RISING WOMAN 2025: Gigi Maajar champions women lawyers and breaks down barriers

Dar es Salaam. Gigi Maajar, holding an LLB (Hons) and a postgraduate in International Corporate and Financial Law from the University of Wolverhampton, is a staunch advocate for women in the legal profession.

Gigi is the Founder and Managing Partner for MAAJAR & Co ADVISORY, a corporate advisory firm which also provides compliance advisory services and ground support for those setting up businesses in Tanzania.

Driven by a passion for problem-solving and a family legacy of lawyers, she has dedicated her career to empowering female practitioners. In addition to this, she comes from a long line of lawyers and attorneys in her family. Because of this, she was always interested in reading Law and becoming enrolled to practice in whichever jurisdiction I live in.

“As a young child, I would even write in those old ‘Autograph Books” we used to give to each other to fill in that my dream was to be a lawyer! I, therefore, feel very privileged to have been able to realise my dream and be a part of the legal fraternity in the country, offering customised solutions to my clients and society,” she recalls.

When she started in the legal field, she was lucky enough to have a personal network that granted her access to some of the most revered and experienced legal practitioners. She said: “This meant I could pick up the phone and ask for assistance or visit these senior practitioners to pick their brains, which made it so much easier for me to learn and pick up experience on the field.

“I do, however, understand that this is not the experience for many practitioners, especially women in our field. Therefore, I always make a point to support female and junior practitioners to level the playing field and give them a similar experience to what I was lucky to have,” she says.

Gigi added that she further supports women in various ways, including sharing her work experience, legal precedents, legal draughting formats, and samples; helping in structuring professional-looking CVs and cover letters; sharing opportunities for work, training programs, higher-level education, and board positions; teaching emotional intelligence (which allows one to handle different situations); and offering training to practitioners.

Due to the love and support she has, Tanganyika Law Society (TLS) requested her to train 500 new advocates on advocates’ remuneration and billing, something which she considers a great pride in because it allowed practitioners to understand what it takes to be able to make a living from what they love doing.

Speaking about this year’s International Women’s Day, “this year’s theme is a reminder that while we have come a long way in creating an equitable society where women play an equal role. We still, however, need to have every one of us involved to add our voices to support the women’s agenda, and not only in words but in action.”

Also, we must support policies and legislation at all levels that encourage women to be more involved in businesses, be they small, medium, or large; participate in elections; and vie for leadership positions. Women must be seen at the table participating in decision-making that impacts their families and communities and helps accelerate their economic growth.

Gigi, also a board member of the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA) and a member of the Zanzibar Female Lawyers Association (ZAFELA), has mentored and continued to mentor young talent.

This is something she has been for a long time; the list is endless and cannot be counted.

Still, it is a continuous process, sometimes in structured mentorship programs and sometimes simply by being there for each other and specifically for the rising female legal practitioners. In addition to my work with TAWLA and ZAFELA, I also usually partner with the TLS, the Zanzibar Law Society (ZLS), and the East Africa Law Society (EALS).

Gigi is also a moderator, mistress of ceremony, and panellist on different subjects of the law, such as artificial intelligence, women empowerment in leadership, ESG, billing practices for advocates, ethics, anti-money laundering, and the role of advocates as reporting persons. She likes to attend Women’s Networking events and always takes the chance to speak even from the audience to remind women what they are capable of, how to build confidence, how to navigate firm politics, how to build networks that work to better themselves, and avail opportunities. I can confidently say that mentorship, especially among women lawyers and practitioners, is a matter that is ingrained in our blood, and we do it well. I am proud to say we learnt this from our mothers and elder learnt sisters in TAWLA, to whom I feel I owe a lot for what I have become.

Women overly self-audit themselves before they make a move or attempt any opportunity, while men will typically venture out even if they only meet 50 percent of the requirements! Women tend to vet our ability first, consider if we can do it, and often assume we cannot. We don’t usually take risks and are not as ambitious. Worse still, women don’t think we should blow our trumpet because we feel it is self-promotion. However, self-promotion is necessary because it is self-branding about the things you are best at and is not a negative trait. Because of all this, it means women miss out on otherwise attainable opportunities and get themselves out of the running before the race even starts! Another challenge is women of a certain age bracket have societal expectations of getting married, starting a family, and then taking care of that family, which then translates to missing out on opportunities while heavily pregnant or if they experience complications in their pregnancies or when on maternity leave or when attending to their young children, like clinic and hospital visits, etc., therefore not being able to participate in opportunities that require after-hours attendance, long travel, or are in a different city or country.

At the same time, their male counterparts have no such challenges and do not miss such opportunities and, therefore, end up being given more responsibilities and/or getting promoted over their female counterparts. “Don’t wait to be seen! Proudly sit at the front in meetings and seminars, get up and introduce yourself to speakers, panellists, etc., at events, give out your business cards, request others business cards, and be sure to reach out to those you exchange cards with, always with an anecdote of the day to help them remember you! Seek out training sessions for areas you are interested in, e.g., Central Bank of Tanzania (BOT) and Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) training if you are into banking and Financial law, or things like ATE’s Female Future Program or Uongozi Institute’s Women Leadership Programme, where you will be sure to get advanced training, better yourself professionally, build on your network, and be a part of our version of women’s club! Another great training is from the Institute of Directors in Tanzania (IoDT), where I am also one of its non-executive directors and sit on its board of directors. The IoDT offers practical corporate governance training and directorship training, which is beneficial for women serving in senior management, on boards, or who are aspiring to be.

After its completion, the course prepares you for bigger and better governance positions and membership, which offers networking expansion for you and your business, propelling its participants to bigger and better things. So, such trainings enhance your skills and confidence. From my experience, women who embark on such programs tend to be promoted or move to better employment or work opportunities after graduating.

Gigi stressed that her mother is her biggest role model! In our family, we refer to her as a “woman of steel” because as challenging as the world can be for female professionals, she has always faced every challenge thrown at her with grace and a “no-quit attitude.”

Together with her vast knowledge of Corporate and Natural Resources Law, she was able to climb that corporate ladder and eventually position herself as one of the most revered legal minds in the country. She never let others doubt her abilities or cloud what she knows are her strengths, and she went from being the only woman at the table to the leader of that table. She adds that even though the legal sector is male-dominated, women should not be discouraged from pursuing their dream careers.

While there are no exact numbers, most leading law firms are male-dominated because, in most cases, they are friends who get together to form a practice. Only a few rising female practitioners will make it to partner under such circumstances. On the other hand, female legal practitioners face challenges like those faced by their male counterparts, such as growing competition in the legal space. This is because of the many lawyers graduating from universities and the Law School of Tanzania.

My advice to women lawyers is that they should remember that it is never crowded at the top. They should strive to reach the top, and if it is not happening quickly enough, consider other ways, such as forming their practice or moving on to different areas of practice where it is less crowded.

Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation