Ilza Le Minnie
Ilza Le Minnie has a Bachelor of Laws (Llb) from Nelson Mandela University. Her law firm which was started in 2019, is a boutique firm which ensures affordable legal services and brings justice closer to the people.
The firm is the only one run by a person of colour and a woman in the small town of Malmesbury and its surrounding towns. They do free wills all year round for all clients and assist in the administration of estates at a minimal cost. There is also a Gender Violence Program for women which assists women in abusive relationships by applying for maintenance, protection orders and children’s court matters. Ilza is launching the Inaugural Anuual Swartland Debating Competition this year to expose students to debating where their schools do not have such programs.
Ilza only employs young women of colour and also offer job shadowing for learners who want exposure to the legal world or pursue a career in law.
The nominee, Ilza Le Minnie’s work and achievement history are as follows:
2012 Legal Aid SA Candidate Attorney
2014 Legal Aid SA Admitted Attorney
2017 Mandela Washington Fellowship – Texas Tech Public Management (Young African Leaders Initiative)
2018 Activators Change Drivers
2019 Law firm opened
2020 Chevening Scholarship finalist
2021 Elected Councillor in Swartland Municipality
2022 West Coast District Municipality Councillor
2022 Vance Centre for international Justice: Advancing Women in the workplace for lawyers mentee
2022 South Africa’s Top 100 Rising Star awards
2023 DA Young Leaders Program
Over the course of her firm’s history she has also won the Malmesbury Chamber of Commerce: Service Provider of the Year Competition as follows:
2019 finalist
2020 second place
2021 finalist and third place individual
2022 finalist and individual 2nd place
The Le Minnie Foundation which was established by Ilza in 2018 is focused on restoring pride, dignity and hope in the community. They use a multifaceted approach therefore and focus on the usual soup kitchens, food drive, sanitary drive and clothing drive. The aim is to use the programs to prevent our youth from becoming involved in crime and restorative justice programs to keep children in school and out of jail.
There is a “school shoes” drive where they collect school shoes and distribute them into the community especially for farm schools and children who have to walk long distances to school. This is in a bid to keep them in school. “The winter bags of love” drive distributes toiletries to matriculants and the homeless to ensure they have the dignity that cleanliness brings. There is also a “Christmas Lunch for the homeless” launched in 2022 where they were able to feed 100 homeless people on Christmas day along with toiletries and sweets packets.
The Foundation has a Career and Mentorship Portal to pair Grade 11 learners with mentors in their careers and expose them to tertiary institutions.
Ilza has a deep sense of justice and fairness and in all spheres of life. She tries to ensure that she helps everyone she can. She started her law firm at just 30 years old in an area where people of colour had not been successful. She has really brought legal services to everyone in her community, regardless of socio-economic background.
This is evident from her employment history. She worked at Legal Aid to help the indigent have access to legal services, but left because she wanted to serve more people through her firm. When she realised the constraints of doing pro-bono work in a private firm she decided to become a councillor in her municipality to be able to influence policies to ensure the municipality better serves the community. She has ambitions to be a MP/MPL to ensure this influence expands to Provincial and National Government spheres and effect more people for good.
Ilza is unstoppable and has dedicated her entire life to service of others.