Legal organisations join hands to share experiences

30Jan 2017
By Guardian Reporter
Editorial
The Guardian
Legal organisations join hands to share experiences

THE Society of Black Lawyers (SBL) in collaboration with other legal organisations have joined hands in providing opportunities to Africans and in diaspora lawyers and law students to enrich their experience through internships in Africa, United Kingdom and the United States of America.SA.

Other players include the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) and the Coalition for an Effective African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACC)

The project aims to facilitate the exchange of undergraduate and graduate law students, trainee barristers and solicitors and fully qualified solicitors and barristers, to undertake internships or placements at PALU and the ACC offices based in Arusha.

In the second phase, which may take place in the second year of the project, it is envisaged that staff and interns from PALU and the ACC would be placed in law firms and barristers’ chambers in the UK and the USA.

The internship, shall include developing expertise of drafting pleadings, preparing cases for trial, administrative work, and undertaking legal and educational research relevant to the work of the respective organisations and any other work deemed necessary by PALU and ACC.

The number of interns for each year will be a minimum of two and a maximum of 16 in any given month, subject to agreement in writing between the respective organisations.

“We expect it to be a marvellous partnership of co-operation, opening opportunities for students, practitioners and lawyers from both the diaspora and from Africa,” said Donald Peter Herbert, chairperson of SBL.

“This partnership is a new era for learning and sharing experience between black lawyers, diasporas and African human rights lawyers for the advancement of human rights in Africa,” explained Dieu-DonnéWediDjamba, executive secretary of the ACC.

“The diaspora is the sixth region of Africa, and we are very happy that these three African organisations, one diaspora organisation and two based on the continent are moving forward to practically show how we should cooperate and collaborate and hopefully providing a practical model for the African Union and for the member states and other parts of professional associations, civil societies etc.

on working together between the diaspora and those on the continent,” pointed out Donald Deya, chief executive officer of the PALU.

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