Katende, Ssempebwa & Co. Advocates

About Us

Founded in 1969, Katende, Ssempebwa & Company has grown into Uganda’s largest and leading legal practice and now boasts over (60) sixty permanent legal and support staff. We are a firm of Advocates, Solicitors, Attorneys-at-Law, Legal, Investment and Tax Consultants, Commissioners for Oaths, Notary Publics, Trademark and Patent Agents, Receivers, Liquidators and Company Secretaries. We are more than just a law firm: we are your trusted advisors and partners in the protection and growth of your business, and in ensuring that your rights are fully protected.

The Firm has over 41 years’ experience in providing world-class legal advisory services and has been consistently and internationally recognised year after year as the number one law firm in Uganda by: (1) Chambers and Partners: Global Guide to the World’s Leading Lawyers, (2) IFLR 1000 – The Guide to the World’s Leading Financial Law Firms and (3) PLC Which Lawyer, the benchmark league tables for lawyers around the world. Several of our Partners have received international recognition as leading lawyers Uganda in these publications and our two senior Partners are the only lawyers in East Africa to be elevated to the category of “Senior Statesmen” by Chambers and Partners Global Guide to the World’s Leading Lawyers: 2008-11 editions in East Africa.

Our Firm boasts of some of the most talented, highly qualified and experienced advocates in Uganda many of whom have received advanced legal training in the world’s leading law schools and several are licensed to practice both in Uganda and in New York and the United Kingdom. Our lawyers therefore have the unique capability to handle matters in a manner that incorporates and balances legal considerations in various jurisdictions and this has cemented our strong reputation in the legal industry as the premier breeding ground for top quality legal practitioners in Uganda.

Katende, Ssempebwa & Company has the size, the strength, and the resources to provide quality results and has been a leading advisor on many ground breaking transactions that raise new and complex questions of law that have not been addressed at all in this country. The Firm has consistently been the choice for clients with groundbreaking and unusually challenging transactions in the region and we are a major player in the facilitation of the nation’s legal and economic development.

We have over the years drawn our legal resources from the nation's leading law school and we are proud of the fact that we have for the past forty one years continued to attract some of the most talented lawyers of our time. Many of the outstanding lawyers and leaders in the profession in Uganda today have had quality experience with us and we have developed a strong reputation in the industry as a breeding ground for top quality practitioners in Uganda. Katende, Ssempebwa & Company alumni comprise a prominent network through law, finance, business and other professions. Former associates include Judges, Professors, Corporation Secretaries, Managing Directors and partners in smaller well-regarded law Firms founded by Katende, Ssempebwa & Company alumni. Our clients by extension are the direct beneficiaries of the priceless "technical know-who" that this Firm has cultivated over the years.

What We Do

We are a full service advisory Law Firm providing any and all legal and related advisory services in a variety of legal practice or business areas. While we encourage our lawyers to specialise, we also train them to ensure that they are flexible enough to undertake new and challenging assignments that may not have been their primary areas of specialisation.

Our practice is divided into two major areas: (1) Solicitor & Transactional Work and (2) Litigation & Dispute Resolution.

SOLICITOR & TRANSACTIONAL WORK

This Firm has maintained a significant and pioneering presence in all areas of general and specialised transactional practice. Most of the more challenging legal problems and assignments in Uganda have been handled by the Firm and many of our lawyers have behind them, a wealth of experience and backgrounds that have collectively enabled us to pool our resources and consistently give comprehensive advice, even in the most unusual or demanding circumstances.

LITIGATION AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION

We have built an impeccable track record in litigation and we have been involved in several ground breaking, law making and landmark litigation cases that have shaped the laws of East Africa and many of which are compulsory reading at all East African law schools.

Our Firm’s reputation in this field is such that clients with major litigation matters who may routinely use other firms turn to this Firm whenever the stakes are really high or where the work requires original and unusually complex input. We also do a lot of pro bono work for various local NGOs and Human Rights organisations and the Uganda Law Society.

At Katende, Ssempebwa & Company, we believe in alternative resolution of disputes and generally regard courts as a remedy of last resort. We have therefore been involved in a substantial amount of arbitration, mediation and negotiation proceedings and have secured countless out of court settlements on behalf our clients. These settlements have saved our clients time, expense and other constraints of unnecessary litigation.

Our Mission

OUR MISSION

“To satisfy our clients’ needs by providing unparalleled, and affordable, quality legal and advisory services with the highest levels of care and professionalism”

OUR VISION

“To meet and exceed our clients’ expectations by continuously improving the quality of our client care and our legal and advisory services”

OUR PRINCIPLES

At Katende, Ssempebwa & Co. our growth and reputation is built upon putting you, the client, first. This has been our foremost objective for more than 41 years. We recognize that ours is a service industry, whose primary obligation is to help clients solve their problems by way of advice or dispute resolution. We know you are the reason for our success and we work with each client through an engagement to ensure that our staffing, strategy, and procedures are aimed at yielding the result the client wants, at a reasonable cost and on a timely basis.

YOU CAN COUNT ON US:

To provide Quality Service

We deliver the highest quality, cutting edge and strategic services to our clients to help them achieve their goals. We are therefore constantly reinventing our practice and rapidly expanding to satisfy our ever-growing clientele and to meet your increasing professional challenges and requirements today.

To always be Committed People

We are hard working, energetic and highly skilled team of professionals – attorneys and staff - deeply committed to serving our clients. We conduct ourselves according to the highest standards of ethics, collegiality and mutual respect and recognize that our reward depends on responding immediately to your needs.

To provide Clear Direction

We strive for long-term relationships with each client that builds trust and confidence which comes from a thorough understanding of our clients’ industries and from our unwavering single-minded dedication to service. We work together as a team, and maintain close contacts with numerous law offices from almost all the major capitals in the world to enhance the quality of our services.

To take Responsibility for our Work

Each one of our clients is assigned a partner. The partner in charge will have primary responsibility for the client’s work and dealings with the Firm and the partner will be assisted by a team of 1 – 4 associates depending on your and the transactions requirements.

To Always keep in touch

We keep our clients informed by email, telephone, letter and fax as to the progress of their matter. We endeavor to send our clients copies of relevant correspondence and documents so that they are fully involved in the process. We expect and encourage our clients to call us at any stage to discuss progress and seek clarification on any issues.

To take Pride in Achievement

Every day we work hard to earn your trust by anticipating your needs and faithfully protecting your interests. We strive to create an atmosphere that challenges our attorneys not just to meet your expectations but to exceed them; not just to respond to needs, but to anticipate them. We are accountable for the business we manage and enjoy our work and find fulfillment in doing it well.

Our Clientele

You are our main client. Our other clientele comprises of major international and local corporations, national and international commercial, savings and merchant banks and other financial institutions; foreign investors and their local subsidiaries, international developments institutions, multilateral agencies, international financing and lending institutions; the Government of Uganda and the Governments of other nations, parastatals and non-governmental organisations, airlines, oil and insurance companies; a wide range of industrial and commercial establishments of all kinds; international law firms, accounting firms and other consultancy firms and most of the prominent individuals in the nation’s economy and other sectors. We are a significant player in the facilitation of the nation’s legal and economic development.

Firm Innovations

Katende, Ssempebwa and Company Advocates has expanded its offices both physically and in the technology department. We have taken up an additional entire third floor of office space on Radiant House Plot 20 Kampala Road, right in the heart of Kampala's City Centre where we are easily accessible to all our clients.

We also believe that the intelligent use of technology allows us to provide better service to our clients. To these ends, we have further upgraded to more sophisticated automation and communication technology to support our clients in cost-effective ways. This includes more user friendly server based networking of all our computers, twenty four hour unlimited electronic mail and internet access for all staff members via our satellite server, imaging technology, video production capabilities and optical scanners. Our communication capabilities are designed to enable our lawyers to quickly and efficiently exchange information with clients, thereby improving our response time to our clients' needs. To man this new technology and the expansion, the Firm has a large fleet of technical, clerical and other support staff to ensure that we can meet the full expectations of all our clients in the most efficient way.

We also maintain a fully-fledged law library, manned by a professional librarian. Our library is rapidly being transformed into an electronic library, cataloging local legislation with links to legal resources from foreign jurisdictions via the world wide web. This facility keeps us up to date with regular changes in our laws and greatly simplifies the process of doing legal research. This is especially critical to our global commercial clients and has enabled us to effectively advise them on all relevant changes in the law, as they occur.

Our Location

WHERE WE ARE

We are anywhere you need us to be. Although our primary offices are located on Radiant House, Plot 20 Kampala Road in the heart of Kampala’s City Centre, within walking distance of all major hotels, banks and leading commercial establishments in Kampala, we maintain a global presence in all the major capitals, tax havens and financial centers of the world through our international legal networks. This makes us a gateway for any legal or advisory inquiry you may have regarding any issue on any matter in any major jurisdiction around the world.

All our lawyers carry the latest PDAs and are available seven days a week by phone, e-mail or fax and can travel to meet with any client, anywhere in Uganda or around the world Uganda at short or no notice at the client’s convenience.

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