“A professional reputation is built gradually, through the small decisions made every day”. – Kanni Touray
Kanni Touray is a Gambian legal professional and senior public-sector leader whose career sits at the intersection of commercial law, regulation, public policy and institutional development.
She currently serves as Deputy Director General of the Petroleum Commission of The Gambia, where she supports the strategic leadership of the Commission and contributes to the development and implementation of the legal and institutional framework governing the country’s petroleum sector.
Kanni holds a Master’s degree in International Commercial Law, which she completed with Distinction. Her academic background has complemented her professional experience and strengthened her interest in the relationship between law, commerce, regulation and public policy.
Her professional work spans petroleum regulation, legislative and regulatory development, petroleum agreements, licensing, governance, compliance, institutional policy and legal risk management. Much of this work requires her to navigate questions in which legal principles, commercial considerations, institutional mandates and the public interest intersect.
She is particularly interested in the development of regulatory institutions that can provide clarity, predictability and accountability, while creating an environment in which responsible investment can take place and natural resources can be managed transparently and sustainably.
Beyond her technical responsibilities, Kanni places considerable value on professional integrity, continuous learning, sound judgment, institutional accountability and the development of younger professionals. She believes that strong institutions are built not only through good laws and policies but also through the people, systems and professional standards that give those frameworks effect.
As The Gambia continues to develop its petroleum sector, Kanni remains committed to contributing to a legal and regulatory environment that promotes transparency, responsible investment, institutional strength and sustainable national development.
1. What ignited Kanni’s passion for the legal profession?
Kanni Touray is the first lawyer in her family. Her journey into the legal profession was shaped significantly by her father, who spent more than three decades in the public sector and became an important source of guidance and inspiration to her. Through him, she developed an early appreciation for public service, discipline, responsibility, and the importance of contributing meaningfully to society.
Her natural love for reading and writing also played an important role in her choice of career. For some time, she associated the legal profession primarily with advocacy and courtroom practice. As someone whose strengths and interests naturally gravitated towards reading, writing, and analysis, she initially wondered whether law was truly the right fit for her.
That perception changed as she began to understand the breadth of the profession. She discovered that law extends far beyond advocacy. It encompasses research, interpretation, drafting, negotiation, problem-solving, policy and institutional development. The realisation that the profession could bring together so many of the things she naturally enjoyed confirmed for her that law was the right choice.
Over the years, her understanding of the profession has continued to deepen. She has come to appreciate that being a lawyer is not merely about knowing what the law says; it is about understanding what the law is intended to achieve, identifying the risks and consequences of different approaches and helping individuals and institutions make decisions that are legally sound, practical and sustainable.
Her work in the regulatory environment has reinforced that perspective. Regulation requires lawyers to engage with questions that are rarely purely legal. A regulatory decision can have commercial, economic, institutional, environmental and social consequences. The challenge, therefore, is to provide legal advice that safeguards the integrity of the law while enabling institutions to fulfil their mandates effectively.
2. In Kanni’s opinion, what qualities define a truly exceptional lawyer in today’s world?
Kanni believes that an exceptional lawyer is defined by much more than an ability to identify the law. In her view, sound legal judgment is one of the most important qualities. A lawyer may know the law very well, but the real test lies in knowing how to apply that knowledge to complex, uncertain and sometimes competing circumstances.
An exceptional lawyer must also be intellectually curious. The law does not operate in isolation, and lawyers increasingly need to understand the commercial, economic, technological, institutional and policy environments in which legal questions arise.
She considers integrity and professional independence equally indispensable. A lawyer must have the courage to give honest advice, including when that advice may not be what a client, colleague or institution wants to hear. Professional judgment loses its value when it is shaped by convenience rather than principle.
Kanni also believes that an exceptional lawyer must be commercially aware and practical. Particularly in transactional and regulatory practice, it is not enough for advice to be technically correct. A lawyer must understand the commercial realities, risks and objectives underlying a transaction or decision and be able to translate legal principles into workable solutions.
Communication is another essential quality. Legal expertise has limited value if it cannot be translated into clear advice that enables decision-makers and non-lawyers to understand an issue and make informed choices. For her, good communication is not about using complicated legal language; it is about making complex matters clear without losing their legal substance.
Finally, she believes that exceptional lawyers remain teachable. The profession demands continuous learning because the law, industries and societies within which lawyers operate are constantly changing. The strongest lawyers, in her view, combine confidence in their expertise with the humility to recognise what they do not know.
3. What is the next groundbreaking project or initiative that Kanni is or would be working on ?
For Kanni, the most important work ahead lies in helping to build the legal and institutional foundations for a strong, credible, and sustainable petroleum sector in The Gambia.
She sees the development of the country’s petroleum sector as an opportunity to do more than establish rules for an emerging industry. It is an opportunity to build regulatory systems and institutional practices that can withstand the pressures that accompany the management of natural resources and provide certainty to both the State and responsible investors.
Her interest is therefore in strengthening the regulatory architecture as a whole, ensuring that legislation, regulations, petroleum agreements, institutional processes and regulatory decisions work together coherently. She believes that effective regulation must provide clarity and predictability while safeguarding the national interest and ensuring that the country’s petroleum resources are managed transparently and responsibly.
A significant part of Kanni’s vision is institutional capacity. Strong laws and regulations are important but they are only as effective as the institutions and people responsible for implementing them. She would like to see continued investment in professional expertise, institutional systems, knowledge management and regulatory capacity so that institutions are able to retain knowledge, exercise sound judgment and respond effectively as the sector evolves.
She is particularly interested in ensuring that legal and commercial considerations are brought together in decision-making. In her view, the question should not simply be whether something is legally permissible. It should also be whether the proposed approach is commercially sound, appropriately manages risk, advances the public interest and can be implemented effectively.
4. Which legal minds have shaped or are shaping Kanni’s thoughts and perspectives?
Two thinkers who have particularly influenced Kanni are H.L.A. Hart and Lon L. Fuller. She is drawn to both because although they approached the nature of law from different perspectives, their work encourages a lawyer to ask fundamental questions about what makes a legal system authoritative, coherent and capable of serving its purpose.
What she particularly appreciates in Hart is the discipline of starting with the law itself, its source, authority and structure before moving to questions of what the law ought to be. His analytical approach has reinforced her belief that sound legal reasoning begins with establishing the legal foundation for a decision.
Fuller on the other hand has influenced Kanni’s thinking in a complementary way. She is particularly drawn to his emphasis on the qualities that allow law to function effectively. His ideas have deepened her appreciation for clarity, consistency, coherence and the relationship between legal rules and their implementation.
5. What advice or guiding principles would Kanni offer young legal professionals and advocates trying to find their place and purpose in the legal terrain?
Kanni’s first advice to young lawyers is to build depth before pursuing visibility.
The legal profession can create pressure to define oneself quickly, to identify a title, a speciality or a particular measure of success before one has had the opportunity to discover what kind of lawyer one actually wants to become.
She would also encourage young lawyers to focus first on competence,mastering the fundamentals, developing strong research, writing and analytical skills, learning how to think through difficult problems and becoming comfortable with the discipline that good legal practice demands. Recognition should be a consequence of substance, not a substitute for it.
Additionally, she encourages young lawyers not to assume that they must fit into a single definition of what a lawyer is. Her own experience of initially associating law mainly with advocacy and later discovering the breadth of work available in research, drafting, regulation, transactions, policy and institutional development, reinforced for her that the profession can accommodate very different strengths and personalities.
Kanni believes young lawyers should therefore explore before they narrow their path. They should take opportunities seriously, work across different areas where possible and pay attention to the subjects and problems that genuinely hold their interest.
She would also urge young professionals to protect their integrity and independence. A professional reputation is built gradually, through the small decisions made every day. Being thorough, keeping one’s word, admitting when one does not know something, and having the courage to give honest advice may not always produce immediate rewards, but they build the trust on which a lasting legal career depends.
She believes that young lawyers should also remain teachable. Experience matters, but so does the humility to learn from colleagues, mentors, and even difficult situations. Asking questions is not a weakness. In many cases, it is one of the fastest ways to develop sound professional judgment.
Finally, she would encourage young African lawyers to think beyond individual career advancement. The continent needs lawyers who can contribute to institution-building, economic development, public policy, and stronger systems of governance. There is an important role for lawyers not only in interpreting the law but in helping institutions and societies use the law to solve problems and create meaningful, lasting value.
For Kanni, finding one’s place in the profession is ultimately less about asking “What position do I want to hold?” and more about asking “What contribution do I want to make?” Her guiding principle is therefore to pursue excellence without losing humility, protect integrity above convenience, remain willing to learn, and use legal knowledge to create value beyond oneself.
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