services. The firm is also committed to providing cost-effective and time-efficient services to clients in its specialized areas of the law, by providing them with committed and experienced partners, suitably qualified associates, competent attorneys and a pool of well-motivated and trained support staff.
FK Law Chambers has over the years come to recognize that the relationship between Counsel and client is primarily founded on mutual confidence and relationship. Therefore, each Partner of the firm is equipped with a post-paid personal mobile phone to ensure guaranteed long-distance consultation among Partners and communication with clients around the clock and globe.
The Partner responsible for Litigation and Customer Support portfolio works with an associate who has been specially assigned to support customers to ensure that, whether in contentious or non-contentious matters, and wherever they may be, clients are updated, through progress reports generated by email or otherwise, of the status of their assignments.
The firm has put in place a group mail list of its clients and through this list, clients are able to receive information on amendments to laws/regulations and recent court decisions affecting their particular industries.
The firm aims at providing a service with which clients will be satisfied. However, the Partners realize that on some occasions clients’ expectations may not be met or that clients may have a query or concern or may simply be dissatisfied. If any of these occur, we urge our clients to initially raise them with the person(s) in conduct of the matter. If the person cannot resolve them to clients’ satisfaction or clients would not wish to speak to the person(s), then we urge our clients to contact the person having an overall responsibility for the matter. If the clients are still dissatisfied, we urge them to contact the Chairman of the firm at the time. If the person dealing with the matter is the incumbent Chairman, then we urge clients to take up their complaint with any of the Partners.
The dispute management system is fairly unsophisticated. Disputes with clients are reported by the client or responsible firm member to the Chairperson of the firm, who initiates an intra-firm dialogue with a view to an amicable resolution.
We further advise clients of their right to complain to the Tanganyika Law Society. However, the Tanganyika Law Society generally requires that a client should try to resolve a complaint they have with a firm of Advocates before contacting the Law Society.
At FK Law Chambers we believe in transferring knowledge given the firm’s academic background. We keep industry and business informed – through seminars and electronic newsbrief – of amendments to legislation or changes to stances of courts on issues of importance to them. We run, for reasonable fee, tailor-made training to our corporate clients in areas such as taxation and employment/labour, among others.
In its pedagogical mission, in August 2004, the firm organized and unprecedented and trend-setting “Workshop on the New Income Tax Act 2004, the New Labour Institutions Act 2004, and the New Employment and Labor Relations Act, 2004” which was attended by well over 70 corporate representatives.
FK Law chambers has a long-established tradition of accommodating deserving graduates from local and foreign recognized and reputable universities to work with the firm as externs as part or continuation of their professional training.
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