“Work as hard as you possibly can, cultivate your networks daily and show what you are made of,” is the advice that attorney and University of Pretoria (UP) alumnus Michael Shackleton has for young professionals.

If his achievements are anything to go by, graduates who are about to enter the working world would do well to heed his words. Not only is he a partner at Shackleton & Mohapi Attorneys, he is also a member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, where he is the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Gauteng Shadow MEC for Community Safety and the party’s Deputy Regional Chairperson for Gauteng North.

Shackleton graduated from UP with an LLB (2011) and LLM in Constitutional and Administrative Law (2017). He also completed a course in Strategic Leadership (2020) through the Gordon Institute of Business Science and completed a programme in Competition Law through Enterprises UP.

“My qualifications set me up to become an attorney, but would also enable me to forge a successful career in the academic field,” he says. “I am certain that I could lecture anywhere with great skill and write any dissertation well because of UP. Practical, hands-on experience is also needed in the legal field, and doing my articles to become an attorney in 2012 at the University of Pretoria Law Clinic certainly gave me a firm foundation, exposing me to many aspects of the law. Articles were not fun, and the workload was extremely intense, but it served me well in life in retrospect.”

His role as Gauteng Shadow MEC takes Shackleton beyond the courtroom, requiring him to deal with issues related to law enforcement. “As a Shadow MEC for Community Safety, I am the highest-ranking spokesperson on safety for the DA in Gauteng,” he explains. “I perform oversight duties, visiting police stations and taking up issues of non-performing police stations with the Provincial Police Commissioner. I also make speeches and member statements, submit motions and raise issues in the media pertaining to policing. The continuous lack of resources for the SAPS in Gauteng is deeply alarming, and the aim is not to expose the police but to help them get what they need to do their jobs properly.”

Next on his agenda is to propose a Community Safety Oversight Bill in the legislature. “Where the DA governs in the Western Cape, there is a Provincial Police Ombudsman, which makes for greater oversight of the police. Police intelligence must be boosted, which is exactly what happens in the Western Cape through a whole-of-society approach, where an Advisory Committee from business, communities, security companies and the CPFs briefs the MEC and SAPS so that information is received from the ground as things happen, and all relevant role players work together. The Bill has gone to the Community Safety Committee and the Committee for Subordinate Legislation so far. It proposes that the Western Cape model be brought to Gauteng. It will go for public hearings in due course and it will be a significant step forward in improving the safety of the people of Gauteng.”

For a man who clearly has more than one string to his bow, it is then unsurprising that Shackleton is also on the board of World Speech Day South Africa as its Deputy Chairperson and legal counsel, as well as a National Secretary-General for Junior Chamber International South Africa, an organisation of young professionals between 18 and 40 years of age.

Shackleton credits the qualifications he obtained at UP for furnishing him with the skills to succeed in various kinds of jobs and roles. “My LLB dissertation was on presidential pardons and my LLM dissertation was on the regulation of referendums – both public sector concepts,” he says. “I have forged a career in the public sector but, equally, my qualifications led me to become an attorney in private practice, during which time I have also addressed several national conferences on debt collection and credit legislation.”

He says he would definitely recommend UP to anyone who wants to further their studies, as the standards are high and because each qualification brings with it a sense of achievement and imparts new, necessary skills for life and the workplace.