Exhibit A

Five years of grueling law school vanished the moment my mother pressed a stack of my siblings’ school fee invoices into my palms. There was no cake, only a deadline: thirty days to leave, my turn to carry the family.

I rode a boda to Ntinda, chasing the future my uncle had promised. But inside his leather-scented office, the air turned heavy. He locked the door. When he placed a hand on my shoulder, I didn't see a benefactor; I saw a predator. I shoved him hard enough to scrape his heavy mahogany chair across the floor. He didn't flinch. He simply adjusted his cuffs and calmly accused me of stealing his gold watch as his staff crowded the doorway like a jury of ghosts.

The police took me from polished tiles into a holding cell where the concrete was damp beneath my palms and the air tasted of urine and iron. I slumped against the wall, a failed investment.

In the corner, a woman paced, her fingers counting out seven years of grief for a man who had promised marriage and vanished. As her voice cracked, my Tort lecturer’s voice haughty and sharp cut through my despair: Breach of promise to marry.

The prisoner in me died; the advocate stood up.

I moved closer, asking the right questions, flattening a scrap of bail paper against the stone. I wrote fast dates, promises, witnesses until her chaos became a claim. At dawn, she paid my bond and placed the case in my hands.

As we stepped into the blinding Kampala light, I realized my uncle hadn't ruined me. He had unwittingly provided my first office, my first deposition, and my first client.