By Patrick Manyowa Pr Eng, Pr CPM, PMP, Aarb
I didn’t wake up one morning and decide, “I want to be a lawyer.”
My journey into law started long before I registered for an LLB, on dusty construction sites, in site meetings, and in boardrooms where contracts were waved like weapons.
Long before I became “Eng. Manyowa,” I was simply the son of a professional bricklayer. My father built other people’s houses to put me through school. Construction wasn’t an abstract concept; it was the rhythm of my upbringing. I became like my father, but just bigger, where he was mixing the mortar and laying bricks for buildings, I was now designing the building, roads, pipelines, treatment plants etc for others to build to build
Engineering wasn’t a conscious career choice, neither did I get career guidance. It was the natural result of excelling in Maths, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology in high school, combined with the environment I grew up in. Law, associated with humanities and arts subjects, was never presented as an option. My path seemed predetermined: I was going to build things, Like my old man.
And so I did.
In 2003, I earned my BSc (Hons) in Civil Engineering.
In 2008,I decided to go for double qualification and I completed my Masters Degree in Strategic Management and a Postgraduate Diploma in Project Planning and Management. After That, Quit Schooling, I had had enough, or so I thought.
By 2016, after years of work on roads, water reticulation, sewer systems, pumpstations, reservoirs, and structural buildings, I became a Professional Civil Engineer with ECSA and a Professional Construction Project Manager with SACPCMP. That same year, I qualified as a Project Management Professional (PMP) through PMI.
My world was made of drawings, Gantt charts, technical reports, concrete cubes, and progress meetings. I loved it. There is a deep satisfaction in standing on a completed road or reservoir, knowing you helped turn lines on paper into something real.
But behind the asphalt and concrete, I started noticing something else.
Projects weren’t failing because engineers didn’t know how to design.
They were failing because people didn’t know how to manage risk, contracts, and relationships.
I saw good contractors go under because they didn’t understand a clause hidden in a contract. I saw employers lose millions because notices weren’t issued or records weren’t kept. I saw disputes escalate not because they were impossible to solve, but because nobody could bridge the gap between technical reality and legal language.
On site, I became the person in the middle.
I was the project manager who would say:
“Have we issued a notice?”
“Where is the written instruction?”
“Let’s check the contract before we react.”
I didn’t know it yet, but the lawyer in me was waking up.
The turning point didn’t come with fanfare. It came quietly, in frustration.
My employer once asked me to brief the company’s lawyer on a complex construction dispute that needed a formal legal report. As I explained the technical and contractual issues, it became clear he was struggling to follow the engineering terminology.
Eventually, he said,
“Patrick, you understand this better. Draft the report and I’ll edit it.”
I drafted the entire report: the technical analysis, the delay logic, the contractual breaches, the recommended remedies. He corrected grammar, placed it on the law firm’s letterhead, and sent it out.
That day I realised the industry had a gap big enough to swallow millions of rands:
A lack of legal professionals who truly understood engineering.
I knew then that one day I would fill that gap.
Studying law while still working as an engineer was not romantic.
It was late nights, early mornings, long commutes, textbooks balanced on dashboards, and deadlines that showed no mercy.
But everything I learned made sense in a way I didn’t expect:
Contract Law wasn’t theoretical, it was that extension of time claim where a notice was submitted three days late.
Delict wasn’t abstract, it was the cracked pavement and the injured pedestrian.
Company Law wasn’t academic, it was the joint venture that nearly collapsed due to a vague clause.
Every module mirrored my lived experience as a civil engineer and project manager.
I wasn’t just learning the law,
I was translating it into the language of construction reality.
When I finally completed my legal studies and entered practice, people asked:
“Why law after engineering?”
“Why not just stick to being a professional engineer and project manager?”
My answer remains simple:
The construction industry doesn’t just need more engineers or more lawyers.
It needs professionals who can stand confidently at the intersection of both.
People who understand what it means when a site is too wet to work,
and can explain how that affects a contractor’s entitlement to an extension of time under GCC, JBCC, FIDIC, or NEC.
People who know what test results, method statements, and as-built drawings mean,
and can translate that into persuasive arguments before an arbitrator or a judge.
I didn’t leave engineering.
I carried it with me into law.
And then came the next evolution.
In 2024, I joined the Association of Arbitrators (Southern Africa) as an Associate Member.
In the same year I started and completed an Arbitration Course with Specialisation on Construction Law.
In 2025, I completed the two year Arbitration course.
I am now on track to qualify formally as an Arbitrator and Adjudicator in February 2026.
In the same year, 2025, I sat for the Conveyancing Exams and passed Paper 1, with plans to complete Paper 2 in April 2026 and officially join the profession as a Conveyancer.
And then came one of the biggest decisions of my life:
I started my own law firm, P. Manyowa Attorneys Inc., with a staff complement of three dedicated individuals who believed in the vision. A firm built not on ego, but on purpose:
to serve contractors, engineers, and businesses with honesty, technical understanding, and legal precision.
Today, when I introduce myself as an Attorney, Civil Engineer, and Construction Law Practitioner, it is not a list of titles. It is a journey.
I have been the junior engineer counting trucks and checking compaction.
I have been the project manager navigating angry communities and tight deadlines.
I have been the professional engineer signing off drawings and completion certificates.
And now, I am the attorney drafting, negotiating, arguing, and litigating on the same contracts that once arrived on my desk labelled as “admin paperwork.”
Every dispute file still smells like site dust.
I can picture the trenches, the layers of the roadbed, the shuttering around a reservoir wall.
I see the people behind the claims, the contractor fighting for survival, the engineer trying to be fair, the employer carrying political or public pressure.
My story has never been about changing careers.
It has been about bridging two worlds.
Where I stand now, my mission is clear:
To help contractors, engineers, and employers build with confidence, not just physically, but contractually, To help the Public get access to Justice and make lives better through my two faces.
To turn fear of “legal issues” into clarity, structure, and protection.
To use every lesson from site, every mistake, every dispute, every painful experience, and every late-night study session to guide those who come after me.
I am still the engineer who loves contour lines and concrete.
I am still the project manager who thinks in risks and timelines.
But I am also the attorney who knows that a single clause, a missed notice, or a poorly drafted agreement can undo years of work.
My story is not about abandoning one profession for another.
It is about becoming what I was always meant to be:
A professional who stands where Law, Engineering, and Integrity meet,
and uses all three to protect projects, businesses, and people.
Yes ,I am still an Engineer,Doing Engineering Work, with an added viewpoint of Law.
and
Yes, I am a Lawyer, doing all the legal work, with an added advantage of the Logical and Inquisitorial Engineering mind and also working as an Engineer.
I am in a unique Position and I will ride the wave and smile, who knows what’s next, as long as I breathe. I already have a name with a lot of post-nominal designations, Pr Eng, Pr CPM, PMP, Aarb, Pity that the Law field cant add any unless I become an Advocate, and why not.
Hope this, my heavily REDACTED story inspires 13 other people, especially the young ones, then I would have achieved.
All this, made Possible By my Lovely Wife Stokozile Manyowa and my wonderful kids.
Patrick Manyowa Pr Eng, Pr CPM, PMP, Aarb