From Strathmore Law School to Harvard Law School and back: Nyaga Dominic on judgment, institutions and building where it matters

\"Mountains are completely unimpressed by your CV.\"

It is an unexpected observation from someone with such a rich CV. Someone whose journey has taken him from Strathmore Law School to Harvard Law School, through Cambridge and New York and back to Nairobi. For Nyaga Dominic, however, the observation captures a philosophy that has shaped his trajectory. Credentials matter only to the extent that they prepare one to undertake work that matters. Nearly a decade after joining Strathmore University as a law student, Dominic returns to the Sir Thomas More Building (STMB), this time appointed to the adjunct faculty to teach Constitutional Law. It is a homecoming that brings him back to the very place where his interest in the role of law in public life, constitutionalism and in the building of institutions was first explored. \"It is slightly surreal,\" he reflects. \"There are still classrooms I walk into where I remember exactly where I used to sit. Sometimes I am standing at the front discussing constitutional history and suddenly remember being 21, sitting on the other side, trying to think out what kind of lawyer I wanted to become.\" The setting is familiar as he puts it, but the perspective is not. He returns not only to the adjunct faculty at Strathmore Law School, but as Lead Counsel at Nyaga Dominic & Co. Advocates, where he advises businesses, investors and public and private institutions on constitutional, commercial, regulatory and cross-border matters. To him, those two roles are inseparable. \"Teaching forces clarity,\" he says. \"Practice ensures that the questions you bring into the lecture theatres are alive.\" A foundation in law and public life Dominic’s interest in constitutional law took hold during his undergraduate years at Strathmore. One of his earliest research papers examined the tension between national security and the principle of non refoulement at a time when Kenya was in a difficult national debate about refugees and the future of Kakuma refugee camp. “I remember taking the paper seriously enough to go around looking for people who would challenge it, \" he recalls. That search led him to the constitutional lawyer and former legislator Hon. Gitobu Imanyara. What began as an academic conversation evolved into a professional relationship. Dominic would later spend more than five years working with Imanyara at his firm and as an editor at The Platform for Law, Justice and Society, immersing himself in a tradition of Kenyan lawyers who regarded constitutionalism and the rule of law not as academic subjects but as questions of public life. During his time at Strathmore, Dominic also received the Chief Justice C.B. Madan Student Laureate Prize in recognition of his contribution to constitutionalism and the rule of law