Law student takes part in overseas legal event
Matthew Yassa addresses panel at the Caribbean Law Clinic
(CNS): The Truman Bodden Law School (TBLS) was one of eight schools from the Caribbean and the US to attend a recent Caribbean Law Clinic. Third-year student Matthew Yassa represented TBLS at the four-day event, which ended 15 November and was hosted by the Charlotte School of Law in the US.
The sessions are conducted under the auspices of the American Caribbean Law Initiative, the body whose flagship events are the clinics, which occur twice-yearly with the host law school alternating between member schools in the US and the Caribbean. The purpose of the clinic is to assist participating students in the development of their advocacy skills by requiring them to prepare and present legal opinions based upon the foreign law of the host jurisdiction.
Students from the various member schools are teamed together and quickly have to develop their team-building, negotiating and tactical skills in the process of analysing the issues raised by the assigned problem question. The legal problems are themselves usually based on real issues that have recently been before the courts of the host jurisdiction.
Mitchell Davies, TBLS director, accompanied Yassa on the trip. Davies praised the Caribbean Law Clinic, saying it provided “a unique opportunity for TBLS students to develop their legal research and advocacy skills by arguing legal points of foreign law with their peers from regional and US law schools”.
In addition to TBLS and Charlotte, the other schools that attended the clinic were the Stetson College of Law, Florida Coastal Law School, Nova Southeastern University, the Norman Manley Law School (Jamaica), Eugene Dupuch Law School (Bahamas) and the Hugh Wooding Law School (Trinidad & Tobago).
Norman Manley will host the next clinic, scheduled for March 2016.
Category: Education
