Twenty years ago today, with a total investment of five thousand dollars ($5,000), I started #Oxford & Beaumont Solicitors (now #ENSafrica Ghana) in a room measuring 323 square feet (30 square meters).

I never anticipated that in a hierarchical and saturated market, dominated by a handful of older, established lawyers, my team and I would go on to establish a game-changing, globally acclaimed market-leading law firm. I never anticipated that we’d ruffle so many feathers and fundamentally change the dynamics of the Ghanaian legal industry as we did. And I certainly couldn’t have anticipated that we'd go on to create history through our merger to become part of Africa’s largest law firm.

Our experience demonstrates that it is still possible to build a great business, irrespective of budget. It takes a bold, brash dream, creativity, imagination and a network of people who have absolute faith in you. You need not lower your standards and ambition because of your budget: you can still drink champagne on a beer budget!

It is based on the insights gained from my journey that I have written ‘Champagne taste beer budget: how to bootstrap and scale a successful professional services firm”. It is the kind of book that I wish I had to turn to when I started. I'm happy to announce that I've signed a contract for Taylor & Francis Group to publish the book.

To mark O & B @20, I’d like to toast:
- Team O & B: the outstanding men and women who poured their hearts into building an awesome firm. (All 103 of them are listed in the book's appendix)
- The memory of Nutifafa Klutse-Woanyah, who tragically passed on May 29, 2010. He remains the brightest lawyer I have ever come across.

In addition to ‘#Champagne Taste, Beer Budget’, I am working with Samuel Alesu-Dordzi (MCIArb) to produce ‘Essays in honour of Nutifafa Klutse-Woanyah', a peer-reviewed publication of selected essays on key topics in Ghanaian jurisprudence and legal practice.

I spent today going down memory lane, visiting Bloomsbury House, home to our London office for 10 years and The Law Society of England & Wales, where I spent many hours in the early years.

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Building a Law Firm from Scratch: Professor Elikem Nutifafa Kuenyehia and His Oxford & Beaumont at 20 Years

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