Khumo Lesele

Background

About Khumo Lesele

Experienced Candidate Attorney with a demonstrated history of working in the legal services industry. Skilled in Public Speaking, Legal Writing, Report Writing, Microsoft Excel, and Legal Research. I have focused my career on the pursuit of Justice, hence my decision to study law (LL.B) in 2014 – 2018. Accordingly, I found myself in the Social Justice space wherein I largely advocate for a just and equal society living in harmony with others and the environment. Over the past 5 years, I found myself working in various areas such as Land Rights and Land Restitution, Housing and Evictions, Gender Issues and Environmental Justice through an internship at the Legal Resources Centre in 2018. Given that I was also seeking to develop my skills in law, I undertook a Practical Legal Training Course in 2019 which opened a path for me to pursuing a career as an Attorney in the Legal Profession. I set out to do my articles in a Public Interest Law firm which promotes human rights in 2020 and was met with an opportunity to first serve as a programme administrator at the firm. Though this was not a position I applied for, I was considered to start my articles of clerkship in the following year (2021) and that’s when I commenced my position as a Candidate Attorney at the Centre for Environmental Rights (the Centre) and currently still working there until end of February 2024. At the Centre for Environmental Law I've worked with 4 teams, namely Mining, Pollution and Climate Change, Corporate Accountability and Transparency as well as Activist Support and Training. Through working with the Mining team, my areas of work included making submissions on mining rights as well as delving into issues of land, biodiversity, ecology and water resources, all being administrated by government. This administration of government resources always pulled us toward working on issues of administrative justice. Through working with the Pollution and Climate Change team at the Centre, I’ve learnt that compliance with air quality standards remain our lifeline and so is dealing the climate and energy crises' we have face in our day! Through working with the Corporate Accountability and Transparency team, I’ve delved into the pertinent area of Human Rights Defenders. Furthermore, I’ve learnt that corporates have a constitutional obligation to govern their entities according to rights entrenched in the Constitution and the legal framework of the country, and to do business in a manner that is also socially and environmentally responsible.