Twenty years ago, we opened the doors of our first permanent pro bono office in Mitchells Plain, marking the beginning of a long-standing commitment to the communities of Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha.

We believed then, as we do now, that the practice of law is hollow if it does not reach those for whom justice is elusive. Two decades later the streets, schools and homes of these communities still echo with the voices of clients, partners and colleagues whose stories have become inseparable from our own. They remind us that the law, when freely shared, does more than resolve disputes: it alters destinies, mends dignity and expands what is possible for entire generations.

Twenty years ago, we opened the doors of our first permanent pro bono office in Mitchells Plain, marking the beginning of a long-standing commitment to the communities of Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha. We believed then, as we do now, that the practice of law is hollow if it does not reach those for whom justice is elusive. Two decades later the streets, schools and homes of these communities still echo with the voices of clients, partners and colleagues whose stories have become inseparable from our own. They remind us that the law, when freely shared, does more than resolve disputes: it alters destinies, mends dignity and expands what is possible for entire generations.

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In the early days, we convened what would become the flagship ENS Constitutional Law Course. Community leaders, shop-stewards, pastors, youth organisers and activists, people whose daily work already demanded courage, took their seats in our training room. Day after day, they wrestled with chapters of the Constitution: the supremacy clause, the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, socio-economic entitlements. They arrived weary from full days of service and left animated by new vocabulary for the justice they had always pursued. The graduation that followed is still...