Nairobi, Aug. 11 -- Building a successful a law firm in the US as a Kenyan is less about courtroom drama than about managing the economics of survival.

The setup costs can run into millions of shillings, the career paths starting as a caregiver to pay tuition, or leveraging diaspora networks to build a client base from scratch.

Charles Wanjohi has practised law in the US for 20 years. He is the founder of Wanjohi and Muli Law Firm Plc, with offices in North Carolina, Dallas, Seattle, and Boston, with much of the work concentrated in Boston.

He studied law at the University of Nairobi and was admitted as an advocate of the High Court of Kenya in 2006. Just nine months into that admission, he travelled to the US to visit.

"I saw this ni...