The Judiciary's Pro Bono Pay Is Moving to NLAS. If You Do Indigent Work, the Pipeline Is Changing.

Key Data

The Judiciary allocated KSh 82.1 million to pro bono legal services in 2024/25, paying advocates who served indigent litigants (SOJAR FY 2024/25, s.2.1.8; Table 2.1.4, Ch.2 p.42). The split: Magistrates' Courts KSh 50.66m, High Court KSh 26.59m, Court of Appeal KSh 4.3m, Tribunals KSh 0.6m (Table 2.1.4, p.42). The Judiciary states this budget is inadequate to meet outstanding fees and plans to transition pro bono administration to the National Legal Aid Service under the Office of the Attorney General (s.2.1.8, p.42). The report's emerging-issues chapter repeats the recommendation to transition the scheme to NLAS and fund it adequately (Ch.7). Reading note: the figures and plan are reported in the SOJAR; the reading and actions below are CounselConnect's interpretation, not legal or financial advice.

What Is Happening

If you have carried a pro bono file and waited on the Judiciary to settle the fee, the address you send the claim to is about to change. The Judiciary ran the pro bono payment scheme this year on KSh 82.1 million, most of it through the Magistrates' Courts, and said plainly that the budget could not cover what it owes advocates.

The plan is to hand administration to the National Legal Aid Service under the Attorney General. That moves indigent-representation funding out of the Judiciary and into a dedicated legal-aid body, with the report's own emerging-issues chapter pressing for adequate funding to follow. The structure is changing; whether the money grows is a separate question.

Why It Is Happening

Institutional and regulatory: NLAS exists to coordinate legal aid, so consolidating pro bono administration there is a tidier fit than running it through court registries. The Judiciary's candour that it cannot pay what it owes is the push; the existence of a dedicated agency is the pull.

Practice Impact and Revenue

For advocates who take indigent work, the transition is both a risk and a route. The risk is timing: payment systems in transition tend to slow, so fees owed for work already done may sit longer. The route is forward: NLAS panel membership becomes the structured way to be paid for legal-aid work, replacing an underfunded Judiciary scheme. Pro bono served as a loss leader for many practices; legal-aid panel membership can be a funded, compliant alternative.

Revenue Impact

Legal aid panel membership through NLAS is a compliant, funded route for representation that advocates have often carried at a loss, and it sits alongside retainer-based and fixed-fee work rather than against it. Contingency fees are not an option in Kenya; they are prohibited under Section 46(c) of the Advocates Act (Cap. 16). NLAS panel work and structured legal-aid arrangements are the lawful way to be paid for serving clients who cannot pay you directly. Position for the panel now and you are funded as the scheme consolidates.

Strategic Insight — What Most Advocates Will Miss

Most advocates treat pro bono as charity and the payment scheme as an afterthought that rarely pays on time. The miss is that the function is being institutionalised, and an institutionalised scheme has panels, criteria and a budget line that a court-run goodwill fund never did. The advocates who register with NLAS as the transition happens are positioned for funded legal-aid work; the ones who keep treating indigent representation as unbillable charity leave a funded channel unused. This is CounselConnect's reading, offered as opinion and not as legal or financial advice.