Council of Legal Education

• Author: Duke Pollard
• Profession: Sitting senior judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the highest appellate municipal court of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
• Pages: 96-107

96 THE CARICOM SYSTEM

5

THE COUNCIL OF LEGAL EDUCATION

The Council of Legal Education was designed to establish a system of legal education

appropriate and relevant for the Commonwealth Caribbean region. Before the

establishment of the Council persons enjoying a right of audience in regional courts

were either trained as barristers at the Inns of Court in the United Kingdom or articled

to local solicitors prior to taking the examinations of the English Law Society. Possession

of a degree in law was not a requirement for qualification as a barrister or solicitor. In

1963, the Council of the University of the West Indies appointed a Committee under

the chairmanship of the Hon. Sir Hugh Wooding ‘to consider and make recommendations

to Council on the assistance which the University of the West Indies ... should provide

for the training in the West Indies of legal practitioners with a view to ensuring their

admission to practice and the right to audience before the Courts of the West Indies’.

The recommendations of the Wooding Committee which commended themselves

to the Council are reflected in the preamble of the Agreement establishing the Council

of Legal Education. The preambular paragraphs expressed the determination to establish

a scheme for legal education and training suited to the needs of the Caribbean and the

conviction that the desired scheme of education and training could best be achieved by

‘a University course of academic training in a Faculty of Law ... and a period of further

institutional training ....’ Consequently, it was agreed to establish a Faculty of Law at

the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies and to have the Council of

Legal Education establish two law schools in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. A

third law school was established much later in The Bahamas. Persons who obtained

the UWI LL.B. degree would qualify for automatic admission to the Law Schools for a

two-year period of practical professional training after the successful completion of

which they would be awarded the Legal Education Certificate. Graduates of the

University of Guyana with LL.B. degrees are also admitted to the Law School subject

to the University satisfying certain conditions established by the Council. Participating

Governments agree to admit such candidates to practise in their national courts.

Graduates of other universities are required to pass an examination administered by the

Council before admission to the law schools. Legal practitioners from other common

law jurisdictions may, on completion of a six months course of training established by

the Council, be awarded the Legal Education Certificate awarded by the Council to

graduates of UWI and UG who have successfully concluded the two-year professional

course of training at the Council’s law schools. The Council proposes to extend this

period of training from six months to one year.