Candice Pillay joined on 1 December as a director and co-head of our pro bono and social responsibility team. She joins from Lawtons Africa where she was head of pro bono and corporate citizenship, a team that she started. She is passionate about pro bono, social responsibility, corporate citizenship; and she boasts extensive public interest litigation credentials, having been admitted in May 1999. Candice also holds senior board positions at a number of NPOs, and there are immediate synergies between the clients for whom she does work, who will follow her when she joins – many of whom are clients of ours. She will also add significant capacity, and her own ideas and experiences, to initiatives such as the domestic violence helpdesk and wills week, to mention only two.  Her focus will be national. 

In Candice we have been able to attract what really is a strategically important lateral hire. She will be based in Sandton, and I know that Liesl Williams is chomping at the bit for the team's strategic planning meeting which will take place early next week.

Candice will be joined by her candidate attorney, Nicola Irving, and her secretary, Precious Masinga.

Thanusha Moodley will join, with effect from 1 January, as a director in Durban. She joins from Cox Yeats, where she was head of E&L.  She has also worked as legal counsel for a leading global industrial processing, distribution, and services company. Thanusha was admitted in 2006, and adds depth and experience, not only in Durban, but nationally.  The business development and marketing team will, in preparation for her arrival, put together a coordinated plan focused on client approaches, for implementation next year.

These hires add momentum to Norton Rose Fulbright’s lateral hire drive which is aimed at strategically strengthening its already excellent existing team capabilities.