UNIVERSITY of Guyana Law Department representatives late last month launched a petition “to establish a local law school”, since only a quota of 25 graduates from the department can gain admission to the Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS) in Trinidad, in addition to several other pressing reasons. 

At present, the petition holds 511 signatures with 489 outstanding. These signatures were derived from University of Guyana students from every faculty, and it was done via social networking, particularly through Facebook.
According to Sherod Duncan, who is a current law student and was UGSS’ 2009-2010 president at UG, the idea of a local law school arose in 2002. Subsequently, a year later Attorney General, Doodnauth Singh attended a Council for Legal Education (CLE) convention in Barbados, where the idea of the local law school was formally presented.
Regarding the issue of 25 graduates who can only be admitted to the Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS) in Trinidad to study for the Legal Education Certificate, the Government of Guyana is scheduled for a meeting with an executive member from the Council for Legal Education (CLE) and other officials this month to deal with the obstacles currently facing the students.
Therefore, this serves as a primary reason according to the petition, since the Government would negotiate with the CLE so that the graduates of the law school would be able to practice before the courts of the Region as well as before the Caribbean Court of Appeal.
The petition also contends that if the law school is established, the fees would be lower than the US$10,000 year at the Hugh Wooding Law School. In addition, the local law school could concentrate on teaching practice skills in advocacy, legal drafting and computer research obtained in England and Australia rather than substantive law teaching, since the UG LLB programme will seek to lodge this proposal.
Additionally, a number of savings could be realised as a result of the sharing of some resources with the UG LLB programme. It is also being suggested that the two bodies could share facilities such as a Resource Centre and a Library with the addition of “Practice Texts”. However, to cover recurrent expenses, projected revenue from fees and the diversion of the grant which will be allocated to the law school should suffice.
Furthermore, accommodation for the law school was identified at a building on Parade Street, Kingston at an estimated cost of $30M. Classrooms, offices and a Legal Aid Clinic are the basic elements that the building should be able to accommodate. The Legal Aid Clinic is a “must” for regional CLE-run law schools.
Representatives such as the recent presidents from the University of Guyana Student Society (UGSS) have been lobbying all stakeholders to pursue this initiative, while focusing on a feasible concept paper that would capture the necessary components of the proposed local law school.
According to the concept paper prepared by members of the UG Law Department and other UG representatives, annual recurring expenditure would be US$81,000. This could be drawn from a subvention and fees of US$179,000.
The law school would not be under the management of the University of Guyana but would be run by a board created by legislation and chaired by the Chief Justice.
Meanwhile, former UGSS president Duncan provided an invited comment to the Guyana Chronicle regarding his vision and that of other representatives in relation to this appeal: “We would like concrete commitment from the Government and stakeholders to see to the establishment of this local law school.”

(By Shivanie Sugrim)