Law school
Law and medicine were the two professions to which traditionally young Guyanese aspired, and things haven’t changed much, although nowadays more students appear to be attracted to law than to medicine for a variety of reasons. The appeal was both in terms of the status those occupations conferred, and in terms of remuneration, two things which for many perhaps were not unconnected. In former times, of course, the vocational qualifications, at least, for solicitors and barristers (there is no distinction in Guyana now) had to be acquired in England.
However, a new route to entering law for Caribbean students was opened in 1973, with the setting up of the Council of Legal Education (CLE). This made possible the qualifying of lawyers in the Anglophone Caribbean, and the CLE is recognized in our local legislation. It governs both the academic aspect of the profession, viz, the acquisition of a law degree, and the certification necessary to be able to practise law, called the Legal Education Certificate. Successful completion of these two elements enables a graduate to practise law in any common law Caribbean territory.
Initially, the academic portion of the exercise was completed at UWI’s Cave Hill campus in Barbados, but eventually, Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana were permitted to open their campus doors to law students as well. Where the Legal Education Certificate was concerned, however, the original arrangements still stand: there are three law schools sited in Jamaica, Trinidad and The Bahamas where aspiring practitioners obtain their certification. Guyanese students attend the Hugh Wooding Law School in T&T.
There were two problems with the law schools; one had to do with money, and the other with the number of applicants. With the opening of law departments at UWI St Augustine and Mona, as well as at the University of Guyana, the number of students seeking to pursue law degrees grew enormously. Attorney General Basil Williams has been reported as saying the present annual intake at UG, for example, is around 200. Unfortunately for the students, the law schools have not been able to expand sufficiently to keep up with the increase in law graduates, and at the present time Guyana is limited to 25 of the most successful who are accorded automatic entry to Hugh Wooding, anyone else being required to sit an entrance exam. Trinidad, of course, feels that its primary obligation is to its own students.
Needless to say, tertiary institutions of any kind are horrendously expensive to maintain, and law schools are no exception. The situation is not helped by the fact that some of the territories – Guyana in particular – have not been altogether conscientious about meeting their financial obligations to the CLE, which means that the students themselves have to pay the fees unless their governments are prepared to assist. The AG has said that this country stopped contributing to the CLE since 2002, and economic costs, as they are