“In a profession defined by complexity and change, the willingness to keep learning is the most important quality a young lawyer can cultivate.”- Dr. Ange-Dorine Irakoze
Dr. Ange-Dorine Irakoze is a Partner and Head of the Mining Sector at Rubeya & Co-Advocates, a leading law firm in Burundi and a member of DLA Piper Africa. Ange-Dorine holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the National University of Rwanda, a Master of Laws (LLM) in East African Community Laws from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and a PhD in Mining Law from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, under the Chair of African Legal Studies. She is an advocate registered with the Burundi Bar Association and provides legal advice on a broad range of matters, including mineral resource governance, energy, trade and investment within Regional Economic Communities, and complex commercial transactions.
Dr. Irakoze’s has earned several recognitions from different leading legal directories. Chambers Global ranks her in General Business Law (Band 2), noting that she advises on a range of commercial matters including assisting clients with their investments in Burundi and describes her as “very visible and involved.” IFLR1000 rates her as a Notable Practitioner in financial and corporate practice (Tier 1). Legal 500 EMEA recognises her as a Next Generation Partner, highlighting her significant recognition from clients and peers, her key role across multiple matters, and her specialisation in finance, energy, and infrastructure.
Beyond her legal practice, Ange-Dorine is active in regional professional leadership. She is a member of the East African Law Society and sits on the Board of Directors of the Centre for Development and Enterprises Great Lakes. She also serves as a guest lecturer at Mzumbe University in Tanzania and a legal scholar. Her research focuses on legal frameworks related to mineral resource management, critical minerals, mining taxation, social justice, sustainable development, and contemporary African discourse.
1. The Driving Force for Choosing the Legal Profession.
Dr. Ange-Dorine Irakoze’s love for the law was not born in a classroom. It was kindled by the legacy of her maternal grandfather, a judge whose integrity and wisdom shaped the family’s moral compass. Growing up, her mother’s stories about his dedication to justice planted a seed that would eventually grow into a lifelong vocation. From an early age, Dr. Irakoze was drawn to the noble purpose that the legal profession embodies: the aspiration to safeguard human dignity and give voice to those who lack it.
Yet it is a maxim she encountered during her LLB studies that continues to animate her professional life: “Not everything that is just is legal, and not everything that is legal is just.” This deceptively simple observation captures a fundamental tension at the heart of law, the gap between the law as it is written and the justice we seek to achieve. For Dr. Irakoze, this tension is not a source of frustration but a source of inspiration. It reminds her that the practice of law is never merely a technical exercise; it is a moral undertaking. Every argument and every reform effort is an opportunity to narrow the distance between what the law prescribes and what justice demands. That pursuit is what makes the law not only a profession, but a calling.
2. Qualities of an Exceptional Lawyer and How Young Professionals Can Cultivate Such Attributes.
In Dr. Irakoze’s view, the exceptional lawyer of today is, above all, a perpetual student. The law does not exist in a vacuum. It is a living system that responds to the shifting currents of social, economic, and technological change. A lawyer who ceases to learn is a lawyer who ceases to be relevant. Continuous self-education, therefore, is not a mere professional obligation; it is the foundation upon which genuine excellence is built.
But Dr. Irakoze equally stresses the importance of being well-informed beyond the law itself. Social realities change constantly, and the legal frameworks that seek to govern those realities must evolve in tandem. A truly exceptional lawyer is one who reads widely, engages critically with the world, and brings that broader understanding to bear on their legal practice. This kind of intellectual curiosity, the habit of questioning not just what the law says, but why it says it and whether it ought to say something different, is what distinguishes a competent practitioner from a transformative one.
For young professionals seeking to cultivate these qualities, Dr. Irakoze offers a simple but powerful imperative: question the order of things. Do not accept inherited frameworks as inevitable. Read across disciplines. Engage with communities beyond the legal profession. And above all, commit to lifelong learning, not as a box to be ticked, but as a genuine expression of intellectual humility and professional responsibility.
3. Significant Ongoing Project or Initiatives and Possible Impacts.
Dr. Irakoze’s vision for the future is rooted in the insights she developed during her doctoral research at the University of Bayreuth, Germany where she explored the intersection of African philosophy, resource governance, and sustainable development. Her dissertation “Ubuntu as a Relational Framework: Addressing Social Injustices in Mineral Resource Governance to Advance Sustainable Development in Burundi”, proposed a culturally grounded reimagining of how mineral wealth is governed, one that places communities at the centre of decision-making rather than on its margins.
The framework she developed is anchored in the Ubuntu philosophy, encapsulated in the principle “I am because we are.” Through two interconnected legal principles: Shared Identity (Umuntu), which recognises mining communities as rights-bearing members of the governance system, and Collective Solidarity (Ubumwe), which ensures equitable benefit-sharing, Dr. Irakoze demonstrated how constitutional provisions, mining laws, environmental regulations, and human rights obligations can be reinterpreted to deliver transformative outcomes for communities that have long been excluded from the benefits of their own natural resources.
Looking ahead, Dr. Irakoze intends to extend this exercise across other African jurisdictions. Her doctoral work opened her eyes to the extraordinary richness of moral and ethical values embedded in African existing customary traditions, values that have the potential to inform and transform legal systems not only on the continent, but globally. She plans to map and analyse how similar philosophical frameworks are being applied, or could be applied, in other resource-rich African contexts, contributing to a broader jurisprudential movement that takes plural African legal systems as a source of legal innovation. Her ultimate hope is to demonstrate that Africa’s indigenous wisdom is not merely a cultural heritage to be preserved, it is a living resource for building more just and sustainable legal orders.
4. Role Models and Impactful Books.
Dr. Irakoze approaches this question with characteristic generosity and intellectual openness. Rather than naming a single towering influence, she acknowledges the constellation of minds: professors, mentors, colleagues, and family members, who have each contributed to her formation as a legal thinker. She has always believed that growth comes from embracing multiple perspectives and remaining open to challenge, and her intellectual journey reflects that conviction. Every teacher who pushed her to think more rigorously, every peer who offered a different point of view, and every family member who modelled a life of integrity has, in their own way, shaped who she is as a lawyer and a scholar.
As for the ideas that most powerfully shape her thinking, Dr. Irakoze points not to a single book but to a philosophical tradition: Ubuntu. As interpreted and elaborated by a rich lineage of African philosophers and scholars, Ubuntu offers a relational worldview that challenges international legal thought and insists on the primacy of community, the importance of relationship, and the moral weight of collective responsibility, values that Dr. Irakoze sees not as alternatives to rigorous legal reasoning, but as essential correctives to it. Ubuntu, for her, is not simply a subject of academic inquiry; it is an intellectual home, a way of seeing the world that continues to generate new questions, new frameworks, and new possibilities with every engagement.
5. Advice or Guiding Principles for Young Legal Professionals and Advocates Trying to Find their Place and Purpose in the Legal Terrain.
To those standing at the beginning of their legal journey, Dr. Irakoze offers three words: learn, stay informed, and question. In a profession defined by complexity and change, the willingness to keep learning is the most important quality a young lawyer can cultivate. The law is not a static body of rules to be memorised; it is a dynamic system that demands ongoing engagement, intellectual curiosity, and the courage to sit with uncertainty.
But learning alone is not enough. Dr. Irakoze urges young professionals to stay deeply informed about the world around them, its politics, its economies, its cultures, and its injustices. The best lawyers are those who understand that legal problems are also social problems, and that solving them requires a breadth of knowledge that extends far beyond the law library.
Above all, Dr. Irakoze encourages young lawyers to develop the habit of questioning the order of things. The legal profession has a long history of innovation, of scholars and practitioners who refused to accept inherited frameworks as inevitable and who dared to imagine the law differently. That tradition of creative, critical thinking is what has driven every meaningful legal reform in history, and it is what will drive the reforms of the future. Young professionals who embrace this spirit, who bring not only technical competence but genuine intellectual courage to their work, are the ones who will find not just a career in the law, but a purpose.
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Editorial Team
Silver Obioha
Clinton Nyamongo
Kazeem Afolabi
Dikeledi Matlhagare
Tolulope Olasunkanmi
Sulaimon Badmus
Aya Hamdy
Princess Maake
Jemilat Akerele
Vera Enubianozor
Brandon Otieno
Oluwabusayo Awodele
Kyenpiya Wonang
Gift Nwoke
Jessica Odoh
Tracy Karumba
Mary-Jones Ossi
Halimah Oladunni
Mary Linus
Peter Momoh
Jessica Omoruyi
